A long walk to freedom! DAY 1 – Unsecured debt: 100% Rainy day fund: 0 months

Hello, my name is David Whitrow and I’m a son, brother, Realtor, CMA, proud Canadian, Christian, rider fan, social conservative, hockey player and SLAVE!

…say what… Slave?

You heard me SLAVE, S-L-A-V-E, SLAAAAAVE

How so you ask, well the Solomon put it best in the book of Proverbs:

“The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender.” Proverbs 22:7

You see, slavery, as we commonly understand it, was abolished through out the entire British Empire in 1834 under the Bristish Parliament's Slavery Abolition Act effectively ending legal slavery in Canada at least until the 1920’s when a little thing called the credit card was invented.

Mmmmm credit cards… I have had a love hate relationship with them since I first walked down that university corridor and some dude offered me a free T-shirt for filling out a silly little form, a few weeks later a little piece of plastic showed up at my door. To be honest, I tossed it aside and never really even looked at it, good for me! But this is where I made my first mistake, I decided to keep it even though I knew how sucky the interest rate on them were , I told myself that I would just use it for “emergencies”…thinking back I wonder how many people share that same start to credit card misery… I will be responsible, I will just keep it as a back up, well, as you can probably guess it wasn’t long until I had an “emergency” (likely beer or cigarettes as they were a high priority at that point in life) and thus began my love affair with credit.

For interest sake, I’m going to jump forward to today, though I have a tonne of stories to share about how I got to where I am, 12 years later, I now HATE debt, especially anything unsecured. WHY? Because if my heart had its way right now I would be down in a 3rd world country sharing the love of Jesus Christ, fighting poverty, feeding the hungry. But the fact is I can’t just up and leave because of one simple fact… I owe... I owe, I owe, so off to work I go!

Blech!

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my job, being a Realtor is the best and most fun job I have ever had! I work with great people and love seeing how peoples excitement at their new home. It’s the fact that I have no choice that gets to me, I have an obligation to repay what I have borrowed and until that is repaid I am, well, a slave. But…

THE TIME FOR FREEDOM IS NOW!

Over the past few months I have had some very sobering revelations, the first came when I realized that I was no further ahead today than I was a little over a year ago when I first decided to get debt free. OUCH an entire year and no where closer to the goal, that sucks! (I don’t like losing and that’s what it feels like, especially because about 6 months ago I had 1/3 of it gone)

The second came about 6 weeks ago when a deal I should have gotten paid right away on went somewhat sideways and about a months worth of salary was evacuated from my budget unexpectedly… not cool… and so after a little over a month of clawing and scratching my way back to my feet I am more determined than ever to make sure I am never in this position again.

As I see it there are 2 keys to my inevitable success:

1. Accountability – as much as my motivation for sharing this blog with the world is so that others can learn not to make my same mistakes, this blog also my accountability. At the start of every post I will display my progress both in my percentage of debt remaining and then in my rainy day account.

2. Education – over the last month I have been a sponge for financial stewardship info. I have always had a keen interest in this area but I am absolutely passionate about it right now and I want to share what I have learned with anyone and everyone who will listen

I don’t know how long this will take me, I know it’s not a quick fix, but I do know it will be worth it, and that it will be an interesting journey and I am going to learn a lot along the way. So come and join me on my long walk to financial freedom!



Till next time... Plan to prosper! ;-)

David Whitrow, CMA
Royal Lepage - Regina Realty
306-529-0389
www.davidwhitrow.com

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