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Friday, September 28, 2007

The beginning of a mental health epic



It was only a week and a half later that he stopped by on his way home from work and “picked up” a $7000 four-wheeler (ATV) (on credit, of course).


I got really scared and decided to use his SS# to look up his credit report. What I learned wasn’t pretty.

In addition to the Best Buy credit card with the laptop and the camera on it, and the four-wheeler, he had a credit card I didn’t know about, maxed out. He also had maxed out his overdraft protection on his checking account, and used his paid off truck for collateral for another loan. All in all, in the span of about a month’s time, his debt had gone from $0 to $35,000!! I did some math based on what I knew and what I got from the credit report, and figured out that if he made the minimum payments on everything, he would have to come up with $800/month. NO WAY could he do that and still help pay the mortgage, etc….I wasn’t sure how to bring this up to him, because I still felt like I was being sneaky by running his credit report like that. (Never mind that he was being sneaky with all that debt, that never occurred to me until later!) So I gave myself time to cool off, figuring I’d bring it up on the weekend or something.

Two days later, with $35,000 in debt, he quit his job.

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