So. About "the rest."
Okay, deep breath. It's $65,000. There. I said it. Sixty-five thousand dollars.
Are you still here? Good. Because if we're going to do this Money thing together, you needed to know who you're dealing with — and it's not a woman with a color-coded budget binder and a smug relationship with her savings account. It's me. Hi.
If you did the math (and I know some of you did), yes: this debt once topped $120,000. And I'll be even more honest with you, because that's the whole point of this blog: I haven't paid off $55,000 in one clean, satisfying line down a chart. I've paid it down, and then life has piled some back on. Paid it down again. Piled again. Car stuff. House stuff. Kid stuff. Life stuff. If your debt story looks like that too — a slow dance instead of a straight march — I need you to know you're not doing it wrong. You're just doing it in the real world.
But here's why I'm writing this post today: $10,000 of that $65,000 just became a little scary.
Here's the deal: two of my 0% balance transfer credit cards deals expire in November. If I haven't paid off or moved about $10,000 by then, the interest rate jumps significantly — and I go right back to shoveling money into a hole that gets deeper while I dig. You know that feeling? Of course you do. That's why you're here.
Four months. Ten thousand dollars. And then everything that comes after.
So no, we're not starting our Money journey with a cute budget printable. We're starting with a ticking clock. But first, let me pour you a coffee and tell you how I got here — because I promised you honesty, and the honest answer is: I used to have money. And then life happened. Hard.
How the hole got dug
More than a decade ago, I had it all figured out. Or at least it looked that way from the outside — and don't we all know how much that's worth. A business I'd built myself, a good salary, a flexible schedule, a nanny, a husband, a beautiful house with a front porch and white picket fence, two wonderful kids... the whole Pinterest board.
Then the picture cracked. The marriage broke up, the business took a hit...
Divorce is messy and expensive. You knew that. But here's the math nobody warns you about over drinks: I came out the other side with six figures of debt, no health insurance, and a mortgage I couldn't carry alone. I ended up selling the house in a short sale, in a terrible economy, which — fun fact — makes everything worse.
And because the universe apparently thought I needed more character development, right around the same time an internet algorithm change gutted my industry practically overnight. My business — my income — took a hit it never fully recovered from. Eventually I took a full-time job, mostly for the health insurance and a retirement plan, and kept the business limping along on the side. At one point, friend, I was working three jobs. Three. Just to keep shoveling.
And here's the part I hid from almost everyone: for three years, I didn't have a bedroom.
After the short sale, we rented a nice big condo. When the landlord jacked the rent, we downsized again to a 2-bedroom apartment. My kids were older and needed their own rooms — so they each got one, because that's what we do, right? I shared a closet with my daughter and lived, slept, and worked on a pullout couch in the living room. For three years. I worked 3 jobs, I cut every subscription, budgeted every dollar, and tried to give my kids a good life while the interest piled up anyway, like laundry. It just. Kept. Coming.
And then there was Covid, and well we all know that didn't help.
Where I am now
So: $65,000 to go. And I'm going to break it down for you, because vague debt confessions help exactly no one.
About $15,000 sits on credit cards, most of it parked on 0% balance transfers — including the two that expire in November. The other $50,000 is a debt consolidation loan at a lower, but definitely-not-zero, interest rate. (There's also a car loan at a low rate, a low-rate mortgage and a HELOC that funded home repairs that could not wait — those have their own lane and aren't part of this challenge. One crisis at a time, ladies.)
Which brings us back to that clock.
The challenge: The Big Dig
Here's what I'm committing to — publicly, with all of you as my witnesses, which is terrifying and exactly the point:
Phase 1 — Beat the November clock. Between now and November, every extra dollar goes at those two expiring balance transfers. Whatever I can't pay off in time gets moved to a new 0% transfer before the deadline — but the goal is to need to move as little as possible.
Phase 2 — Kill the credit cards. Once the November fires are out, I finish off the rest of the card balances while they're still at 0%, before any of them get the chance to start charging me interest again. Not on my watch.
Phase 3 — Attack the consolidation loan. It's the biggest number, and it's quietly charging me interest every single month like a bad roommate eating my groceries. Once the cards are gone, that entire payment amount rolls onto the loan.
Every month, I'll post a check-in: what I paid, what worked, what I splurged on and regretted — or didn't regret, because Joy is one of my pillars for a reason and I am not going to pretend I've never bought a candle in a crisis. You'll see the number go down in real time. And when I slip? Because I will? You'll see that too.
If you're in your own hole
Come closer, because I learned these the hard way and I need you to hear them:
The number is less scary written down than swirling around your head at 2 a.m. I avoided adding up my total debt for longer than I'll ever admit. The dread of not-knowing cost me way more sleep than the knowing ever did. Promise.
Interest is the enemy, not the debt. The debt is just a number. Interest is the treadmill under the number. Getting balances to 0% or low rates — even temporarily — turns a treadmill into solid ground you can actually walk across.
Deadlines are gifts. Yes, my November deadline is pressure. But it's also the only reason I'm not vaguely planning to "pay things down eventually," which — let's be honest — is code for never. A date on a calendar beats a wish every single time.
You can dig out and still live. I'm not doing rice-and-beans extremism, and I don't want you to either. I already did the version where I sacrificed everything and here's what I know: sustainable beats heroic. Small, boring, consistent payments outlast dramatic ones. Boring is the secret. Nobody tells you that.
So that's my Money story, my deadline, and my challenge. $65,000 total. $10,000 of it on a four-month fuse.
Watch me dig...and get one step closer to balance.
Now — what's your number? Please don't post it. You don't have to tell a soul. But go write it down somewhere so that you know what it is. You've got this!
Betty
