This post is by contributing writer Stacey Meyer Lane
What will you go into debt for?
Most people agree a house is an acceptable debt, but after the mortgage…what debt will you accept into your budget? Have you discussed this with your spouse?
After surviving this summer of financial hardships and finding ourselves with a depleted emergency fund, we might have to take on debt.
My morning routine has been turned upside down with the breaking down of my dryer. It seems as if I always choose to do laundry on days when it decides to start raining and I find myself often hanging our clothes on drying racks in our living room.
I shared with my dear friend how chaos was reigning in my mornings.
She asked me, “Why don’t you put a new dryer on your credit card and know you will pay it off over the next few months?” I really couldn’t answer at first, but two things went through my mind:
- Is a dryer really a need? Yes I was struggling to establish a new routine, but was a new dryer the answer?
- Did I feel confident that I would truly have the money in a few months to pay it off? Things are breaking faster, in my house, than I can replace them. I haven’t even added in the medical bills that are mounting.
I went home and discussed it with my husband.
We decided we would go into debt for:
- Car
- Food
- Medical
- Education for college
I don’t mean pay cash for a dryer and put food on the credit card. I mean paying for all the needs but not having enough to pay for medicine or food.
Now when we say car, I don’t mean a brand new one. I mean if both of our vehicles died we would go into debt to get one car for my husband to go to work.
Thankfully there are great online resources for affording homeschooling, but college comes with different criteria. We won’t go in debt for a $60,000-a-year college education for a starting salary of 30,000 upon graduating. We did agree with our son, however, about taking out a $5,000 loan for college.
I have spent huge amounts on medical. For years we didn’t have a prescription plan and I could walk out of the pharmacy spending $500 on one prescription, much to the shock of the clerks.
We were blessed with a dryer a few weeks ago, sadly after 2 uses it broke down. We are waiting for it to get fixed. It has been a long ordeal as to whether the retail shop or the manufacturer should fix it.
Let me give you a small piece of advice: now is the time to chat with your spouse about debt, not in the emotional ordeal of a broken appliance. It was extremely tempting to put a brand new dryer on the credit card. We chose to save the money instead.
I am glad we did.
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