My family is going through a lot of trouble these days. My brother has been unemployed for months now, laid off from his internet job. My mom is struggling to survive as a therapist in her life. My dad is an artist. Somehow, they are all completely maxed out on their credit cards and feeling the crush of debt. I have enormous student loans, but other than that I am doing pretty well. No credit card debt because I pay off my credit card every month. No other big problems, because I don't like to have big problems. I have a job through my school that is getting me both connections and experience that I will use to find other work when we move back home. My husband is in a similar situation, but he has no student loans. We're doing well.

It wasn't always that way for me though. When I left college, I was doing pretty well. i had no loans, and a little bit of cash in the bank. I had a work visa to work in Ireland, and plans and enough cash to travel through europe for a year or so. But somehow I burned through all my spending money way before the year was up, and it took me a very long time to find a job once we landed in Ireland. I started using my credit cards with terrifying frequency. I remember that time as being this cash-less time. We had no cash, but I wasn't too worried about the credit card debt I was accruing. It was almost as though I was immune to the debt because I was abroad. Somehow I felt like I wasn't ever going to have to pay it off.

When I returned to America it took me awhile to find work. I had almost no money, and my boyfriend was in even worse shape. I didn't know how to live within my means. I really didn't have anything, but I kept justifying my expenditures by saying I needed things for specific reasons. I needed a fancy dinner because it was friday. I needed that bottle of expensive wine because cheap wine was just so.. so.. cheap. I needed new clothes for those job interviews I never went on. Eventually I got a temp job and was able to buy some clothes at Ross, but I was still adding to the credit bills instead of subtracting.

The boyfriend and I went back to grad school, which was a very poor decision. Poor, because it was making me even more poor. I ran out of money the second semester and had to take a student loan. I was paying for both our expenses, but only because I thought we needed nice things. I bought expensive gifts for my boyfriend because I thought that's what grown-ups did. We lived a very comfortable life, under the circumstances.

Eventually the boyfriend moved away and we broke up and the bills started piling up. I had a few medical bills from visits to the emergency room that needed payment. I was paying the minimum payment on my credit card bills, which meant I was accruing money I hadn't even charged. It was horrible. More money than I care to admit, in fact.

Finally, I became so desperate I went to credit counseling. It was horrible. I cut up all my credit cards, cancelled the accounts, and negotiated payment plans with the bill collectors who were pestering me and my roommates.

Now I have great credit. Somehow I ended up the lucky one in my family. I learned my lesson early. It sucks that the rest of my family has to struggle through this problem. At least for me, I didn't have a lot at stake.

credit cards are the devil.

and my baby needs me, so I have to go without really wrapping this up.