Feb
12
2017
I Ended Up $20K in Debt, But Figured Out an Easier Way to Pay it Off
Six-figure annual income. Dozens of high-profile clients. Paid speaking gigs. Trade media attention. When it comes to freelance writing, I’ve been a poster child for success. I often tell people that I’ve never held a real job, and it’s true; I’ve been slinging copy just like this post since the day I graduated college in 1997.
Money has never been a challenge for me. I’m not independently wealthy or anything. I just work my butt off. Generally speaking, I average about 55 articles of 300 words or more each month. Every year I pull in about 30 different 1099s.
Because the majority of my work is travel writing, I incur some pretty significant expenses. Most years, I’m able to manage that debt just fine. The year 2015, however, was a doozy.
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It’s not exactly the most fun thing to sit down and figure out whether the person you’re dating is on the same page as you financially—in fact, you could practically call it a buzzkill. But if you’re serious about one another, talking about credit scores, budgets, and debt is not something you should put off, because one money mistake can be all it takes to get you into serious and immediate financial trouble.
It’s hard enough to budget and track your own spending and saving habits, but when your dreams are shared and depend on the equal due diligence of another person, you have even less control over how quickly you get there. So you’ll want to find out sooner rather than later if you align on how you handle your money, before it potentially becomes an issue.
Here are five tips to help you determine whether you and your partner are a good “money match.”