Today will be the final segment of the series, “Reflections in the Financial Mirror”.  Aptly called the ugly it is full of the really bad and stupid things we can all do with money.  The things we all do when time get really tough, and don’t stop in time to throw in the towel before we are too far down the hole to dig ourselves out.  That unfortunately was my case.  I was trying so hard to stay afloat, that I couldn’t;t see the lead weight attached to my feet, that was dragging me down.

If you haven’t read the other parts of the series, I would reccomennd doing that first.  I have added lkinks to them below.

Prologue

Reflections in the Financial Mirror Part 1: The Good View

Reflections in the Financial Mirror Part 2: The Bad

Now I could probably continue to write more parts to this series, but since the focus of the site is to build a better tomorrow, I have decided no to dwell on the past, but instead try to focus on the future. So today I will focus on the ugly things I did and hopefully things you can avoid.

1. The great Debt Shuffle-Now in theory this can work well if you have smaller amounts of debt, or debt in one area.  This is things like transferring credit card balances around, and chasing the lower interest rate.  Don’t get me wrong this works well if you only have credit debt, and not a lot of it.

2. Retirement Borriwng-The end result with this is that it’s a bad idea no matter what.  Now there are some circumstances where it may be a viable option, but think hard about it.

3. Using one to pay one- This is the famous debt shuffle.  I will use this card to pay this card, STUPID!

4. Ignoring the problem-What generally happens when you go to far, and get too stressed out.  If you find out that you are ignoring the probelm, you need help fast.

My unfortunate probelm here is that I did all of the above, making an ugly situation worse, and worse.  They say you can see more in your past than in your furute tand that’s true.  So make sure whatever you do, you think before you leap.

When I got to the point where I stopped trying to salvage the mess, and instead deal with it, I was to the point where evrything was gone, and I am starting over.  It’s not easy.

Until Next Time.

~Family Man