How I Got Into Debt, Trench Warfare, and an End of the World Cult You Can Believe In

“Well, if you don’t like that, try some Archduke Chocula.” – Futurama

After World War One, the phrase, “Happy as a Hapsburg in Serbia” fell out of favor, as did the “Hair Smile” style of mustache.

I’ve already told the story about digging out of debt.  In retrospect, it seems to me that all of those stories end up sounding the same:  “I weighed six hundred pounds, my kitchen floor was covered in dirty dishes and cat food, and I had $3.7 million in debt until I found Wildernetics© and the First Church of PEZology™.  Look at me now!”

Proof that I am a reincarnated World War One soldier (Part One).  These are from a soldier’s joke newspaper, The Wiper’s (a mangling of Ypres) Times, produced for soldiers by soldiers that found an abandoned printing press.

I know my methods can solve everything, but today I had a crazy idea.  How about spending some time talking about how I got into debt in the first place?  I know that might cut into the revenue of the Wildernetics© End of the World Cult and Take-Out BarBeQue Restaurant®, but I figure you might come back for the brisket.  It’s very tender.

I’ll quit teasing.  How did I get into debt?  First a little.  Then all at once.

Let me rewind a whole marriage.  As regular readers will know, The Mrs. was not the first, but she is the final spouse.  My first marriage was an example of a series of escalating poor mutual decisions where each side seemed to lack a brief moment of sanity to back out before anyone got hurt, sort of like the run up to World War I.  Even before Archduke Franz Ferdinand proved that .380 ACP was a useful round against Hapsburgs and their notably gelatinous bones, World War I was inevitable.  Before I said “I do” everything was in place for the trench warfare of future divorce.

Okay, I apologize for this joke.  I think it violated the Geneva Convention.

But, rewinding.  After graduating college I got married and got a starter job, which is to say I had a job that just barely paid the bills.  Nearly exactly.  In fact, after working at the job for a few months, we were exactly (most months) at zero.  We weren’t saving any money yet, but we also weren’t in the red.  Success.  My credit card limit was 10,000 . . . Siberian Lira.   This was equivalent to a whole bright and shiny quarter.  This helped me stay debt free.

Then came the table.

Proof that I am a reincarnated World War One soldier (Part Two), this one is for James.

We had a dining room table.  It wasn’t great, and the chairs that came with it were a bit ratty – the vinyl arms had been slammed into the table often enough that it looked like a pack of rabid Chihuahuas had spent their lives sitting on the chair seats and gnawing on the arms.  I imagine them growling and chewing in unison as they sat around the table, like Viking Chihuahua rowers.  Most all of our furniture was second hand or gifted, but the table really was the biggest eyesore.

Okay, this one isn’t mine, but I couldn’t resist.

At some point discipline broke.  I know how silly it sounds to say that now, but back then, month after month of not buying anything but actual necessities takes more discipline than Elizabeth Warren around a tribal gathering.  Eventually I gave in.  We bought the table.  Using debt.  Back then, individual stores would give you amazing credit limits just to buy their crap.  They gave us more than enough credit to buy that table, and with the money I saved from shipping the Chihuahuas back to Denmark, I figured we’d be money ahead.

Proof that I am a reincarnated World War One soldier (Part Three).

The table was only $500, but the difference between having no debt (outside of a mortgage) and having debt, even a small one, was a huge psychological hurdle for me.  It’s like having a doughnut when you’re doing low carb.  “I got weak had one doughnut, so I might as well have, say, 36.  And do you have any whipped cream I could just guzzle straight from the can?  I broke my diet, and don’t want to waste it.”  Pretty soon other nice to have things showed up, very few of which I still own today.  But I had crossed that mental barrier from peace (debt free) to war (spend away!).  Suddenly, the credit card companies realized I had debt, and immediately wanted to lend me more money.  My credit limits tripled.

I hope that this doesn’t sound like I’m blaming The Ex.  Like Adam in the Garden of Eden, I was fully complicit.  Ultimately the debt grew faster than my wages.  This led to the idea of grad school:  I could get free tuition plus be a paid graduate assistant.  Would it work?

Sure.  There were also student loans.  Free money!  Oops.

Okay, let’s all admit that Nachos Bellgrande® is NOT a war crime.

Proof that I am a reincarnated World War One soldier (Part Four).

There were some places along the way that I could have gotten off the merry-go-round.  When I sold that first house to move for a new, post-grad school job, we’d made a stunning 40% profit in three years.  It would have more than paid off a good chunk of my student loans.  Nope, that would have made too much sense.  We did pay down a little debt and bought a new house, putting down the minimum down payment.

But most of the money was just spent.  About this time I also had one of the worst ideas I’d ever had in my life.  The Ex and I were always arguing about money, and about the thermostat – I knew that 50°F in winter and 90°F in summer were reasonable temperatures, but The Ex disagreed.  Well, if she had to pay the bills, she would certainly understand how tight money was.  Right?

No.

We had a different view of not only household temperature, but the idea that one should pay monthly bills, well, monthly.  I didn’t figure this out for three years, by which time I owed enough money to qualify as a third world country, but one of the nice, mainly atrocity-free ones.  Mainly.

Taco Bell® inspired outfits?

Debt is like George Washington’s description of fire, it’s an amazing tool, but a fearful master.  My advice is to pay all of your bills in full, monthly.  I know that the people who own your debt disagree.  Why?  They want you to have debt, as much as you can pay.

I had a friend (since passed away in an accident) who I called Batman© on this blog (“I’m Batman,” – Batman, in Batman).  He had one particular investment that was worth about $12 million – a series of apartments.  He had paid the apartments off before they were even built by selling future property tax credits to other businesses.  Yeah, that kind of friend.

But he viewed his tenants as slaves (his term), who went to work daily so they could send him money every week.  I heard him use exactly that phrase to describe them.  He liked his tenants, and was a good landlord.  However, he knew the score:  when they went to work each day, they went to work so they could pay him.

And Batman was a good guy and he taught kids that debt was a form of slavery of ordinary people to wealthy guys just like him, not that they always listened.

My marriage to The Ex?  That particular marriage is proof of the old Henny Youngman joke:

“Why are divorces expensive?”

“They’re worth it.”

Yeah, divorce just STARTS the argument.

The day she moved out was one of the happiest days for both of us.

I was still digging myself out of debt when I met The Mrs.  As our relationship blossomed, I thought it was only fair to tell her of the debt that I had.

“The Soon To Be The Mrs., I have something to tell you.  You might want to sit down.”

The Soon To Be The Mrs. looked shaken.  She sat.  I told her about my debt.  She laughed.

“Is that all?  I thought you were going to tell me you’d been in prison.”

No, not prison.  But I still owe reparations payments to France.