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This weekend, I made the final two payments to the “old” credit cards that I’d opened over the last 15/16 years, had since closed, and been paying off. Not directly, but it all started back in 1993, when I started college, and opened up my first card to cover some of my books, et al, expenses. I had been working in a law firm at the time quite a few hours, doing some work study on-campus, and taking classes. While student loans and some grants paid for the bulk of tuition, there was always a couple grand a year that didn’t get covered – and either got charged, got partially paid and charged, or was paid off – all depending on what I wasn’t spending on my car payments, insurance, or having a social life and commuting.

Getting into “that habit” of charging things over the years definitely puts you in a spot. It’s funny to think about how much available credit I was able to create and rack up during that time. There were points where I would fluctuate pretty well over the summer, catching me up, but by the time I had some major car repairs, went on a few vacations over the summer months, or started to see my grants dwindle and the cash due to the bursar’s office increase that it most certainly got charged. Of course, getting out of college and feeling like I was afloat made the ability to charge stuff here or there for the next four or five years pretty easy. In the early 2000’s, I definitely started feeling the crunch after a few years of nice salary bumps flattened out as the economy changed a little bit, and 2002’s stock market fluctuations definitely changed how banks worked with people – not like today, but definitely an adjustment – almost four years ago, I made a move to really start paying more than the minimum balance(s) plus some of the interest to the cards that were now closed out.

It took a whole lotta work, some creative ways to have fun (spend time and money on things like wine and nice dinner at home vs. dining out, and so on), and some bummer pay periods when I had to follow the rules set up by a friend with the CPA background, where any card that gets to a certain threshold has to be paid in full, and taking the monies previously paid off to a card the prior month now being shifted to the other(s). It sucked quite a bit, and doesn’t mean I’m stoked with dollars – with some wedding savings going on, student loans and some other bills still around, but it was kind of strange to make those electronic payments (let’s equate hitting “send” on my banking site to “writing checks,” k?) and grasp the fact that I was, for all intents and purposes, done with the “past” monies that I’d spent.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m most certainly not advocating the non-use of credit cards. I’ll definitely do so, but will keep much better of an eye – or plan – on them, and unless I’m spending what I’ve got in the bank, or coming next paycheck, it’s probably not getting bought. A big part of that is having gotten used to – for two or three years now – a significant portion of my purchases coming off my check card, straight out of my bank account. Now, I can just contemplate getting some nice frequent flyer miles or something like that, instead of a headache.

Thanks to all of you who pushed and told me the best way to handle things and gave me some plans – down to the dollar – over the last few years. You know who you are.