I have stupid credit card debt

And now I'm doing a No Buy Year

Hi my name is Amanda and I have stupid credit card debt and am doing a No Buy Year.

When I say stupid credit card debt I am not saying credit card debt itself is stupid. There are many reasons why someone might have credit card debt out of necessity like surprise medical costs, car problems, cost of living going up, etc. MINE in particular is stupid.

And I only have consumer debt! I have no student loans and my car has been paid off since 2023. I do not use Afterpay or Klarna. I just have stupid dumb lame credit card debt because I am an impulsive spender, like expensive shit, and lost sight of my goals.

So how did this happen even though I am a "high earner"? I probably could classify as a HENRY, or High Earner Not Rich Yet, but my brain always assigns that to corporate or finance employees and not a social media creator like me.

Why I am so hard on myself and clear that this is stupid debt is because I truly am dumb for letting it get to this point especially since I was SO RESPONSIBLE AT THE START OF THIS JOB. I still am responsible job wise( you kinda have to be when you are self employed) just not with how comfortable I got with using credit cards. My channel took off in February of 2020, and at the time I was working as a barista making about $15,000 a year before tips. Then suddenly there was a lockdown and my channel was making good money and I was drifting to burnout AND people in Orange County were awful during lockdown so I left the coffeeshop in August of that year. In the time between Youtube taking off and me leaving my job is when I got my first credit card ever as a 22-year-old because I knew I needed to build credit if I wanted to get my own place.

That year from Youtube I ended making $68,000. Obviously that’s quite the jump in income.

And I was so good! I kept my costs down and kept on living with my dad till 2021 where I didn't have to pay rent aside from a few utilities. I got a little too comfortable using food delivery apps but hey we were in a pandemic. I also got familiar with the Nordstrom Rack clearance section but I completely kept things reasonable as someone who suddenly had disposable income. Stayed in the sale and clearance section strictly. I stuffed my savings and investment accounts. Kept my card balance low, only really for gas, and paid it off regularly. My credit score at the time was about 770 give or take 10 points.

Moving out was not nearly that big of a drain on my resources as I had expected. I found a good pandemic rate apartment and so when Youtube took a downturn in 2021 it wasn't nearly that big of a deal because I had kept my average spend low. Opened another two cards in this time and a Bilt card because my apartment started having us pay our rent through Bilt.

But then travel restrictions started getting lifted.

You need to remember here I was still self employed. I should have set up my S-Corp but I didn't. I was buying video products to review, flights, supplies, hotels, all on my own cards. Got my final card sometime around 2022 for the airline miles. Still paying off my cards because the channel picked back up but my average balance was definitely higher than it had been.

Then there was also my personal spend on these cards. I had a lot of anxiety based money hangups from growing up low income that I just never truly dealt with but told myself I already had because I was being "responsible" for a time. Buying multiple of things when money was good so I had it when money was bad for one. Impulsive spending because If I liked something I got it with limited thought because “well young broke me would have loved to buy this if she could”. It’s on sale so it must be a deal I should get it! I also had/have this thing when I go to events to review them where if I am not part of that subculture but I am about to profit off of that subculture I would always buy something from vendors or artists to make sure I was giving back. If an artist recognized me at an event (lots of artists in my audience as a yap creator) I would buy something because I was convinced I was an asshole if I didn't. All of this would be personal spend and it still continued after my business spending was separated.

Halfway through 2023 is when we got my S-corp set up and I opened my business bank account and credit card.

The main problem is I did not pay all my cards to zero at this time and I did not adjust my standard spending. I was still acting as if all of the money made from my content via adsense, sponsors, merch, patreon, etc was all coming straight to my own account. And I like expensive shit. I also had to move from my old apartment in September of 2023 because of safety concerns and I moved into a more expensive apartment. So my average spend went up.

I started pulling from my high interest savings account to pay down my cards in batches when my paycheck wasn’t cutting it on paying my cards and told myself it was fine despite the fact that I would then go and use the cards again the next day. I never touched my investment accounts thank god I didn’t completely lose my mind. I would still use my credit cards for all daily spending even though I had some money in my bank account because I wouldn't want to see that number go down. Stupid. I should note my income (from myself) would still classify me as a high earner and would handily cover my expenses and extra fun money BUT I am a dumbass who never adjusted to fit my auxiliary spending into that income. Because again I was a dumbass.

For a year and half.

In December I acknowledged how bad the problem had gotten after I made the final payment for a cruise I am going on for my friend's wedding. Before you recommend it, no, I am not canceling the cruise. I have already committed to be my friends Maid of Honor and paid the balance in full. It's done and I will send you a postcard. I will have a good time on the ocean while working and celebrating their nuptials. I also got denied for the new Bilt card as they switched to Wells Fargo (ew also they fucked my limited finances when I was 18) because of either my shitty credit score or my high balance on my cards (at the time about 80%).

After Christmas I got the flu pretty bad. May have been norovirus but I never felt well enough to drive myself to the doctors to get checked so who knows. I spent New Years Eve on my couch with my dog.

I had been hearing about No Buy and Low Buy years off and on all of 2024. I figured it was a logical next step in the seemingly never ending trends that surrounded consumerism that perpetually circulated on TikTok. Many do it because they believe they have a shopping addiction or they have a sizable amount of credit card debt like me. In the 24 hours of New Years Eve to New Years Day I decided that a No Buy Year was the most logical thing for me to do. I clearly have an issue with extra and impulse spending, so let’s just make it so that I can’t do that anymore. 2025 is my No Buy Year. I think this was the best for me to do it impulsively this way so I didn’t allow myself any prep spending time. Just stopped extra spending cold turkey.

I would have written this back in January but I wanted to see if I could do one month of this first. I also had to handle closing out and paying off the Bilt card. Which I did! $3700 paid off and closed out! I will probably make a full post about my experience with Bilt because I have thoughts and annoyances that have little to do with the amount. But even through the LA wildfires and having to evacuate from the Eaton Fire, I did not break my No Buy. It’s actually been surprisingly easy to adjust which further confirms my suspicions to myself that I do not have a shopping addiction because I feel I would have gotten the withdrawal period I’ve seen people talk about. My average spend went from $1700 a week to about $44. I’ll do another post detailing all my rules for my No Buy so you know what I’m working with.

As far as how I’m paying off my credit card debt I am trying to still decide between the Snowball or the Avalanche method. The Snowball method is where you take your smallest debt and attack it while still paying the minimums on your other debts. When you pay that off you move to the next lowest one, but apparently this is good for a lot of people in debt because you get a wins early which can help with motivation. The Avalanche method is the same process except you go based off your highest interest debt first. For either method for now the card in question is the same so it doesn't matter. I will reevaluate once I am finished paying off this first card.

Card #1 balance: $6,725.71

APR: 31.74%

Card #2 balance: $12,335.57

APR: 29.99%

Card #3 balance: $8,677.10

APR: 27.24%

Card #4 balance: $7,907.87

APR: 25.24%

Card #5 (Karat) charge card. Automatically paid off in full on the first of every month. Still has credit reporting. Used only for gas and groceries till I get my budget better sorted. Then will no longer use.

Card #6 (Bilt): closed $0

Current total: $35,646.25