About me and the title
I’ve Paid For This Twice Already… focuses on the realities of living in debt and the struggle and triumphs of getting out. Frugal living, budgeting, saving money, and finding ways to nickel and dime down your debt (read here for an explanation of snowflaking) with positive results are all part of the overall focus as well as examining and understanding the effect debt has on our lives as a whole. I created this blog initially for a place to talk to myself and keep myself motivated, and it grew into a place to discuss debt reduction issues in general as well. More background in why I created the blog is here and here.
The title “I’ve Paid For This Twice Already…” refers to the fact that anything I bought with my credit cards, I have probably paid at least the purchase price all over again in interest by now. So in essence I’ve paid for it twice (if not three times by now… ugh). It was a cold hard realization to me that all the effort and time I have spent shopping for a “good deal” means about zero when I charge the purchase and start paying interest on it.
A realization many people took much less time than I did to make. But I’ve grown up a bit in the process and I’m committed to getting on my feet and going forward with a healthy financial future.
I am paidtwice, a 30-something married mom of two with a PhD in Genetics that sits in my closet and a 3rd degree blackbelt in taekwondo. What else could you want out of life? Maybe peace of mind. We owe lots of $$ and we’re getting out of debt a penny (or sometimes a dollar) at a time. Target date for completion: end of 2010. We got into credit card debt as a couple primarily paying for all the incidental unforeseen things that come up with a wedding, and then my spouse’s subsequent job loss when the company he worked for went abruptly bankrupt. Once my spouse was re-employed 6 months later and we were back on our feet, we declared no more to the credit cards and have been trying (increasingly successfully) to right our financial situation since. A summary of from the no credit card day (November 2003) until the start of the blog can be found here, and a synopsis of our journey since then is here. Find out about budgeting, frugality and what it means to us, and putting every penny to use in paying down debt (even some you didn’t know you had!) by becoming a reader. I may have a few ideas you haven’t thought of, and I am sure you have some for me as well. Leave a comment and let me know!
