I was around twenty years old and at that time was just figuring out my own finances – getting my first credit card, lining up car payments and learning how I would juggle bills to pay everything on time.  I knew a girl who sang in a popular band in the local area. She was a little older than me and, it turns out, she was in credit card debt.  She would explain to me what a struggle it was to keep on top of her bills and how she progressively saw her debt mounting. That was a situation I had never considered and, to be honest, didn’t even quite comprehend. 

Being highly organized (some would say hyper-organized, which I must confess is a trait that has worn off a little as the years have passed) I offered to go to this girl’s house and help her figure out how to pay her bills.   How hard could that be?

What I saw absolutely blew me away.  She had saved every credit card bill sent to her over the past few years.  There in the back of her closet were several garbage bags two feet wide and three feet high stuffed full of these bills … and they were all unopened. 

We talk about keeping secrets in the closet.  Well, this girl was literally hiding her financial woes there and in doing so was letting them spiral out of control.  Every month multiple statements would come in for her three or four credit cards – fresh bills, overdue notices, final demand notices – and she would place each of them, unopened, on that monstrous pile in the darkest corner of the house.

That was fifteen years ago, and that is when the first little piece of the Conscious Budget & Debt Reduction program fell into place.....