As my strap-line says:
“MONEY, JUST LIKE MUSHROOMS, IF LOOKED AFTER CAN GROW AND GROW AND GROW….”
Also another saying can easily be said about mushrooms:
“MONEY, JUST LIKE MUSHROOMS, IF LEFT IN THE DARK WILL FEED ON SH*T….
I’ve have been there, to both of these places!
Years ago I was bad with money. Very bad. So bad that sometimes I couldn’t pay the rent on my flat without getting in to debt. My philosophy back then was “As long as I could pay off the minimum amount owed to anyone (after the overdraft was maxed-out the credit cards would get used), then everything was good.” And the accumulated interest never ever figured in to this “philosophy”. Then I got wise; I started to pay the minimum AND the accumulated interest each month. But then I added more debt to the card(s) each month. A rinse and repeat cycle whereby the only people getting rich were the credit card companies and banks. But at least I had the nice material, shiny things, to show for my money. So here I was, living in the dark, being fed on (consumerism) shit and my debt burden was growing. Just like a farm full of poisonous mushrooms. And I wasn’t even aware of what was really happening to my financial situation (read ignorant!).
Then the epiphany happened. Ironically it was a combination of the debt crisis of 2009 and the fact that we wanted to move house (more debt) that spurred me into action. I got my mushroom farm in order. Just doing some basic sums I realised that I wouldn’t be able to afford the new mortgage repayment rates AND the minimum repayments on my credit cards. I decided that it was time to face up to the realisation of my situation and to shine a light on those bad mushrooms! I started to budget my money (albeit reactively). I faced my debt challenges head-on and tackled that debt.
Within 18 months I had cleared my credit card debts, paid off the car loan and I no longer needed any overdraft. I could afford the new (increased) mortgage repayments.
Even though I was married at this stage our finances were separate and we only pooled resources to pay for the joint expenditures; the mortgage and food in the main.
After getting myself out of debt and looking forward to a life of solvency and having a farm full of healthy mushrooms. Then the bombshell hit that was very similar to the real banking crisis; my wife’s finances were in a worse state than mine. A lot worse! And she too was ignoring this growing burden. Floundering under the weight of bad mushrooms! AND SHE NEVER EVEN TOLD ME ABOUT IT UNTIL WE WERE REFUSED OUR FIRST REMORTGAGE APPLICATION BECAUSE OF AN “UNDISCLOSED DEBT”!*
I’m going to fast forward to now, the beginning of 2015. It will seem like I’ve missed a whole “Well, come on, how the hell did you do it” etc. type segment could easily fit here. Let’s just say we are still paying off the wife’s debt burden, which I now view as “our burden”. If all goes to plan that will be cleared by mid-2017 and by then the only debt left will be the mortgage, and I have plans to pay that off as quickly as possible too. The whole idea behind this blog is for you to join me on the journey ahead and I will hopefully post regularly enough for you get an idea of what I did to “fill in the blanks” of this inaugural post.
*Oh, and if you want numbers, our combined pre-2009 debt was easily over £20,000! Over 75% of that has been repaid – we took a set back when we had to buy a new (to us) car in 2013.
The Frugal Funghi 