Women and Money
"Hello, my name is Jean, and I'm a Shopaholic"
My life-or-death wardrobe
I wasn't always a fanatic about fashion.
In fact, until I turned 14 and entered junior high school, I was a tomboy with no
interest at all in clothes. But then my mother, divorced and wanting the best for
me, sent me to private school, where rich kids ruled. Acceptance rested on how well-dressed
you were. I simply couldn't keep up with the others because my mother, on her letter
carrier's salary, had trouble just making tuition payments. A world-class shopper
herself, she was playing the credit-card game. She owed a lot. It was very frustrating
to wait for a special occasion to get the Gloria Vanderbilt shirt I thought would
gain me a best friend. I remember getting a coveted pair of Calvin Klein jeans;
then I pestered my mom to buy me a $30 shirt cut short enough to let the Calvin
Klein label show. I just didn't feel important or good unless I sported those name
brands on my back. Whatever my mom did manage, it was never enough. I got adept
at skipping school because I felt so awkward in the not-exactly-perfect clothes
I sometimes had to wear. I didn't know how to find anything else to make me feel
worthy.
By the time I married at 22, I --like Mom--was an
Olympic shopper. When I was tense, shopping would relax me. When I was happy, buying
made me feel even better. My closet is filled with things I've never worn--the excitement
was in the acquiring, not in the having.
When my son Stefan, seven, began school, I started
working part-time to afford my habit. I'd stop in the stores three or four times
a week on my way home from the office. Sometimes after dinner, while Stefan and
his sister, Alexandra, 12, were doing homework, I'd run out to Macy's to get my
shopping fix. On the weekends I often managed a quick trip or two.
I became a credit-card junkie. I had two Visa cards
and one MasterCard -- a total of $15,000 in credit. As the amount I owed crept up,
I's struggle to keep up the minimum payments. My husband, Jesus, knew I spent a
lot, but he didn't know how bad it was because I took care of the bills.
About two and a half years ago, though, I hit bottom.
I maxed out on all the cards. I owed over $15,000. It got so bad creditors were
calling the house.
Busted! The truth is out
Finally I broke down and told my husband
about one card, a $5,000 Visa debt. He used what he'd saved up on his cop's salary
to pay it off. I'll never forget what happened next: He paid it at the time Burdine's
had is big sales. By the end of the month, I'd pushed that card right back up to
the limit.
Then my husband happened to see the new bill. He
was livid. "I'm trying to pick up extra hours to handle your spending," he said,
"but it never stops. When I paid off the Visa card, I thought I had one less headache
to worry about. And now this." The more I tried to explain how I was actually saving
money because I needed those clothes, and they were on sale, the angrier he got.
So I got mad too. "How come you don't make more money?" I raged. "You're supposed
to take care of our needs. I'm doing my best." It was not my proudest moment, and
it was many long months before I saw the flaws in my logic. Things between us got
frosty. We were close to divorce.
My husband's credit was still pretty good, so we
decided to apply for a home-improvement loan--$25,000 to pay off the cards and fix
the roof. Now we just had to make one payment a month to the loan company.
But we made one big mistake. We kept our credit
cards. And I started building them up again. After six months, the day came when
I wanted to charge a marvelous white linen blazer and I realized my credit-card
spending limit was again over-the-top on all three cards--another $15,000. And that
was in addition to the home-improvement loan.
My husband had no idea I'd started charging on the
cards again. I'd fallen behind on all our bills and, in an effort to catch up, I
was trying to cover my tracks as much as I could. That meant I had to siphon money
from one bill to pay another. That also meant that I was only making partial payments
on our house mortgage. And then came Armageddon.
The mortgage company wrote us an urgent letter saying
how far behind in our payments we were getting. My husband happened to open that
letter.
"What's going on?" he asked. I didn't have an answer
for him.
"Thank God, at least the credit cards are paid off,"
he said. "I'll be able to take a cash advance from one to bring our mortgage payments
up to date".
