Personal Responsibility

Dave and I will be married 25 years this April. We married young - very young. In fact, I was a few months shy of legal age to toast my own wedding. I have no idea why we were in such a rush, but we were and there was no stopping us. It has been quite an adventure and I know in my heart of hearts, I made the right choice for a lifelong partner. He has always been there for me. A great guy....truly.

During the early years of our marriage, we were a typical young couple. We never seemed to have enough money. Instead of tightening our belt between paychecks, we whipped out the plastic and went shopping. Or we went to dinner. Or...whatever. But we very quickly ran up balances on our credit cards. That was our first mistake.

In August of 1985, Nikki was born. What a wonderful and joyful time for us! But talk about responsibility! Yikes! In 1986, Dave lost his job. Poof. No more income. I worked, but it barely covered the rent and utility bills. We were forced to buy diapers, formula and groceries on credit cards. Mistake number two.

Dave soon found work and luckily, we never found ourselves without an income again. There were lean times as the kids grew, but we still had our incomes. When Brian came along in 1989, I was fortunate enough to stay home full time with him. We realized the money I was paying a sitter was just a little less than I earned. I took part time work in the evenings or weekends to help bridge the gap but it was during the hours when Dave was home to stay with the kids.

We made some smart decisions and some not so smart decisions financially. We bought our first house when Brian was a baby and sold it six years later for a profit. We used the profit as a down payment on the house we are in now. The mortgage on this house is higher than the first so there have been some times when we really reached to meet it. But we did. The only problem - the credit card balances were still growing because we could only afford the minimum payments. We weren't charging anymore, but we weren't making a dent in the balance either.

As our kids got older, their expenses grew right along with them. Nikki became involved with horses and Brian with hockey. I often joked that my kids couldn't settle for a simple passion such as knitting or baseball. We had to go for the big stuff! But as my mom reminded me, pay now or pay later. Kids should be encouraged to find their passions and follow them. She was right - their activities kept them out of trouble.

In 1999, my friend Susie became ill with cancer. I was working with Dave at the time and I took advantage of being able to miss work and spend time with Sue. Not that this was her fault, but as a result of my involvement with her care, I let some of the bills slip and they didn't get paid every month. This was the worst thing we could have done. As a result, the collection companies came calling and we were in big trouble.

In the early 2000's, Dave and I refinanced the house. We used the equity in the house to pay off all those nasty credit cards. We canceled them all and vowed to each other we would never run balances up again. It felt great! Free at last of almost 20 years of debt! The problem? We refinanced with one of those predatory lenders who have dominated the news lately. They were the ones who wrote our loan with very few questions asked. At the time, we didn't realize it. But by the fall of 2005, Dave did.

Dave sat down and crunched the numbers. The mortgage was to reset at a higher interest rate in January 2006. He came to me and said he didn't think we would be able to meet the mortgage each month once it reset because it was free to go higher and higher every few months. We were terrified.

So we set to work finding a reputable lender who would refinance us again. We were desperate to get out from under the predatory bank. We knew we were headed for disaster. In early December, we refinanced at a set rate - a rate we could afford, and we were relieved. In fact, the day after my dad died, the appraiser came to appraise the house. Most of that process is a blur to me now, but the lender wrote us because we never ran debt up again. In fact, the banker praised our responsible attitude when we went for the closing. I'm sure our responsible actions with debt was the deciding factor for us getting the loan.

We are in a much better financial way now than before, but it took us years to get here. We work hard - really hard - to acquire the things we have. Since the early days, we have never run up high credit card balances again. Our mantra - if there isn't the cash to buy, we don't buy. Period.

When I look at the news today, I am horrified at how many people are upside down in their mortgages. I feel sorry for them - to an extent. We were upside down. We were in a mess. But instead of waiting for someone to fix it for us, we took control and fixed it ourselves. Even during the worst possible emotional time for us (the death of my dad), we still stayed focused. This is personal financial responsibility. Nobody made the mess but us. Yes, we were taken in by a predatory lender, but instead of waiting for a hand out or bail out, we bailed ourselves out. And as the banker said, we did it ourselves. We learned from our mistakes and never ran that kind of debt up again.

I am sickened by the amount of Americans who are waiting for our government to fix their financial lives. It is the most un-American thing I can think of. What has happened to this country that folks expect their messes to be fixed for them? Where is the personal responsibility?