Hi, my name is Kim and I’m bad with money. Holy smokes, I’m TERRIBLE with money. I mean, treat yo’self has nothing on me at Target.
Well, when you’re buying a house, you need money. Shocking I know! I had a lot of debt. I mean… a lot. Sure, I’ve got my student loans and car payment, but then I sprinkled on roughly $15k in credit card debt, and a mediocre credit score, and you’ve got a high risk home buyer.
Matt and I had been talking about buying a house for awhile and I knew that I couldn’t bring all of this baggage into our relationship. Not to mention, I was in a vicious circle of paying off a little bit of credit card debt and racking it back up when I had no money for things I needed. It was vicious and rough.
All of my cards were maxed out and I was trapped.
So I made a decision that would forever change my life: I embarrassingly called a debt consolidation program. The folks at Green Path were so nice and so understanding and helped me pay down my debt and still provide me money to pay my bills and live.
To be clear – they’re not paying me. I just trust them, had a great experience, and want to pass the information along for anyone who needs help.
Here’s How It Worked:
Green Path closed all of my credit cards and lowered the interest rate. They deducted a pre-determined (and manageable) amount of money from my paycheck once a month and gave me a target date of when I would be out of debt. I was able to raise the money I wanted to pay towards my debt and have everything paid off.
Woo – what a feeling. Now it’s time to start budgeting. You want to make sure you can put some money away in your savings: think raining day fund and deposit fund.
Matt and I decided that we want to put close to or the full 20% down on our mortgage. We’re going full on traditional, but understand that we need to buy furniture and home supplies – so we cant blow all of our money.
I’ll be honest, focusing on saving money isn’t fun. We haven’t bought new clothes and I haven’t gotten my hair done in forever. We’re sacrificing for a little while for a big return. My only advice is to prioritize what you really want. I’m an instant gratification person – but known that I’ll get a trip to Ikea definitely makes it easier.
Check out my tips on low budget fun.
Happy saving!
Xo love kim
