Adventures In Getting Out Of Debt – Wild Hearts Homestead

Debt. Gross. Probably my biggest goal in life currently is to be able to buy some property and a home, of my own. It's been something I've always wanted, but not something I felt like I could always productively pursue, just due to the craziness of life. I'm not even going to get too much into the bs that is the housing market today, or how much harder it is to get a home now than it was just a short 20 years ago. My parents didn't know how good they had it. Our current rental house is okay. I'm looking forward to the spring when I can grow a limited amount of foodstuff. However, living in a rental can really cramp your style if you want to live a more self-reliant lifestyle. At the end of the day you're living on someone else's property, and they have the right to tell you that no, you can't turn the entire yard into a huge garden or get a gaggle of chickens. Oh well. My partner and I both have okay jobs and we don't have any kids. Unfortunately, despite what a lot of people might assume, that doesn't mean we're rolling in cash. Yet, at least. I am seriously, grossly in debt. There, I admitted it. I hate it. I hate not being able to save to achieve my dreams because I've instead got about a million and six debts I have to pay towards each month. Step One! I need to get out of debt. You know...so I can get a home loan and get into more debt...or something. Isn't life beautiful!? I've been thinking lately, what better way to motivate myself to work on my debt than to post all my personal financial information on the internet for everyone to see and shame me over? Let the public shaming begin... My current debt as of 2/6/2025 Student Loans: $27,229.77 CC1: (23.24%) $6,475.77 CC2: (27.24%) $6,214.70 CC3: (27.15%) $4,494.14 CC4: (24.49%) $3,552.63 CC5: (13.49%) $2,854.54 CC6: (25.24%) $2,471.27 CC7: (28.70%) $1,977.85 CC8: (32.99%) $1,523.23 CC9: (27.24%) $1,309.66 CC10: (35.99) $974.01 CC11: (27.15%) $250 Total CC Debt: $32,097.80 Credit Score: 555 TransUnion 557 Equifax Yes...CC stands for "credit card" meaning that I currently have 11 credit cards with outstanding balances, plus my student loans. This is just listing outstanding debts, and not boring regular things I pay every month such as rent and utility bills. Yeah, when it comes to finances, I kinda suck. So, How'd I Get Here? I don't really want to type out some big sob story about how I never really learned to manage money responsibly when I was a kid. I left home at 17, was pretty much broke, and got into the bad habit of overusing credit. So I'll just leave it at this...Bad habits got me into debt. A lot of the debt I accrued over the years has been paying for things like essentials (food, clothing, using credit to pay other bills), medical payments, and things I'd deem emergencies such as car repairs and trying to save my sick dog. Ya know, life stuff. But life stuff I ideally should have been able to pay outright rather than use credit for. I got into the bad habit (there's that phrase again) of using credit for things I needed and figuring I'd deal with the consequences later. Charging my cc for groceries felt less stressful than going hungry. But now it's later, hello consequences, and I'm over $30,000 in debt. So What Am I Going To Do About It? I recently took on a second job. So I'm currently working two jobs, fitting in some side gigs here and there when I can, plus hustling to try to make a bit of extra money across the various websites I run. I'm lucky in that I live with my partner, so I have someone to split essential bills, such as rent and utilities, with. For now, almost all my extra money, what I don't need for essentials for myself, my partner, and my animals, will be getting thrown at my debt. I don't have a definitive number as to how much that will be as the nature of some of my income sources is that the amount I get varies month to month. But I'll do as much as I can. Staying Accountable I'm not sure how often I'll update here because I don't know how fast I'll be making any significant progress, and I don't know how interested in these types of posts anyone will be. My thinking right now is that I'll update every 6 months, but that's subject to change in the future. So see you in...July/August I suppose. Hopefully by then I'll be at least a little bit less burdened by debt! I've unfortunately been dealing with content scraping websites stealing my content without my permission. You shouldn't be seeing this post on any website besides wildheartshomestead.com! If you're reading this on any other site, please consider visiting me over on my official site and contacting me to let me know. Thanks so much!