In the years since I alone moved a thousand miles away from home, I’ve become something of a minimalist.  I didn’t do it on purpose, but I only brought with me what could fit in my Civic and then when I got here, I didn’t have any money.  You may be assuming that I became a minimalist, because I didn’t have the money to buy anything. Well, no.  You’ve heard about my debt, right?

What happened was that life is expensive.  And it took me a while to realize that. Then there was a year and a half of denial. (Then I started this blog.)  Then I was unemployed and I realized the ground underneath my feet was not nearly as stable as I thought it was.  Then global financial crisis hit, and I realized the ground was not as stable under anyone’s feet as I thought it was.

At that point I knew I was in trouble, but I held onto just enough denial both to keep me from completely freaking out and to keep me from doing something about my debt.  When I did let myself think about my situation, I was panicked. The Summer before, I had stupidly chosen to read The Grapes of Wrath, and in the back of my mind was this idea that I would have to take what little of my stuff I could carry and head West to California.  Then I realized I was already in California and I was like, “well, that’s one less thing to do.”

I had a good job by then, so I suppose these thoughts about killing a man and sleeping in a tent by the side of the road were not serious, but I had this very real feeling that I should be free and mobile.  Stuff started to seem like a burden.  The preoccupation with efficiency and organization I’ve had my entire life combined with this panic about stuff, and I started getting rid of things.  I (really really stupidly) was continuing to buy new stuff, but not at the rate at which I was giving the rest away.  Once I’d had so much stuff that after downsizing from a one bedroom, it didn’t all fit comfortably into my studio apartment, and now my closet was more full of empty hangers than anything else.

It was another move and another year before it occurred to me that I could stop waiting for a miracle or the (more probable) Grapes of Wrath scenario and just pay off the debt myself.  So I spent a year not buying stuff.  And, you know, not buying stuff had almost zero impact on my quality of life.  I qualify with almost only because I currently enjoy the freedom I have to buy things when I want them.  Though, as it happens, having the freedom to buy things makes those things less desirable.

So, here we are, and I don’t know if I sound like an absolute crazy person with a fear of stuff, but no amount of stability or money in the bank is making this impulse for minimalism go away.  There is at least a small element of crazy to it–an anxiety about being responsible for so many things.  And there are points where I have to question myself.  Why don’t I want to commit to big purchases, like a comfortable bed or a newer car?  Why do I still feel this need to be free and mobile when I’m not going anywhere?  Am I afraid of something?  Do I have a fear of attachment?

I don’t know, so I will continue to ask myself those questions, but in the meantime, I am finding more and more good reasons to live minimalistically.  I feel strongly the ethical impulse to live less wastefully, and I don’t find my personal interests at all at odds with this.  In the fourteen months it took me to get out of debt, I learned what everyone has always said and what I had suspected even in the years I was handing over my credit card far too often: stuff does not make you happy.  When you find happiness in the places it truly exists, you won’t even need that little moment of thrill at the sight of something new.  If happiness doesn’t take away that need for thrill, then take up cliff diving or something.

Paying off my debt was for me this really big move toward living more authentically.  When I am living authentically, and not hiding from my mistakes and fears, I don’t need the distraction of acquiring and collecting stuff.  I don’t even need the stuff itself.  I know pretty clearly the few things that I want out of life and, yes, sometimes those mountains look so high that I busy myself with purchasing the best equipment and unpacking and repacking my backpack so that everything is perfect, but the mountains don’t get any smaller and my desire to summit them doesn’t diminish either.  So, I stop with the distractions and just start climbing.

If this is all too metaphorical, what I mean literally is that I don’t spend my days off shopping anymore.  It makes some people happy for perfectly legitimate reasons, but it does not make me happy.  It’s just a distraction, so I’m better off asking myself what I’m hiding from, and then going home to make that scary call or sitting at my damn desk to write.  Having less stuff makes it easier for me to focus.  And when I’m not focused on those things I really want, I get to spend my time with people I like, and that’s probably the thing that makes me happiest.

Like most things, if you set the standard at perfection, then you will erase all of the benefits of living minimalistically.  I don’t want to live a life where I can’t buy that book I want to read or that really pretty shade of nail polish (I also don’t want to hand wash all of my own clothes).  But there are libraries if I don’t want to spend the money and e-readers if I’m just worried about owning too many things, and maybe before I buy that nail polish, I can take a look at the drawer full of bottles I already own (no one who has seen my nail polish collection would call me a minimalist).

I’m buying less stuff and walking instead of driving.  I continue to slowly pare down my possessions (slow is the way to do it).  The next big area to tackle is food where I waste a lot, but as I’ve mentioned before, changing my eating habits is, as stupid as this may seem, probably the most difficult thing for me.  We may have to revisit the points at which I lean toward crazy in all of this, but it feels right, so I’ll keep going.

I spent 14 months working really hard and thinking a lot about what it would be like to be out of debt.   Is it just as I expected it would be?  Not really.

Getting out of debt was like being on a diet.  It made me really want the things I couldn’t have, but as soon as I could have those things, I didn’t want them that much anymore.   I am most surprised simply not to care that much about the things I thought would matter to me.

I wasn’t sure while I was working my way out of debt if I’d really changed my relationship to stuff.  I should have learned it wouldn’t make me happy if I wasn’t already and even the excitement it brought wouldn’t be worth much by the time I got it home.  I had lived more than a year without buying things and I had been just fine.  I was relieved to discover that I had learned those things.  I had changed.

Up until the last few months of paying off my debt, I had this silly idea that once it was paid off, I would be a completely different person.  I thought of post-debt me as Fancy New Ashley.  I thought of the nice clothes I would buy and the regular trips to Ulta I would take.  It turns out I didn’t develop an interest in fashion the minute I paid off my last card and I’ve gotten rid of more makeup in the last three months than I’ve purchased.  But, far from being disappointed to be same old me, I find that I like myself more than I ever have.

It was really nice to be able to let go of the mistake I’d held onto more than any other.  The debt was always that thing creeping in the back of mind–the reason I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t the person I pretended to be, wasn’t an adult at all.  I thought that letting go would be difficult.  It wasn’t. I also thought that after spending so many years stressing constantly about money that I would continue to worry about it regardless.  I was wrong about that too.  I don’t worry that much about money anymore, and with every dollar I put in savings, I stress about money less and less.

And, savings!  I haven’t had any money in savings since I was an undergrad and that money always went to paying tuition.  I have more than $2,000 in savings now and I frequently pull up the mint.com app on my phone just to stare at that account and smile.  I thought it would take more discipline to get myself to save, but it’s exciting actually, and I find myself putting off those things I kind of want to buy, figuring that if I still want them in a few weeks, then I’ll spend the money, but for now I’ll just save it.

The two things I am happy to spend money on are things that make my life easier and going places/doing things with other people.  Working less hours is so worth it.  Not worrying about what I’ll do if my car breaks down is comforting.  Buying a $5 salad on campus instead of starving until class is over makes me a less grumpy person. Booking flights to see people is like living someone else’s life. Not thinking about how much these drinks are costing me is awesome.

It’s not what I expected, but it’s pretty amazing.  Choosing to do whatever it took to get myself out of debt is easily one of the best decisions I ever made (and made over and over again until I’d paid off the last dollar).  I’m still kind of amazed that I did it and really proud of myself.

If you’re new around here, I spent the last part of 2009 and all of 2010 paying off $20,500 in credit card debt.  I blogged the whole thing on A Story of Debt.  If you have any questions, let me know.

Remember last November when I came out of the debt closet?  Well, as many of you know, I’ve been plugging right along (actually, moving closer to warp speed) since then and last week I hit a milestone.  I paid off my second of three credit cards.  I’m at the half way point to being debt free.  In the last eight months, I’ve paid off $10,000 in credit card debt.

I always have a difficult time saying that I’ve worked hard, because I know I could have worked harder and I know that there are so many hard working people out there who haven’t had the advantages I have.  But, I’ve worked my ass off for this.

Something just clicked for me in November and I became a million percent determined to do this.  I am still as determined now as I was at the start.  Perhaps even more so.  I’m on track to be out of debt by the end of this year, which is so close I can feel it.

It’s not that I hadn’t tried before.  I’d made a few half-hearted attempts, but it was so overwhelming.  I was 25 and $20,500 in debt.  I was getting by with avoidance and counting on someone or something to come along and save me.  It took me too long to take responsibility for my debt, because I just couldn’t believe I had fucked up so terribly.

But, something changed in me the minute I decided to get serious about my debt and it has changed my life.  That’s why I’m writing this on my personal blog.

I really don’t know how to describe it.  I guess because I was doing something I felt more empowered and in control of my life than I ever had before.  I guess because I wasn’t hiding this big dark secret, I felt more authentic than I had before.  I guess because I’d discovered I could handle big challenges, I was no longer walking through life terrified and waiting for an anvil to drop.  I guess because I realized things could be another way–I didn’t have to live with the burden of debt–a whole new future opened up to me.

For as many people as there are who overestimate the importance of money to life, there are also a lot of people who underestimate it.  Debt was crushing me and stressing me out and making me wonder if I could really do all the things I dream of doing.  It felt like I could never get the upper hand, because every month there were new bills and growing interest.  Fighting back has taken a lot of work and I’ve had to sacrifice the comfortable lifestyle I’d grown accustomed to, but this is so much better than that.  This is living authentically.  And this is being so close to freedom you can taste it.

You can read all about my journey out of debt on A Story of Debt.

I often have this weird feeling like adrenaline is coursing through my body.  I can’t keep my feet still or my eyes.  I remember feeling this way as a kid, but then I hit middle school and I got serious about studying and became a reader instead of a girl who spent every moment playing outside.  And then I got to high school and became a mostly apathetic girl who somehow got labeled an overachiever.  Then I went to college and got smarter and found things I really cared about.  Then I started grad school and went crazy.

When I first started college, I reacted against my apathetic high school self by becoming rigid in my goal-making (and in my religion).  I was going to be perfect and nothing was going to stop me.  Living that way was miserable and late in my junior year I gave it all up and was happier for it (not-so-coincidentally, this was when I started studying theology and began to question what I knew before).  I didn’t grow any less ambitious.  I just learned to be kinder to myself and more open minded.  I had the feeling sometimes that I wasn’t doing as much as I could, but when I thought back to how miserable I’d been, I knew that I couldn’t go back to that.

I started grad school and my future closed in on me a bit.  I was walking down this really narrow and expensive path, not sure if it was where I wanted to be.  I questioned myself constantly.  I even took an extra year to decide.  Finally I made my decision to go for the PhD.  I wanted it, but I was fearful and struggled to see beyond my immediate future.  Everything felt out of my control; it seemed up to chance whether it would all work out.

It did work out and so much of that uncertainty that was haunting me dissipated.  Something else changed too.  I took control of my finances, which for as well as I think I know myself, I did not realize was weighing me down to the ground and limiting even my dreams.  No wonder everything felt uncertain when I wasn’t sure how I could pay for any of it, when I knew one bump in the road would put paying my rent the next month into question, when I could imagine no end to my struggle with money.  With the possible exception of starting a blog, no one thing has changed my life so significantly in the last five years.

All of this history has brought me to this weird point in my life where I have this crazy energy to reach for all the possibilities I see open to me and I know I can do it in a way that won’t make me miserable.  My goal used to be perfection.  It was a feeling of I need to change in order to be acceptable to other people. Now my motivation is to pursue the things that interest me.  I couldn’t stop myself from pursuing these things even if I wanted to; I am propelled by some force already.

It’s a strange aspect of the INFJ personality that we have the minds of dreamers, but we manifest that in the external world by being very systematic.  We write things down and put them in lists.  It’s how we calm our minds.  I gave up most of my lists when I came to associate them with failure.  I’ve come back to them now with a different feeling all together.  I am thrilled by the idea of taking my dreams seriously.  I look at my lists with big eyes and too much excitement to keep inside.

Over the break I took from blogging, I developed a list of goals and then I put them all into a 5 year plan.  My first ever.  I never could imagine 5 years into the future and now I can.  I look at it like an outline for a paper.  It’s a direction to head, something to look at when I get lost along the way, but something I certainly will veer from.  Where I end up in five years may look nothing like what I imagined, but these goals are so central to my interests that I cannot imagine them not a part of any life I lead.

Still, I laughed at myself the first time I looked at the completed 5 year plan.  The first thing that came to my mind is that I am so like my parents.  If no one else understands that things like this are fun to me (I know a lot of people who couldn’t think of anything less fun than a 5 year plan), then I’ll at least have two people who understand.  The second thing I thought is that it only takes one step back for perspective to realize I must be crazy.  Here are some things I plan to do in the next five years: get out of debt, earn a PhD, publish a novel, save $20,000, and move to New York City.  I am well down the road to all of them already, so maybe I’m not crazy.  Or maybe crazy isn’t so bad.

People often tell me to stop and smell the roses.  There are a lot of things I need to be reminded of, but this is not one of them.  I have never struggled with making time for myself.  I’m an introvert, so it’s only natural for me.  But, I’m not the stop-and-smell-the-roses type.  I’m more the type to be running along with my head in the clouds when a pleasant smell strikes me and I look down and think, “Oh, roses.  I forgot about roses.”  I’m all for changing the things about myself that make me unhappy, but I’m happy being surprised by roses.

Okay, so I have a secret.  I am in debt.  Like, a lot of it.  Not just my student loans, but credit card debt.  I have never told anyone.  I only really admitted it to myself recently, which I know sounds strange, but I can be pretty good at deluding myself.  Very recently, I decided to stop avoiding my debt and instead do something about it.  My first instinct was to blog it out, but that seemed impossible, because it was way too embarrassing to admit to all of you and the few friends who know about my blog.

So, I started a new blog and decided to keep it a secret.  I figured I would come clean eventually.  Maybe after I had made some real progress.  But, managing a third online identity (real me, blog me, and now debt me) was daunting.  I quickly messed up and left a comment for a blog friend under the debt username, which sent me reeling, trying to decide whether I should shut the whole thing down or just come clean.  My mom has always taught me to live honestly–if not because it’s right, then because it’s easier–and this is something I so want to blog about, so I decided to put it all out there.

It’s hard to tell people about my debt, because I have never messed up this terribly before.  I usually deal with my problems on my own, telling people either never or once the problem is handled.  Admitting to such a huge mistake when I am right in the middle of it is difficult for me and I hate to think of anyone thinking less of me. I guess I would rather be respected for being who I am, though, and not who I pretend to be.

I really never expected to start a personal finance blog.  I am not business-minded in the least.  But, I have so far found writing about my journey out of debt to be not unlike the writing I do on my personal blog.  It’s as much about psychology as anything else.   This is me writing, so it’s more about the kind of thinking that got me into debt and not 3 Ways To Make Your Money Work For You or 5 Secrets to Being Your Own Boss.  I find that all as uninteresting as the many guides out there to using twitter or branding yourself.  I’m not giving advice; I’m blogging my personal story.

I have experienced this huge shift in my mindset and I want to share that with people.  Because I’ve used avoidance as my financial method of choice for so long, I didn’t even realize how big of a burden my debt was on my life.  It’s been this huge thing hanging over my head, overwhelming and limiting me.  The change in my mind happened when I realized that this isn’t too big of a problem for me to handle.  If I keep working really hard and start making some sacrifices, I can be free of debt.

I hope that some of you can relate or will at least find this interesting.  I could really use your support.  I’m relieved, at least, not to be keeping this big part of my life hidden.  If you’re interested in following the blog, you can find it at astoryofdebt.com (or click the picture below).