When You Move Out...

When I got married and moved out, I had no idea that a couple of my financial
decisions were so wrong.

The good thing was my husband and I had saved $8,000 for a house, but I wish
we would have moved into an apartment and put that $8,000 in the bank. We
would've been a lot better off.  When something needed to be fixed we could've
paid for it with no problem.

We started our marriage with two broke-down cars. Every other week one of our
cars were in the shop. We paid for our cars to be repaired by credit card.

Speaking of credit cards...I wish I would have never gotten one. A credit card is
like a trap for someone without sufficient funds. In the beginning I thought I could
pay for all of my purchases easily, but it didn't happen that way. I charged $2,000
of our wedding expenses. I charged our broke-down cars to the card. Before I
knew it I couldn't pay it down, so I transferred the balance to another card, then
another card, then another card. At one time I had seven credit cards! Right before
I closed my accounts I had been charging groceries and gas every week. I finally
decided to stop using credit cards.

When you move out try to have thousands of dollars saved, then you won't feel
the need to use credit cards for survival.