Saved by my savings

This year, I've decided to challenge myself to complete a list of 31 things that will challenge, inspire, and renew me. I hope you'll let me know that you're following my adventures by clicking on the link to the left that says "Join this site" or by entering your email. I appreciate having you here and always read every comment!

It’s a new day folks. A wall has fallen, a line has been crossed <...drumroll...> my savings account is now larger than my ATM balance. Yippee!!

In fact, of all the goals on my 31 Things list, #26. Grow my savings account, has quietly, steadily snuck up as my top success story.

This what I did to start saving: 1) I put $100 into my savings account each month; 2) I started following the 52-weeks Money Challenge; and of course, 3) I don’t take out any money (that should be a given, but a former version of myself wasn’t too keen on that rule).

That’s the practical side of things, the hands on money side of things; and while it’s a success story, it’s not *the* success story.

See, I’ve always told people that I’m no good with money. I just can’t save a dime. A credit card for me? No way -- I cannot be trusted. And yet I’ve always been good at math. I’m generally good at stepping back, seeing the big picture, and planning for future goals. At work, I have always understood and even enjoyed the details of budgeting and accounting.

So here it is folks, for its first unveiling -- I AM good with money. Yeah. I said it. I can add it, subtract it, budget it, plan for it, make it, spend it, and -- get this -- I can even SAVE it. Why then have I been spending all.these.years. telling everyone who would listen that I am so bad? That, my friends, would be because of my favorite love-to-hate-it word: S-H-A-M-E.

Shame wrote its name all over my bank account. And my savings and credit cards and checkbook. I spent almost 8 years thinking that *I* was bad, just because I had made some bad mistakes. I took the misuse of a credit card (okay, a few credit cards) and claimed them as badges of dishonor: Stupid. Untrustworthy. Immature. I wore them for a really long time.

The first step to crawling out of my money pit was to get help. Please hear me when I say this -- Get Help. A shocking but true reality is this: there are people out there who have gone to school just to qualify themselves for getting me out of the trouble that I spent all of school getting myself into. (Yeah; read that ten times fast.) And there are equally qualified people out there who can help you climb out of whatever your pit is. Sometimes the Get Help step seems overwhelming, but just start talking to someone you trust. Together you will conquer step one.

The second step to crawling out of my money pit was to be sorry and to say sorry, but then to move on. Thanks to a friendly and patient credit consolidation counselor, I was able to “apologize” for my overdue bills and create a plan to eventually pay back what I owed. But even before saying sorry to the MasterVisaExpress, I had to actually be sorry. I had to stop saying -- mostly to myself -- that it was someone else’s fault. I had to stop being a victim and start handling my business.

Also, the part of step two that I missed the first few times was the last part -- Move On. Sometimes creditors still called. Sometimes they were wrong, sometimes they were just mean. But until I could decide that I didn’t care what they thought of me, that it was more important what I thought of me, I couldn’t really move on. It was a good three years after I stopped owing money that I finally started answering my phone for numbers I didn’t recognize. Moving on is hard. But it’s so worth it.

The third step to crawling out of my money pit was, and is, what the final step always is: Show Love. For me, that was about showing love to my parents, who kept bailing me out each time I was on the edge. It meant showing gratitude to friends who loaned me large amounts of money when I just couldn’t go back to my parents again; especially to those friends who forgave the debt I owed them, long before it made any sense for them to do something like that. And, of course, I had to show love to myself.

It is incredibly easy to make the leap from “I made a mistake” to “I am a mistake.” Or “I did something wrong” to “I am something wrong.” It’s the story of the human experience, or at least, it’s the story of mine. And overcoming that takes daily work, daily reminders, and regular interaction with the Spirit that connects us all.

So that’s my story.  A lot of details are missing, but the important stuff is there. Get Help. Be Sorry. Move On. Show Love.

And why has this been on my mind? Well, I think maybe that same Spirit has been helping me see that there is one more step. -- Give More.

Give more help.

Give more forgiveness.

Give more love.

My savings? It saved me. And not because I’ve patched together a financial safety net, but because I patched together a net of hope and redemption and newness. I can breathe again. I can trust myself again. When the phone rings, I can answer it -- even if I don’t know where it might lead.

And that side of things is a freedom worth saving for.

What are you saving for? Is there a place in your life, a label you've been wearing, that you can start to redefine?