Mary Hunt - Debt-Proof Your Christmas: Celebrating the Holidays without Breaking the Bank

It was my worst Christmas ever. Id been hiding bills from my husband so we would have money for Christmas shopping, but it wasnt enough. It never was.

Every credit card in my vast collection was maxed to the limit. Back then going over limit was not allowed. If you tried, the card would be rejected at the cash register. There are few things more humiliating than the dreaded words, Youll need to go to the credit office.

With only seven days to go until the big day, I was desperate. Still to come were parties, school events, church pageants, and musicals. The pressure of the season was taking its toll. The stress was nearly unbearable.

I did the only thing I could do: I called the department stores whose cards I had and begged for a credit limit increase. One high-end store agreed. That determined my course of action. I would have to Christmas shop in a big chichi store that specialized in clothing.

The store directory assured me it had toys and electronics too. But just try to find them. When I did find toys and electronics, the selections were limited and the prices outlandish. But by then I didnt care what the price tags read. There was so little time left, and I was determined to mark the last names off my list and just get this shopping thing finished.

Before I go on, you need to know this was quite a few years ago when VCRs (videocassette recorders) were fairly new technology and quite the buzz. I purchased a VCR from that department store for my husband. It cost more than six hundred dollarsabout double what they were going for at the time in discount electronics stores. But what were my other choices? My only available credit was at this one department store.

I tore through that increased credit limit in no time flat. I bought toys and clothes and of course the pricey VCR. The kids werent impressed; neither was my husband. He couldnt quite understand my choice of gifts because we already had a VCR. Not a very good one, I pointed out.

I dont remember much else from that miserable Christmas. If there was any joy or satisfaction, it was lost in the shadow of the frantic last-minute shopping and all the debt I added to an already out-of-control situation. Of course, the regular bills couldnt hide forever, and their reappearance in the New Year did not endear me to my husband. Add to them the bills for all that Christmas shopping and youll have a small idea of the angst and disharmony in the Hunt household.

Im certain we paid for that VCR at least three times by the time we finally got out of debt many years later. The debt lasted far longer than the machine, which has long since gone to the big electronic graveyard in the sky. But it remains for me an important symbol of what not to do.

After that low point of my life, I made a U-turn on the road to financial devastation. It took nearly thirteen years to repay all the horrible debt I had amassed (a story for another day), but the important thing is that we did it. We paid back a six-figure load of unsecured debt, and in the process, it changed our lives.

If theres one thing I learned from that Christmas so many years ago, it is this: Stuff quickly fades, but debt goes on and on.