Paying off bills makes me happy

Allison Brophy Champion / Culpeper Star Exponent
Published: May 23, 2007

I finally watched "The Pursuit of Happyness" with Will Smith last weekend and it got me thinking about the routes I've walked in search of contentment.

Like Chris Gardner, the real person on whom the movie is based, achieving financial freedom proved a long road for me. How did Thomas Jefferson know happiness was something to be chased- And does money make you happy-

No, it won't, but not having to worry about it all the time does allow one to pursue happiness elsewhere. Financial stability is good for my marriage.

Although I never had to sleep in a men's room in the subway or spend a night in a homeless shelter, I know the value of money. My awareness of what it takes to get some began in girlhood. I'll call that part of my life, "going collecting."

There were no allowances in my household growing up; we did chores and got jobs out of necessity. In the winter, there was snow shoveling and all year round, five days a week, my brothers and sisters and I delivered the Daily Journal. A two-week subscription was $2.60, and so twice a month we'd go out collecting.

The average tip was .40-cents, but a few customers would throw us $5 and tell us to keep the change. Oh the penny candy we would buy!

Then there were the customers who, week after week, were never home. We'd have already paid the bi-monthly bill to our circulation manager, Mr. T, and what was left belonged to the household. We always needed milk or bread, and sometimes we'd get a few dollars to spend at the local five-and-dime.

When times were especially tough, my older brother and I would go out collecting from customers who owed $10 or more. And man, if we could find them at home, we felt like we had hit the jackpot.

"Going collecting," we'd say, hopping on our bikes, hoping to come back with something.

Ten dollars was a lot in my house, but hey, we had a house, and we kids felt fine. There were no credit cards growing up, just our parents' checking account and whatever was in there was it - that and our collecting.

It taught me you can't spend what you don't have, and if you don't have it you can't buy what you want. And so I worked a series of other jobs through childhood - dog walking, sorting books in a used bookstore and ringing up groceries in a supermarket. That way, I could buy my Reeboks or cassette tapes and Hot Fries and contribute to the household.

The thing is, no one ever taught me about good and bad credit, credit scores or high interest rates and the like. I went off to college fiscally ignorant, jumping at any opportunity for "easy money."

I got my first Visa card at age 18.
I'll call this part of my life, "Learning the hard way." It was during my first week on campus that a credit card solicitor approached me about a pre-approved line of credit: $800, no questions asked.

Wow! $800! That's a lot of money, I thought (if I only knew). A combination of grants, loans, on-campus jobs and scholarships allowed me to attend college in the first place, and at the end of the day, there was very little left for well, fun.

My parents still had six children at home and didn't have any extra cash for me. Besides the occasional $20 or so my nana from the Eastern Shore would send, I had no disposal income.
"Sign me up," I told the credit card lady, and she did, happily.

Now I could go to the movies with my new friends or eat out and take weekend adventures. However, I was completely unaware of the, oh, 18.5 percent interest rate on my monthly bill, and could only ever pay the minimum balance, if that.

Penalties and financing fees stared to accumulate, and I wouldn't pay off that first credit card - $800 limit - until five years after college. By that time, I figured it out, I had paid nearly triple the original amount.

It would take me more than five years to pay off a second, higher credit-line card, and when I finally did, I vowed, no more credit cards.

Still don't have one to this day. Debit, yes, credit they can keep. The not-so-funny thing about the whole experience was the constant calls from collection agencies, demanding the money, the balance always increasing.

I was really on my own by this point - rent, utility bills, car insurance, student loans etc. - and didn't always have enough to pay off those vulture-like creditors from college. But when I did, isn't it funny (not!) that I had to call repeatedly and basically beg them to send me a statement indicating that I owed no more.

By now, I knew about credit scores and wanted proof of my payment, a seemingly simple process that spanned several months. If only my student loan was just $800.

Paying that off would prove much more difficult - imagine that. This final section of the road I traveled toward financial freedom I'll call, "Getting the man's foot off my neck."

My usually regular monthly payments to the U.S. Department of Education spanned nearly a decade, and yet, for some reason, the principal balance never substantially lessened. Oh, interest, that's right.

At this point, I've been married a couple years and my finances are now merged with my husband's. He has good credit.

I've realized steady, if meager, pay raises at work, and even started investing in my company's 401K plan - hey, free money. (Oprah's experts say it's the number one money thing you should do this year).

My husband makes pretty good money and together we have several accounts in a bank with branches in Orange and Gordonsville, but not in Culpeper. (Guess the bank).

We've both done our banking here for years, and needed some professional advice about retirement planning, debt consolidation, etc. - the basics. So we made an appointment with a banker at this bank on a Friday afternoon during business hours.

We both left work early to make the appointment in Orange (time is money), but surprisingly (or not) the guy wasn't there. Never showed up. Never called to cancel. Never called to apologize.

Nothing. Wow - guess we didn't have enough money in our accounts. Guess we weren't worth his time. Whatever.

Though we still do our banking at this particular "institution," we figured out the retirement planning piece on our own (it can be done) and went through another bank for the home equity, debt consolidation.

As of last week, I don't owe anything to the U.S. Department of Education - hey, thanks for the education. I'm investing my hard-earned money in real estate and finally feel like there's no ruthless corporation somewhere trying to keep me down.

Now, I can pursue other things that make me happy and have more money doing it. Man, I feel lighter.

Allison Brophy Champion can be reached at 825-0771 ext. 101 or