Hey friends!I was sitting here crafting a new post explaining how I got out of debt when it dawned on me that I haven't really shared on the blog how I got into it. Luckily, I shared my story in detail last year with Patricia of AfroElle Magazine for their Anniversary Issue. You'll have to check out the magazine to read my full interview (including lessons learned and advice I'd give to other young women), but as a precursor to my future post about how I got out of debt, here's an excerpt of my financial story:

How it All Started

The almost-destruction of my financial life began right around the time I almost destroyed my college career. When I first enrolled in school, I was brought into my university on a full-ride scholarship to study Chemical Engineering. All went well my freshman year, but by my sophomore year, I had been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug and I was convinced that in order to "make it," I had to throw formal schooling to the wind and go after my dreams Mark Zuckerberg-style. To this day, I have a real issue with our society heralding dropping out of college as the only way to be successful in business, but I digress. In short, I all but quit going to class in favor of attending business events around the city and meeting with other wanna-be entrepreneurs (i.e. other students who should have taken their butts to class).

Needless to say, by the end of my sophomore year, I lost my scholarship and gained a rapidly tanking GPA. School loans were the only hope I had in continuing my education but much to my dismay, I couldn't apply for one because I had no established credit. My solution? I applied for a credit card.

My first card had a $500 limit or something low like that. Common sense would have told me to use it responsibly and pay it off every month, but of course I was too hard-headed to do that. It wasn't long before my first credit card turned into three, with all of them maxed out. By the time I was 20, I was in debt to the tune of $4,500 and had no way to repay it.

The Wake-up Call

My wake-up call to get my financial life together came one dreary October in the administration building of my school. In utter disbelief that yes, this was in fact my life, I meet with counselors that morning to finalize my withdrawal from school. My scholarship was gone, the student loans had run out and I was standing at a dead end. The only hope I had at that point in life was to take a waitressing job, work to pay off the remaining $3,000 in tuition I still owed the university, and try to rebuild my life.

While working that waitressing job, I completely busted my butt to try to get things back on track. By the sheer grace of God, I was able to transfer to a cheaper university on the other side of town just in time for the spring semester. Given a new opportunity, I was completely determined to do things right this time. Not only did I want to make stellar grades so that I could apply for new scholarships, but I wanted to pay off all of my credit card debt by the time I graduated. As recent grad, I am proud to say I did both—I departed school with magna cum laude on my transcript and a $0 balance on my credit card statement.

How I Got Out of Debt

I give a high-level view of the things I did to get out of debt in the rest of the interview, so you can read all about it in the Anniversary issue of Afro-Elle Magazine here.Next week, I will share in detailthe step I used to get out of debt. So stay tuned!

***

Talk to Me:

Can you relate to my story? Have you ever messed up financially or otherwise? How did you fix your mistake? I'm interested to hear YOUR story.