+
upworthy
More

$2,000 in credit card debt can feel like the end of the world. It isn't.

In my 20s, I found myself in $2,000 of credit card debt. It took planning and patience, but now I'm debt-free.

True
AICPA + Ad Council

In 2013, I left a job when I had little in my savings account to carry me over.

It was the right move. I knew that. But the timing? Well, that wasn't ideal. I threw myself into the job hunt and tried to make my minimal savings last as long as possible.

One and a half months later, and I hadn’t found another job. Things were looking bleak. And, bam, just like that it was time to pay the rent again. In NYC. And even with roommates and a dingy apartment, that’s no small feat.


I had interviews lined up that looked hopeful, so I decided to buy myself some time. I turned to my credit card.

Before I knew it, I had almost $2,000 in credit card debt.

You see, I'd used my card’s cash advance to cover my rent. One of those interviews panned out and I did get a job — yay! — but as we all know, that first paycheck takes a few weeks to arrive. I used the card again to cover basic necessities.

This debt sent me on what I'll call a five-phase journey. The first phase? Feeling hopeless.

Image via iStock.

I was overwhelmed, confused, and disappointed in myself.

“There’s a lot of stigma attached to debt and it really eats at self-esteem and confidence," says Charles Freeman, a psychologist based in San Diego. He explains that when someone winds up in debt, "they resent the debt, and then that resentment leads to stress, impaired self-esteem, shame.” He's right.

I’d never really understood debt before. And while I know that many people are wrestling with far more than $2,000 in debt, it felt like the end of the world to me.

My situation wasn’t unique. A lot of people rely on credit cards or don’t have savings, and it can feel pretty hopeless and overwhelming.

I spent a year making payments and barely saw the balance reduced. I paid more than the minimum amount, but it all went toward interest. They don’t teach us this stuff in school. I didn’t know what to do.

Thank goodness for Google. Through research, I found a glimmer of hope.

Image via iStock.

I did my homework on how credit cards and interest fees work. Basic stuff. I mapped out a plan and started to feel excited. I could see my way through the mess I'd created. Enter phase two: Realizing I wasn't doomed.

I transferred my balance to a 0% interest card. I also took a look at my income versus my monthly expenses. I mapped out my pay schedule and upcoming expenses, determining when I could afford to make additional payments and exactly how much. I passed on nights out with friends and buttoned up my spending so that it was as efficient as possible.

I made sacrifices and remained disciplined, but I began to feel anxious.

Phase 3: Impatience. I wanted instant results.

I wanted to pay off the debt as quickly as possible, so as I saw success, I was tempted to cut back even further. I found myself sacrificing necessities unnecessarily. I wanted all of the debt gone, and I wanted it gone immediately.

Image via iStock.

But cutting back on necessities was stressful. The debt was still there, and now my quality of life was decreasing. "Some people create a budget, they're starving themselves, they're isolating, they're trying to shave off too fast, and their quality of life is extremely impaired," Freeman explains.

So, I had to tell myself to stay calm, be patient. Give it time.

I learned to celebrate small milestones — down by 25%! 50%! It was an incredible feeling.

After a year of feeling like I was throwing money into a black hole, suddenly I could see the difference. The lower the balance got, the moredetermined I was to master money: phase 4.

In just a few months, the debt was gone. A challenge that previously felt insurmountable was suddenly nothing.

Literally, balance 0. I'd done it.

Image via iStock.

Not everyone can pay off debt this quickly (and many people are faced with paying off much higher balances). I was fortunate enough to be responsible only for myself and to have the financial flexibility to put every extra penny toward my debt. But one thing I learned is that even the smallest amounts do add up, as cliché as that sounds.

I felt elated. And I felt empowered.

I was ready to tackle any financial goal that came my way. I was almost addicted to that feeling of success. Phase 5.

“That’s called a process addiction. … there are payoffs emotionally," explains Freeman. "By paying it off [you] get some sort of external self-esteem.” And he cautions that the true goal is to learn how to not get overwhelmed by debt and to view financial hurdles as long-term goals that you can and will conquer with time.

Image via iStock.

After that first major failure and subsequent triumph, my financial game is much stronger. And I've found that there’s no substitute for education.

Trying to tackle debt without understanding it was useless. It was like throwing a ball while squinting up at the sun. I had no idea where my efforts would land. And I sure wasn’t hitting my target.

But that feeling once I dug in, found the right resources, and knew what to do? Oh, it was glorious. It was a small win, but it made me feel like any of my financial goals are possible. And in truth, they really are, given hard work, due diligence, patience, and of course, just the tiniest bit of luck. Now, on to my next financial goal!

A pitbull stares at the window, looking for the mailman.


Dogs are naturally driven by a sense of purpose and a need for belonging, which are all part of their instinctual pack behavior. When a dog has a job to do, it taps into its needs for structure, purpose, and the feeling of contributing to its pack, which in a domestic setting translates to its human family.

But let’s be honest: In a traditional domestic setting, dogs have fewer chores they can do as they would on a farm or as part of a rescue unit. A doggy mom in Vancouver Island, Canada had fun with her dog’s purposeful uselessness by sharing the 5 “chores” her pitbull-Lab mix does around the house.

Keep ReadingShow less
Representative Image from Canva

Let's not curse any more children with bad names, shall we?

Some parents have no trouble giving their children perfectly unique, very meaningful names that won’t go on to ruin their adulthood. But others…well…they get an A for effort, but might want to consider hiring a baby name professional.

Things of course get even more complicated when one parent becomes attached to a name that they’re partner finds completely off-putting. It almost always leads to a squabble, because the more one parent is against the name, the more the other parent will go to bat for it.

This seemed to be the case for one soon-to-be mom on the Reddit AITA forum recently. Apparently, she was second-guessing her vehement reaction to her husband’s, ahem, avant garde baby name for their daughter, which she called “the worst name ever.”

But honestly, when you hear this name, I think you’ll agree she was totally in the right.

Keep ReadingShow less
Innovation

A student accidentally created a rechargeable battery that could last 400 years

"This thing has been cycling 10,000 cycles and it’s still going." ⚡️⚡️

There's an old saying that luck happens when preparation meets opportunity.

There's no better example of that than a 2016 discovery at the University of California, Irvine, by doctoral student Mya Le Thai. After playing around in the lab, she made a discovery that could lead to a rechargeable battery that could last up to 400 years. That means longer-lasting laptops and smartphones and fewer lithium ion batteries piling up in landfills.

Keep ReadingShow less

A beautiful cruise ship crossing the seas.

Going on a cruise can be an incredible getaway from the stresses of life on the mainland. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t an element of danger when living on a ship 200-plus feet high, traveling up to 35 miles per hour and subject to the whims of the sea.

An average of about 19 people go overboard every year, and only around 28% survive. Cruise ship lawyer Spencer Aronfeld explained the phenomenon in a viral TikTok video, in which he also revealed the secret code the crew uses when tragedy happens.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

Kudos to the heroes who had 90 seconds to save lives in the Key Bridge collapse

The loss of 6 lives is tragic, but the dispatch recording shows it could have been so much worse.

Representative image by Gustavo Fring/Pexels

The workers who responded to the Dali's mayday call saved lives with their quick response.

As more details of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore emerge, it's becoming more apparent how much worse this catastrophe could have been.

Just minutes before 1:30am on March 26, shortly after leaving port in Baltimore Harbor, a cargo ship named Dali lost power and control of its steering, sending it careening into a structural pillar on Key Bridge. The crew of the Dali issued a mayday call at 1:26am to alert authorities of the power failure, giving responders crucial moments to prepare for a potential collision. Just 90 seconds later, the ship hit a pylon, triggering a total collapse of the 1.6-mile bridge into the Patapsco River.

Dispatch audio of those moments shows the calm professionalism and quick actions that limited the loss of life in an unexpected situation where every second counted.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

Yale's pep band had to miss the NCAA tournament. University of Idaho said, 'We got you.'

In an act of true sportsmanship, the Vandal band learned Yale's fight song, wore their gear and cheered them on.

Courtesy of University of Idaho

The Idaho Vandals answered the call when Yale needed a pep band.

Yale University and the University of Idaho could not be more different. Ivy League vs. state school. East Coast vs. Pacific Northwest. City vs. farm town. But in the first two rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament, extenuating circumstances brought them together as one, with the Bulldogs and the Vandals becoming the "Vandogs" for a weekend.

When Yale made it to the March Madness tournament, members of the school's pep band had already committed to other travel plans during spring break. They couldn't gather enough members to make the trek across the country to Spokane, Washington, so the Yale Bulldogs were left without their fight song unless other arrangements could be made.

When University of Idaho athletic band director Spencer Martin got wind of the need less than a week before Yale's game against Auburn, he sent out a message to his band members asking if anyone would be interested in stepping in. The response was a wave of immediate yeses, so Martin got to work arranging instruments and the students dedicated themselves to learning Yale's fight song and other traditional Yale pep songs.

Keep ReadingShow less