Why I haven’t applied for a consolidation loan

It’s simple, I wouldn’t get one, well a decent one anyway, and everytime your denied credit it goes as a little black mark against your credit report.

I haven’t had a permanent job in almost 5 years, It doesn’t mean I’ve done nothing either. At the start of 2000 I left a secure yet underpaid job in middle management at a retail store and worked for myself doing website design. At that point my credit card balance was around the $5000 mark. I was bringing home less than $400 a week and credit cards were the easy way to afford the little luxuries.

When I left my job I had two months in annual leave to live on while I got my business humming. Things didn’t take off as quickly as I hoped and I ended up working part time as a storeman to get some semi regular income.

By the end of 2000 things were going great and in 2001 I took off for a six month road trip, logging in every now and then to work on my clients sites. The net boom was still going on and I was billing at a rate that allowed me to work 10 hours a week and still be comfortable. Somewhere during this roadtrip I actually had enough cash in the bank to pay off my credit cards completely.

I returned home in September of 2001 and that’s when things started to slowly fall apart, I’d lost interest in sitting at home working for most of the day and wasn’t doing anything to maintain my business income, as my income dropped I became more reliant on my credit cards.

Fast forward to 2002, my credit card debt had gone over the $20k mark, A good friend announced he was getting married at the other end of the country and I borrowed more money to be a part of that great occasion.

I realised that I had let my web business disintigrate to the stage that I had to rejoin the work force. I’d realised this for a while but couldn’t bring myself to apply for a job I’d know I’d hate. In early February of 2003 I wound up getting a temporay job in a government agency, and I’ve been there ever since. But still as a temporary Employee.

And no one will lend $20,000 to a temporary employee with no security so they can pay their credit card bills.

I don’t regret any of the last five years, I’ve actually had a pretty good time, always had a roof over my head, food in my stomach, and I’ve seen a whole lot of the country that I wouldn’t have seen if I’d stayed in the dead end retail job.

So basically I’ve spent my twenties getting into debt, I’ll spend my thirties getting out of debt, and I’ll spend my forties getting ready to retire, though if it doesn’t take that long I’ll be happy too.

Ironically the credit card companies love me because I nearly always make the minimum monthly payment and keep sending me credit limit increase offers.