Kicking debt's ass, one minimum payment at a time

Nearly everyone I know in their mid to late twenties has an enormous amount of debt - credit card, student loan, medical or all the above. When you're in college, you kind of assume (mistakenly) that once you graduate, you'll magically find a full-time job doing something you like and be able to afford to pay off all the debt you've accrued getting an education. If you are in your early twenties and still think this way...you may hereby consider your bubble burst.

As you know, the Saturn return is all about changing behaviors and habits that aren't working for you. As much as I'd like to believe that money and emotions are mutually exclusive, they're not. Just like food or sex, how you handle money does reflect on your emotions and your psychology. If you're constantly spending money on crap you don't need,  it's probably not just recklessness. There's probably some root problem, and making more money or sheer willpower will not fix it. You have to change how you see and value money in order to change your behavior.

(By the way, can you tell I've been reading a lot of Suze Orman? I usually think Oprah's resident "experts" are pretty full of shit, but I like Suze's approach to money in relation to the rest of one's life. And I don't really buy everything she says, just the basic philosophy of respecting yourself by taking control of your money. So bear with me...)

One bad habit I have is using credit cards. I got my first credit card at age 22, right as I was thinking about leaving my boyfriend. I didn't have any place to go or any way to pay for things on my own (a stupid situation to get yourself into at any age, I might add) so I stayed unhappily put. I was still in school and working three part-time jobs, and didn't have any savings. Using my new credit card allowed me to find and furnish my own apartment and move out of my boyfriend's house without having to ask anyone (unless you count Visa) for help. I thought using the credit card to move out on my own proved that I was in control, when in fact it was a desperate act done because I was out of control. I had had let my life and my finances get out of hand. Instead of asking my parents for help, staying with a friend or saving like crazy, I decided it would be easier to let the ol' credit card take care of my problems.

Well, it seemed to work that first time and the rest is history. I'm pretty responsible and I'm actually quite cheap about most things, so it took a few years and a few too many interest rate increases (stupid recession) for my credit balances to skyrocket to a point where I was having a little bit of trouble making even the minimum payments - at least on time. Even working two or three jobs at a time and making decent money, it was hard.

A few months ago (actually right when my SR started now that I think about it!) I bit the bullet and added up all my credit card debt. I knew I was - for lack of a better word - fucked. Pre-Saturn return, I probably would have solved this problem by opening another credit card, taking on an extra job I didn't have time for, or transferring balances. But I decided it was time to be a grown-up in the weirdest way possible. I was going to - for the first time in my life - ask someone for help. Actually, I was going to ask a complete stranger.

I knew I had to get to the root of the problem, which was my attitude toward money. I like to pretend it doesn't matter. I don't pay attention to it until there's a problem. The calculations in my head of what I could afford and what I make obviously weren't accurate and weren't adding up to me being able to afford to live. Being an avid Suze reader, I went to a counseling center that offers debt counseling among many other programs. I researched and knew this was a not-for-profit organization. I knew to stay away from skeezy debt consolidation programs. After meeting with a very nice debt counselor who made me take an honest look at what I was spending and making every month (I was making exactly $8 more per paycheck than I absolutely had to spend on necessities and it would take me about 30 years to repay my debt at the rate I was paying it), I decided to go on a debt management plan.

I'll let you read up on DMPs, but basically I will be paying the not-for-profit (I used Family Means in Minneapolis) an amount every month that is about 65 percent of what I was paying for just the minimum credit card payments each month. That amount includes a payment for each card that Family Means has negotiated with the creditors (at a reduced interest rate I couldn't get on my own) and a nominal fee for the organization. Oh, and it will take me four years to repay my debt, not 30.

There are a few drawbacks: I can't use my credit cards while on the DMP (actually not such a bad idea!) so I have to be extra careful with my money during this time. Some creditors won't work with DMPs (ahem, Dell) so I still have to pay those separately. Being on a DMP will show up on my credit rating while I'm on the program, however once everything's paid off, it will disappear and just look like I paid off those accounts. And being on a DMP looks better than paying late every month.

It will be a financial adventure...but I am looking forward to being forced to manage my money better, paying off debt and actually saving some money!

Eternal adolescence

This show is the reason I started this whole project in the first place.

My So-Called Life originally aired when I was 13, and since it's now streaming online (also on DVD) I've watched the entire series a few times through. Watching it at as a grown-up is a surreal experience, because not only do you remember what it's like to live through high school, but you realize firsthand that the parents are having just as hard of a time as the kids. So I, a grown woman, not only wept like a baby at the episode where Angela finds out Rayanne slept with Jordan Catalano, I also got a familiar, wish-I-didn't-know-how-it-felt knot in the pit of my stomach when Angela's mother, feeling excluded on vacation, gets wasted at dinner and makes a fool out of herself just to fit in.

No other show before or since then has so perfectly captured what it is like not just to be a teenager, but to be human. In my experience, Angela Chase feels how most people truly feel in the course of a day: conflicted, awkward, alone, smart, dumb, ugly, not-so-ugly, cool, uncool, depressed, elated, sincere, sarcastic.... We may think we grow out of this mindset but we don't. We just get better at hiding it, and if we are lucky we learn to accept, deal with and maybe even embrace it a little (also known as maturity).

One of my goals during my Saturn return is to be more mature. And by that I don't mean not watch Aqua Teen Hunger Force or buy a house, I mean better handle the natural fluctuations in everything. Weather the storms of life, if you will. For me, that means not taking it so hard when things don't go as I'd like them to, not letting anxiety stop me from doing things I want to do (or making me do things I don't), and saving my anger for things that I can somehow change by being angry about.

I supposed this means not yelling "Jesus fuck Christ almighty goddamn son of a fucking bitch I'm going to fucking kill somebody" - a direct quote - when I pinch my finger in the silverware drawer, which I just did.

This will be hard. Blerg.

Resources for birth charts

If you'd like to see what sign Saturn and the other planets were in when you were born, or figure out when your SR will be, there are a few places on the web that can help. It's interesting (although not exactly necessary) to get a full, detailed birth chart, but you'll need your city of birth and exact time of birth. I find a basic chart with location and approximate time of birth is fine for my purposes.

Some sites to try (all are free - don't pay for this stuff):

Astrolabe
Cafe Astrology
AstroMart
0800-horoscope

If you'd like to go more in depth into interpreting what your planetary positions suggest (notice I didn't say what they mean!), I'd recommend checking out a basic astrology book from the library. Don't get too complicated, or your head will explode. It's good just to get a really basic overview of what the planets and signs symbolize, and what the particular combinations in your chart suggest.

This is a site that describes attributes of the planets
And an overview of zodiac signs and their symbolism

Disclaimer: I'm not a new age freak, I promise

Say what you will about astrology, but whether you believe in it or not, the planets affect you. Even if you find the idea that the planets can determine your personality or life events to be absolute bullshit (actually, even astrologers will agree that such simplistic equations are bullshit), it doesn't change anything.

The planets are part of the universe and so are we. So is the ocean, animals, the ozone layer, the weather, the atmosphere, magnetic fields, energy - all of it. We can't pick and choose what parts of the universe affect our species or how they do it. We know and accept that sound waves, elevation, magnetism and ions physically and emotionally affect us - even though we can't necessarily see the effect. Whether we like it (or believe in it) or not, everything in the universe has some sort of effect on everything else. And this isn't some new age-y philosophy. It's physics.

The uncomfortable part for a lot of people comes when we try to interpret these effects (enter astrology and hundreds of other "new age" practices). Most people can or will only deal with the tangible areas of their life. That's fine, but I think it's wrong for them to absolutely deny the possibility that the intangible (at least to us) parts of the universe could have meaning.

For centuries, humans have not only ascribed human-centric characteristics to the stars and planets, but we've documented how we believe the stars and planets affect our life here on earth. I agree, it's a bit of a narcissistic practice for us to believe we are such a huge part of things. But do we have any proof otherwise?

Personally, I try to take an approach to astrology that I call "rational, yet open." I'm a very logical person, sometimes to a fault, so people are often surprised that I even care about astrology. I guess the best way to explain it is that I see it as a tool by which we can learn to improve ourselves and make our existence easier and more fulfilling. And I will take any opportunity to learn how to do that, whether it comes from somewhere intangible like Saturn or dreams, or somewhere tangible and more obvious like my own life experiences (or hell, even a TV show). We'd be stupid to ignore these lessons, wherever they come from. I don't take what the planets "say" at face value - it's always subject to interpretation and taken with a grain of salt. I view it as a starting point for self-improvement and a way to be somewhat prepared for what life might throw at me -just one chapter in my guidebook for navigating the world.

I don't think that because I am a Gemini I literally have two personalities or that Leos are always the center of attention. That would be dumb. But what's dumber, reading your horoscope and trying to learn some common-sense lesson from it, or wandering through life wondering why you're not getting anywhere when you're not even listening to what the rest of the universe is trying to tell you?