Starting Over

After spending three years in Chicago I was completely out of debt. The way I did that was to let all of my credit cards, on which I had run the business, go into collection. At that point the interest stopped. I do not believe that they stop the interest any more, but it is worth checking on if you are thinking of doing something like this. I next wrote each of them a letter telling them how much my minimum payment would be. I had no checking account or savings account so when I wrote this letter, I included a money order of the amount I stated I would pay each month. By cashing the money order they agreed to the terms of my letter. I set these payments low so that I would be sure of being able to make them. I then took the smallest of the bills and paid as much as I could on it. A couple of the companies tried to raise my payment when I paid them more than the minimum I had stated. I merely sent them a letter stating that they had agreed to the lower amount and if I sent more it was because I could. After paying off the lowest bill I started on the next one up the ladder. My child support was a little different, the court had set the amount. My ex had agreed to wait when I was totally unemployed, (what choice did she really have) so when I started paying again, I paid one and one-half times the court set amount. As my youngest child had bee 15 when the divorce took place, I only had a couple of years to pay. Just shortly after that one turned 18 I had caught up and finished my obligation. As I stated, in three years of working steady in Chicago, I was totally debt free. That is when I went and did something stupid, I got married again. Not that getting married is stupid, I am presently married to my third wife and very happy. My problem was that I married a Chicago woman that was about as untruthful as it is possible to be. She said whatever she thought I wanted to hear and lied when the truth would have sounded better. My marriage to that woman was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I told her I was a survivalist, that I was going to live a survivalist life, that I hoped to return to Wisconsin, that I would be spending a lot of time in the wood and on the water and that I wanted to go into business by starting a survival newsletter. I also told her that I wanted to become a writer. I had just had a couple of articles published by an area outdoor magazine and I wanted to pursue my writing. Before we were married she told me that she thought all of that was great, that she thought that type of a lifestyle would be wonderful. That was before, her tune changed after. Even though I was writing a couple of articles a month, had started a novel and was doing an 8 page newsletter each month, she also expected me to work full time. I would do so until the stress of the 100 hour weeks would catch up with me and then I would quit my job. I would catch up on the business end of my life and by that time I would have to get another job to get her off my back. During all this time I made all of the house payments and kept up with my share of the bills, most of which she had made and she could make them in a hurry. More starting over next post.