Proactivity

I wrote this in the van the other day... waiting at the school for someone to come out... I had to search for a piece of paper, and settled upon a paint chip-type paper from Home Depot where we had been looking at paints... It was written around the margins of a table of different type of paints - I should scan in the original.  I went all the way around it by the time I finished.

These thoughts are raw and unfinished... Reflections on past and present and my own life experiences. 

There's something here, more to be said... but for now I'll say what I wrote there, in the cold car.

Living Reactively vs. Proactively.

Years of reacting to life events can leave one spent, utterly exhausted, in emotional or financial ruin.  Taking steps to live a proactive lifestyle can have many varied returns - chiefly, Peace.

Correcting the mistakes of the past is often painful and arduous - but in doing so, you (and all those whom you touch) can reap the rewards.  The trick to this lifestyle "change" is to take steps.  MOVE!!!

At times it will seem like you are taking one step forward and then two steps back - but you will be moving!

And keep track of what's going on in front, around, behind you... Take off the blinders.  If you can't change it, at least acknowledge it - that's the most important part.

At this point, I quit writing.  The margins on the paint card were covered and it was time to drive away.

I suppose the point of this rambling is pretty obvious... but I'll say that it is all too easy to get into a 'reactive' rut... Getting out is harder than it would seem.  As an example, I've spent the last two years paying every extra dime toward debt.  I haven't bought camera stuff...  I haven't bought computer stuff - except parts for my son's computer (that he paid most of).   I am using an old, old TV.  I have bought some shoes, in the past month or two - a 9.99 clearance K-Mart and a nice pair of hikers and Kohls that was half off... I've bought a couple of pairs of work pants and a few months ago I replaced some jeans that were ripping at the crotch. 

Compared to a year and a half ago, my monthly budget for dining out is half what it was then, and now I feed 4 to 6 whereas then it might have been mostly me, at lunchtimes... What do I have to show for all this?  Well, leading up to it, I started tracking my pennies... I figured out where every time was spent... after doing this for 2 or 3 months, I realized those two or three trips a week out to eat at lunchtime because I was too lazy to pack was adding up.  Sure the Buffalo Chicken Salad at Santos pizza with a drink is only  $7.20 with tax.  Or a $2 meal at Taco Bell is $2.30 with tax.  Or $5 or so at Wendys... But spread over a month's time, along with the occasional 'family outings' I was spending too much on those things.

I also started tracking how much I pay in interest every month, on debt... that one's interesting... and it is this subject that started this ramble... over a lot of years my household racked up a ton of debt.  Mind-bogglingly huge amounts of it.  To the point that in 2006, we had a house payment (balance of $121,000), a car payment (balance of $10,600), and a bit of other unsecured loan/credit card debt (about $65000).

I did not get there alone... I had a decent job but we spent way more than we earned... there were years where my paycheck was the only income - but we lived as if we made three times as much as we did.  I wrestled with the debt companies, and lowered interest rates where possible... but at that point, the three credit cards from Citibank were each charging more than 30% interest... Around $25,000 in Citibank credit cards...  That was about $625 in interest just on those three accounts every month.  We'd make a minimum payment and find the balance went down by $5.

I finally quit paying till they negotiated payments... then paid for a couple of years at 9.9% interest... Finally all the other debt caught up with us in 2008 and gas went up to almost $4 a gallon and income dropped... We quit paying the Citibank cards altogether... I figured I had paid them many times over anything that had ever been charged to them.  By the time they were charged off there was a bit over $18000 left on them.

I don't recommend this for other people, but at the time we risked losing our house... We had no money... When I separated from my then wife and took the lion's share of the bills as my own, I caught up everything and started paying them on time every time... except Citibank... they were dead.  I had no interest in paying them a dime, ever again.  I paid my debt down by over $20,000 in the past year, and managed to get some money into a Health Savings Account in case any future medical emergencies come up.  I paid off a zero interest orthodontics account, an almost 30% interest credit card, an American Express card that was in a bad way… a credit union loan (that I then replaced with a car loan after I remarried – the only new debt I have – a lower interest, lower payment, lower balance loan).  Early in that time, I withdrew money from my 401k and took a huge tax hit, but caught up the house payment, and later I paid off a 401k loan and then took a new one (borrowing from my retirement account means I pay money back to me instead of a bank).  I did everything I had to do to get rid of the beast… that nasty burden of debt.

Today I only have the house payment, and the two car payments, and the remaining smallish balances on a Discover and Dell account.  I have and need no other credit.

And, unfortunately, the skeleton in the closet – Citibank.  They’re evil.  The corporate giant that believes when people can’t pay their bills, you must punish them and make them pay even more.  Squeeze every last penny out of them.  I am lucky though, my accounts were at 35% and more in interest, but some people have had even worse experiences (ref this article that describes a customer paying 54%).  The government had to “bail them out” because too many customers like me defaulted… after paying hundreds of dollars per month for many, many months (two of the three accounts dated back to 1993). 

But here I am… home mortgage interest rates aren’t quite still at all time lows, but they’re still low compared to when I got my mortgage.  I have two bedrooms and a family room to finish downstairs, but little money each month to spend on it so after 8 months of marriage, my stepdaughters still have no bedrooms to sleep in each night.  I decided to pursue a refinance application.

I have a VA loan on my house, which makes refinancing relatively easy, although not particularly cheap (there are fees involved)... There's enough equity in the house to get some cash back... One ‘gotcha’ that they gave me was that Citibank had to be paid off. 

This is where one step forward feels like two steps back… I’ve worked so long and hard to pay down my debt, but here I go, looking to run it back up again.  I consider Citibank dead, but sooner or later they’ll come back to sue me or something… Or my kids will need student loans and we won’t be able to get them because of that.  So I am going owe more on my house than I paid for it ten years ago.  The end result:  Hopefully, I’ll have a house payment and two car payments.  The three Citibank accounts paid, the Discover and Dell paid.  The minimum house payment will be less than on my current mortgage, thanks to the reduced interest rates – but the 16 years left on the original mortgage will now be 30 again.  Evil Citibank will be gone… purged from my life for good. 

And at the interest rate of the new mortgage, if instead of paying my new “normal” monthly payment, I pay the amount I now pay to my current mortgage, plus the additional amount that I currently pay to Dell and Discover (which adds up to a hefty house payment BUT NO MORE THAN I PAY TODAY), the loan will be paid off in just under 15 years.

--- So in my prior reactive life, I’d be paying many thousands of dollars a year in interest and fees… In my newer proactive life, I am finding myself in better financial condition.

This ramble seems all about finances… but this story is only symbolic… symbolic of something much deeper. 

It is a lifestyle thing.  The sickness that was our finances was mirrored by the sickness in my soul.

Live within your means.  Pay the mortgage first, the car payments second, and everything else, then buy food and gas.  Yeah yeah yeah.  All well and good.

But it means nothing.  It’s just numbers. It’s just numbers. 

Down under it all, there’s a transformative change going on, one that may take a lifetime to complete.  I have found my soul, and my anam cara.  I have found that living is worth it.

I go to church, unashamed to look Him in the eye.  I sing when I feel like it, which is often.  I have learned to skip.

I have friends, true, deep, lifelong friendships where before I isolated myself behind walls of ice.


I love.  I live.  I breathe.  I feel.


I AM.