I’m
a grateful recovering debtor…
free to read it for your own
inspiration, and for that of your own local DA group.
I'm a grateful recovering debtor in
this program. I wanted to express my
gratitude to the DA program. My wife
and I have been in DA for about 4 years now.
When we first came into DA, our financial situation was in
shambles. At that time, we had recently
been to a credit counseling agency hoping that they would bail us out. After they compared our monthly income to
our monthly expenses, they basically stated that since our expenses greatly
exceeded our income, their program could do nothing for us. They couldn’t recommend bankruptcy, but
strongly suggested we see a lawyer to get more information about it. They also recommended that we sell our
house, move into a small inexpensive apartment, and use the equity we would get
from the sale to pay off the debt.
Another recommendation in order to save money, was that we send our son
to a public school instead of the Catholic high school he was attending. Walking out of there, I felt our situation
was hopeless.
We had spent so many years mismanaging
our money, debting, check bouncing, and incurring late fees. We had bailed ourselves out many times. First by using a substantial reenlistment
bonus while I was in the army, later getting extra money by refinancing our
house, several home equity loans, and loans against my 401k retirement
fund. Our problem was that we would
only incur the same debt again at a higher level. There was nothing left to bail us out, the credit cards were
maxed out, along with loans against my 401k, and we couldn't get another home
equity loan. As it was, we were already
behind in our bills, to include the mortgage, not to mention the credit cards
and personal loans.
We never did follow the suggestions of
the credit-counseling agency. Instead,
we found DA. In the beginning, I
started attending, then my wife started attending shortly thereafter.
After attending the beginners meeting,
and hearing the guest speaker in the regular meeting, I knew there was
hope. I attended six meetings in a
period of two weeks to qualify for a Pressure Relief meeting. I followed the suggestions of my Pressure
Relief Group and to the best of my ability practiced the tools of DA. We started keeping our daily numbers, as
well as weekly/monthly spreadsheets, and were surprised to discover exactly how
much we were spending, especially in the area of non-essentials. This awareness helped to change our
spending habits greatly. We then worked
with our creditors on getting moratoriums, continued to attend meetings, became
involved in service, and did not incur any new unsecured debt. It took years, and at times it was a hard
struggle, but our financial situation steadily improved. Our expenses dropped and the debts were
eventually being paid off as our income increased. This year we can finally describe our financial situation as
prosperous.
Thanks to the tools of DA, and
everyone in the program for being there.
(name witheld in the interest of
anonymity)