Hey, it's Louis.

Debt... gross.

Let's face it, brother, talking about it ranks right up there with sitting through the Best of Bulgarian post-funk house music at full volume while someone waxes your chin. Nobody wants to do it. Everybody needs to.

👀 In Today's Stash

🌳 The Shade

You've been meaning to look at that credit card statement. Not today though. Today's way too busy. Besides, nothing's been declined and they took the minimum payment. Lights are still on.

Definitely fine. Maybe fine. Almost probably... fine?

Grab some shade for a minute and let's get into it.

🌰 The Nut

Well, it's time to tackle the big D.

Not that D, you perv. Debt. That D.

Take a look at that word for a second. Let it marinate. Four letters and nowhere near as fun as some of the other four-letter words. Just the word itself is good at conjuring up feelings. Anger. Fear. Confusion. And my personal favorite... "Holy shit, where did that all come from?"

There's an interesting feeling for ya. I've felt it a few times in my life. I can say without hesitation that each time, it sucked.

A few years back my wife and I had about $10,000 in student loan debt sitting around minding its own business. I fell below the minimum credit hours for the semester. One line in the fine print I didn't know existed kicked into high gear.

Didn't do a damn thing except fall one credit hour short of a number buried somewhere in page 36,452, paragraph 9, subsection 3 of a document nobody reads.

Three months later we had $600 in interest we didn't have before.

$600. IN THREE MONTHS!!!

That was the moment. We looked at each other and said... "Ah hell nah." And then we went to work paying off that student loan. Then we went after the credit cards. We had more than a few and when you've got that many you start losing count, which is kind of the whole problem isn't it.

Because that's what debt does. It's a sneaky little shit. It doesn't show up and knock on your door. It sneaks in through the back window and the next thing you know, your liquor cabinet's empty and your dog's knocked up.

One subscription here. One subscription there. This thing is looking a little old and raggedy, so we'll just buy a new one and put it on the card. It's only $88 a month. I can afford the minimum payment, so we're fine.

Except you're not fine.

Back in our heyday, my wife and I were really, really good at building debt. The credit card companies loved us. I'm pretty sure that several sales associates were able to send their kids to college on the commissions we generated. We were a two-person economic stimulus package... just not for ourselves.

The disturbing part? We pretended like we had no idea. But somewhere in the back of our heads, a small voice going "hey dumbass, you're spending more than you're making."

But it didn't feel like it and that's the other trick those sneaky shits got going.

It's not like Freaky Fridays at Mistress Maggie's House of Bikini Tightening. You're not watching your money leave your hand and go into somebody else's.

You're tapping a piece of plastic to a little screen and walking out with your thing. Tap. Beep. Done.

Money used to hurt to spend. Now it's a magic trick where you can't figure out where the rabbit is going.

And the credit card minimum payment is maybe the sneakiest turd of them all.

As long as you're under your limit and you're making the minimum, it feels like you're handling it.

What you don't see is how much of that payment is just... interest.

Money you're handing the credit card company every single month that does absolutely nothing for you.

A hundred bucks a month in credit card interest is a hundred bucks that isn't going into your retirement account. It's not building anything for you. That money is gone. A tax you pay for the privilege of carrying the debt.

For some reason I feel dirty now. I'm gonna go shower.

🐿️ The Step

So here's what I want you to do, my brother. We are not fixing anything yet and we're not panicking. Just looking.

Pull up all of your credit card statements. Look at the balances and look at the interest charges. Look at the subscriptions quietly draining money out of your account every month. Often for services you forgot you had.

Add them up.

Let yourself have the "holy shit, where did that all come from" moment.

Because that moment... that's where it starts. That's an honest look in the mirror. And once you've had it, you can't un-have it.

Next time we're going to talk about what we actually do about it. But you can't fight what you can't see.

Until the next Stash, protect your nuts brother.

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