Married With Credit Cards

Ever feel like no matter what you try, you end up even more buried in debt? So did this couple – until they took charge.

- Brendan Greeley

Here’s what finally did it: we needed a car, any car. Some friends had a teenage hatchback and said they’d offload it for a discount, R65 000. We – my wife, Beth, and I – didn’t have that much cash, so we got a R65 000 car loan. At 9% interest. It was an embarrassing plan, and we knew it. But it was better than plan A: a single-speed bike I’d dug out of the garage. We both had jobs – my wife is a physician, even. Still, we didn’t have one hatchback’s worth of liquid savings, and we owed so much in consumer debt that new credit had become expensive. But it was a small victory for my wife. She’d been insisting that we join a discussion on budgeting at a Methodist church near where we live. We are not Methodists. We’re not even particularly religious. But that car loan removed any doubt: Beth and I needed a come to-Jesus moment. We were bad with money.

Parish houses are the same everywhere: floral curtains, institutional furniture. Reluctant husbands are the same everywhere too: folded arms, tight smile. I didn’t need anyone to tell me about money, because I write about economics and finance for a living. I talk to Nobel Prize winners, cabinet secretaries, Reserve Bank presidents. And I knew what the problem was: ice-skating lessons. We have four kids, skating is expensive, and I loathe waiting around at the rink. No more skating, debt solved. It didn’t take a group discussion to figure this out.