Over the last few months I have gotten to know Patrick Gesselman from the ChristianPF Message Boards. He is a moderator and always has something interesting to say! Patrick has been only been on the journey to clean up his finances less than 2 years, but because of his tremendous progress he was recently interviewed by Chuck Bentley of Crown.Org.
Patrick’s story
Patrick did the hard and difficult things that he needed to do – it is easy to read all about how to manage money, but actually taking the steps to do it is another story.
He and his wife Heather were digging themselves into deep debt with credit cards and decided to roll all their debt into a home equity loan. Just like many others, after they consolidated their debt, things got worse. They had put a Band Aid on the symptom (the debt), but didn’t properly address the root of the problem (their spending habits). As a result they just dug themselves into deeper debt by racking up another $25,000 in credit card debt.
- At this point they knew they needed help, but didn’t know where to start.
- He started immersing himself in the subject he was trying to learn.
- He talked to his wife and they tackled the problem in unity.
- They locked up their credit cards and made it very difficult to use them. They stopped carrying them in their wallets.
- They used a virtual envelope budgeting system similar to my ING budgeting method.
- They sold their house and began renting which allowed them to pay off their credit card debt a lot quicker.
They fought for it!
What I love about his story is that Patrick and his wife didn’t just want to get out of debt, they took action. And to that action they applied Gazelle Intensity!! They sold their house and started renting – how much more intense does it get? But from all the people I talk to about getting out of debt, or really reaching any challenging goal, I see that it doesn’t happen by accident. People who pay off $20,000 of debt or lose 50 pounds do it because they want it SO bad and they make big sacrifices to get it.
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Thanks! This was a useful post.
These are the stories you love! Congrats to Patrick and his wife! I quickly picked up two things… One, they did it together. Without spousal approval and comittment, things wont get far. After all, Husband and Wife are to be one. Two, they got the right mindset, took action and so far have stuck with it.
They have to be budgeting and probably are using some type of system to acheive the month in and month out savings and/or debt reduction. Our family uses the allowance system (www.theallowancesystem.com). It helped us stay focused, disciplined and got us completely debt free!
Thanks for the encouraging story! It’s not often you see people actually making those huge sacrfices to get themselves out of debt like that. It seems that many don’t realize these sacrfices don’t have to be forever, but short term pain will lead to long term gain.
I would also add that it’s not just intensity and drive that helps people get out of debt and improve their financial situation, but it’s also a surrendering of your money to the Lord and allowing His grace to change you from the inside out when it comes to our bad money habits in addition to working really hard at it yourself too.
@Jason
Agreed – I should have mentioned that a little more on this post – in the Gazelle Intensity post I was referring to – I talked about how Jesus’ attention was caught by people who were intense in their seeking for an answer. So, you are right, the intensity shouldn’t be just to try to do it all ourselves, but also an intense seeking of God’s wisdom and help on the situation….