financial freedom the only option
I dont even know where to start on this one. I am 30 years old when writing this and I was finally able to get my self out of bad debt. there is a lot that goes into this story so bare with me.
I remember hearing about credit and the importance of it around 18 or 19 years old for the first time. at least for the first time that it meant anything to me. sent me down a slippery slope.
i had a general idea of how credit worked i guess. you use the credit card to pay for something now and then you pay off the card later. that was pretty much where it started and stopped for me. i didnt know anything about interest, how carrying balances impacts credit, or better yet really i didnt know how life worked in general. in my mind i would look at whatever balance i had on my credit card, do some mental math on money i had coming in via whatever job i had at the time, and say yup i should be good to pay that off by x date. it never worked that way. in fact it just made things worse.
by the time I was 28 years old i was around 25k in credit card debt and had no real way of paying them down in any meaningful way.
Here are some traps that i fell into before i was ready for everything credit cards comes with
going out with a group and offering to put the tab on my card and everyone send me their portion
now in theory this isnt a bad idea, but requires a level of maturity and understanding that i just did not have at the time.
when i would say “i’ll put it on my card” what tended to happen would be everyone would pay me, but then i would see that money in my checking account and only pay the minimum on my credit card.
easiest way to accrue debt
justifying a purchase by planning on how i could pay off the card 6 months into the future
I DIDNT ACCOUNT FOR THE LIFE CIRCUMSTANCES that would eat into my plans, the car issue that would come up, family responsibilities, outings, etc.
too many variables that i didnt plan for, this turned into making minimum payments and building up a balance
MAKING additional PURCHASES before paying off the original BALANCE ON A CARD
THIS CREATED A MOVING GOAL POST THAT WAS IMPOSSIBLE TO HIT
MAKING PURCHASES TO MAINTAIN A LIFESTYLE I COULD NOT AFFORD
FURNITURE, CLOTHING, NIGHTLIFE, ETC.
IT WAS NICE TRUST ME, but NOT WORTH IT NOT ONE BIT IF YOU CANT AFFORD IT
to me when i was saying yes to plans, or putting tabs on my card, it didnt feel unmanageable because i always had money coming in so i knew it would turn around eventually. until that was no longer the case.
when i was 27 i lost my job and for the first time in my adult life i had no money coming in. i didnt realize how bad it had gotten until it came crashing down. before then i was making small payments and throwing in a few extra bucks when i could but it wasnt a priority for me to pay down my credit cards because my lifestyle was the priority. the downtown loft apartment, clothes, nights out, i didnt really need to change anything because everything was good. sure i had bills but who doesnt?
well when i lost that consistent income and those bills still needed to get paid i saw how bad it actually was. no savings, no parental or family support (finacial support that is, plenty of “no te preocupes mi nino que Lo que Dios tiene para ti, nadie te lo puede quitar.”), no nothing. when i tell you i was down bad, i had no savings and my rent alone was 3k, at this point i was 20k in credit card balances with minimum payments of around 1k total, and throw in everything that goes into trying to live , food, gas, wifi… for a moment it felt like the world was collapsing.
i had 1 last check from my last job which was less than 3k coming in. but outside of that i was done for.
now that was my first lesson on priorities. ‘the life’ means nothing if there is nothing there to sustain it. sustainability became the word that continued to ring in my head. the way i was living, in a lot of ways not just financially, was not sustainable.
as i am writing this its reminding me of how outside my body i was at that time. so focused on what other people thought or wanted of me. and me hitting this version of rock bottom was one of the hardest lessons i needed to learn. that when push comes to shove there are certain things i had to figure out on my own. this was probably the first time i had shut out all the noise around me and just completely started focusing on myself and what i needed to do for me.
so back to the story - i am sitting in my downtown apartment by myself, no idea how i am going to support myself. so my focus shifted completely to my situation and what my next steps were. i stopped pretending and started being brutally honest with myself. i put myself in a bad spot. need to get myself out. after the initial panic, there was sort of a radical acceptance that came over me. i reflected for a bit about all the circumstances and situations that got me to this point. every decision i made, good, bad and indifferent. i was angry for some time, bitter even, but then i realized its nobodys fault. not mine, not whoever “they” are. just a series of events, lack of exposure, knowledge, mentoring, guidance. at this time at my life i felt like i was just unlearning everything i thought i knew about life and was starting from true zero. once i kinda had this revelation, that damn near everything i thought i knew was wrong, that radical acceptance i mentioned early was just accepting that my luck had run out and now it was time for me to take control of my life and start creating my own luck.this started with my finances.
so to recap, because i know i have said alot, i lost my job (on halloween btw ‘scary’), was 20k in credit card debt, had no savings, and no income from anywhere, bills for the month were somewhere around 4k and i had about a month before i couldnt afford my rent. i panicked for a few days, lost and not sure what do. called friends and family and more or less got the same response ‘let me know what i can do to help’. well once i realized that no one is actually going to help me, i shifted that focus inwards and just started applying to everything and anything i could.
i will just say, for me, having a plan comes with a lot of peace. i didnt know what the outcome was going to be but i accepted the worst case scenario and decided to push forward. worst case i am back home with my mom who i am sure would love to have me luckily. so i really had nothing to lose.
i work in advertising so luckily there is a market for my skillset, account and project management. i was probably spending 6-8 hours a day applying to things. a lot of rejection emails and a few interviews that didnt go my way. but i was able to secure a handful of final interviews and got 2 offers before thanksgiving break even came.
i think it was a mixture of making my own luck and gods guidance. but man was i thankful.
so within a month i was able to secure a job, took a pretty big paycut, but was able to secure a decent income to keep me afloat. now one issue resolved.
however what this left me with was a lifestyle again that i could not afford or sustain and still hadnt developed the habits needed to get me out. if i thought i couldnt afford it before, now it was really out of reach. after paying all my bills including basically the minimum on my credit cards i was left with maybe a couple of hundred of dollars at the end of the month. so because i didnt start my new job until december meaning i didnt get paid really for another month so i needed to put rent on my credit card amongst a few other things which is how i finally landed 25k in debt.
before i could at least justify some sort of plan on how I would be able to pay off my debt, when i decided to “lock in”. now no matter how hard i try and plan the math just wasnt mathing. let me show what credit card math looks like in this situation. on just 1 card it was the following:
Balance: $15,000
Monthly payment: $310
Monthly interest: ~$200
That means only about $110/month is actually going toward principal at first.
At that pace, it would take roughly 10–11 years (about 125–135 months) to pay off.
And total paid would be awful:
Total paid: roughly $38k–$42k
Interest paid: around $23k–$27k
so that was the situation i was in at that point. and insult to injury, previous to me losing my job i had locked in another 18 month lease, and breaking a lease is not cheap so that wasnt really an option either.
what i did build at this time was my ability to prioritize and plan at least a little bit. so my priority shifted from building a life to impress others, to focused on building my own life to impress me and who i actually wanted to be.
step 1 in that plan was simply making more money so that i could pay off my debts. so for me that would come in thr form of some type of promotion or raise and just slow rolling my way out via the corporate ladder. i tried to become an a1 employee and show up everyday so that i was indispensable. how successful i was at that is debatable lol. but i tried. i am still a work in progress.
nonetheless, i needed to figure out how i could get into a better situation. so the series of events that followed are again a combination of making my own luck and god affirming my decisions/guiding me.
one of my best friends, rob, was looking for a roommate and that would essentially cut my monthly cost in half. now did i want a roommate? not really, i loved living alone. but if i were to get one, this was the perfect situation for me.
now how i was able to get out of my lease, i cannot fully disclose ask me directly and i will share privately lol but they were charging me 10k to break my lease. i did not have to pay that and was able to get out scott free. once i was able to reduce my monthly overhead cost, i was then able to meaningfully contribute to my credit card debt. in theory but my habits didnt match my intent/plan yet.
me and rob were living in a 2 bed 2 bathroom for about 6 months. in this time it took some of the pressure off for sure. some months i was better than others but was still playing catch up and trying to balance living a life with building a life. i didnt make much of a dent in the debt like i shouldve. but was putting myself in better positions to make a play.
then the lease was up again and at this point i was seeing dakotah and felt it was a good opportunity for us to move in together. that cut my monthly again to about 1/3 of what it was when i was living alone. not to mention in this time i also moved jobs and got a small pay bump. now i am really seeing the light in my head, but for some reason it just isnt translating to really moving those CC balances down.
about 5 months after moving in with dakotah i had a conversation with a financial consultant, matthew rosenfield, just like a 15 minute intro call. i was introduced to him by alex, another one of my best friends, and it completely changed everything.
i gave him a rundown of my finances. how much i make, what my expenses are monthly and what my plan is every month. i told him my plan every month was to wait until the end of the month to pay down my balances with the money i saved throughout the month. he said “kevin that is not going to work. you will find a way to spend that money. wether its a family obligation, a date, or something. the money will be spent well before you reach the end of the month”. and then i looked back at the time trying to execute on this plan and he was so right. every month at the end of the month i was left with nothing meaningful to contribute to those balances. something always came up. what a wake up call. thats when things changed and my habits started matching my intent/plan and is shaping my identity.
a question i always come back to is, who do i want to be? that comes with many answers but for this conversation my answer is someone who is financially secure.
from that conversation i went searching for some different strategies and found dave ramsey. the snowball method which is as follows.
Step 1: List your debts from smallest to largest (regardless of interest rate).
Step 2: Make minimum payments on all your debts except the smallest debt.
Step 3: Throw as much extra money as you can on your smallest debt until it’s gone.
Step 4: Take what you were paying on your smallest debt and add that to your payment on the next-smallest debt until it’s gone too.
Step 5: Repeat until each debt is paid in full and you’re completely debt-free!
i needed small wins and momentum and this got me those exactly. and with that i front loaded all my payments and paid myself last. meaning budgeting early, seeing how much money was coming in and exactly how much i had leftover for debt and committing every extra dollar from each check the same day i was paid.
i used this strategy month over over month and it was a grind but every dollar went to debt, with the help of some performance bonuses within 8 months i was debt free. feb 2025 i had the conversation with matt and november 25 i was debt free. balance of making luck, having luck and gods blessings.
the next steps now are building phase.
1. The Starter Emergency Fund (Baby Step 1)Before you save for anything else, you must save $1,000 to act as a starter buffer for minor emergencies. (done)
2. The Debt Snowball (Baby Step 2)You pause all long-term or wealth-building savings during this step. You use all excess income to aggressively pay off your debts from smallest to largest to build psychological momentum. (done)
3. The Fully Funded Emergency Fund (Baby Step 3)Once you are out of debt, you scale your savings to 3 to 6 months of living expenses. This provides security in case of job loss, medical emergencies, or large unexpected life events. (in progress)
an emergency fund is something ive never had and its something that i am working towards. sometimes i feel like i am behind on these things and lessons, but back to that radical acceptance, i just didnt know better and even if i did my identity wasnt aligned with this type of thinking anyways so it didnt matter. i accept that this is where i am now and thankful for the road ahead.
i lacked identity and once i got solid in who i am and what i want i was able to make a plan and start moving in that direction. now its on me to keep moving and god will continue to put things in place if it is meant to be. remember no te preocupes mi nino que Lo que Dios tiene para ti, nadie te lo puede quitar
