Conversion

I finally get it.

I have never been a borrower:
I pay off my credit cards on time and was lucky enough to have college paid for by my parents. I would rather walk five blocks to an ATM than borrow money for a bill. Sometimes I would even rather buy you lunch than have you buy me lunch and feel like I "owe ya one." Even if you're my best friend. And I have no money in the bank.

When I was younger and just starting to date- for real date, not just the make out in a corner between the lockers and the snack bar with a guy with greasy hair and nachos stuck in his teeth at the roller rink- more of the go out for coffee and talk about poetry and make out in the cars with empty Doritos bags and dirty gym clothes from high school PE strewn along the back seat- and my parents weren't doing so hot as a couple- my mom gave me some advice: "Never rely on someone else. For your happiness or for money. Always have a backup plan." Maybe I shouldn't have put it in quotation marks because I'm not sure of the actual words; being 16 or so I wasn't quite listening most of the time. But as the years went on and things with my dad got worse, then better, then great, then really awful, she repeated the advice that she had never really followed herself.

When I went off to college, this advice didn't translate into the men I chose to date as much as it spurred me on towards financial security: I paid off my credit cards well before the due date, my phone and electric bills were always on time, I started contributing to a Roth IRA as soon as someone told me what the hell it was and why I should know about it.
However it did carry over into aspects of my social life. If I was at a bar and a sleazy guy wanted to buy me a drink or two, sure why not, more savings for me.
But some of my platonic male friends insisted on paying every tab and after a while I grew uncomfortable with the routine. We were just friends, but it seemed to give them an advantage over me that made me anxious. There's always a price, emotional or otherwise.
Of course I met men I fell in love with and relied upon for emotional stability and happiness, and only when I had my heart broken twice in one year did I understand what my mom had warned. Instead of receding into myself, I challenged myself to a serious test of self reliance traveling solo through India on the cheap after working three jobs for months to save up... and like that trip, I am totally off track....

Fast forward ten years. I am thirty. No house, no kids, but a steady partner who gives me the freedom I need and a boat we bought together with cash. No debt.

But I am back in school. A school I can't afford on my own. At least all at once or without dipping into emergency savings. So for the first time in my life, I applied for a loan. It was dispersed on Friday and I don't have to start paying until January. I go about my business as I did when I had a job, eating out and buying "stuff that I (think I) need" and drinking chai lattes swearing it will be the last 3 buck cup of water and spice I'll have.
And I am finally realizing how people get swallowed in debt. How it starts with a loan or a credit card or both and spending money becomes easy. Easier than when I actually had money. "Because after school," I tell myself, "I'll get a job and pay it all back. I'll eat Top Ramen the rest of the week. I mean, I still have my savings."
My savings is less than the loan amount.

So Mom, I need a reminder. Because in subsequent years you have followed your own advice.
You may have been talking about the dangers of relying on a man for happiness or money, but now I am relying on The Man....
To get my mind this crushing debt thing, maybe I'll join the masses and go have a chai...