She owed $11,000. She paid it in 18 months. She kept traveling, shopping and eating out.
Do the math. That is roughly $611 a month, before interest. She did this while holding a boarding pass.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: The Department of Personal Finance is pleased to announce that a person has spent less money than she earned. Officials describe the development as "arithmetic." No further comment was offered.
The debt came from trips, shopping and restaurants. Not a medical emergency. Not a flood. Brunch. She financed brunch at credit card rates and then repaid brunch like a hostage negotiator.
Retail traders should read this slowly. Their own $11,000 sits in a brokerage app, down 40 percent, backed by a conviction about a biotech company they cannot pronounce. She cleared her balance. They are averaging down on a ticker with a frog logo.
Her secret was a budget. A plan. Math done in advance. I know. I checked the chart twice, and it just slopes down and to the right, which is the only trend your portfolio has never produced.
The headline promises she kept living her life. Good. Most people in debt do the opposite. They live someone else's life, usually a cousin's with a boat, and put it on a card at 24 percent.
I once knew a man who said he would pay off his cards "after the next bull run." He is still waiting. The bull is fine. The man is in a studio apartment with a Bitcoin ATM receipt framed on the wall.
She did it in under two years. Your last "long-term hold" lasted eleven days and ended when you saw a red candle and screamed at a toaster.
Congratulations to her. She is debt-free, well traveled and well dressed. You are none of those things, and your Wi-Fi password is still "password1."
Photo by CardMapr.nl on Unsplash
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