This is just a personal milestone update; nothing to do with gaming, community management, etc, etc. And, for the most part, I’m writing this for myself and something to look back on in the years to come.
March 16th was the first day in a long… long time since I was almost debt-free. I say almost because I still have the mortgage on the house but that is within 5 years of being paid off. So hopefully in five years or less, I’ll be making an update to this where I am completely debt-free.
It has taken a long time to get here and, if I’m being honest, it’s probably been since my early years when I was serving in the Marine Corps that I was last debt-free. And it has definitely been a hot minute since I last even fit in my cammies much less my Dress Blues. While we all have expenses we deal with in life, the reason it has taken me this long more has to do with financial decisions I made in the past. If I had a time machine or could send my earlier self some pro-tips, I would hope not to make those decisions again; and by that, I do mean better ones. A lot of that had to do with other decisions I made that also impacted me financially.
Luckily, I feel like I’ve learned a lot of great lessons and also instilled much of that into Katryna, and her mother has had a big part in that, as well. She’s honestly in a much better place in her life (to include financially) than I was at her age. Back in the day, though, I fear I took on the cavalier attitude that debt didn’t really matter, to include the interest rate on it. Why would it matter when I could just quickly pay it off? Of course, things then happen where you can’t pay it off and you’re instead making the minimum payments which hardly do more than pay off the interest fees (if even that). And then things started to happen such as going through a divorce (and the after-effects of that) and doing your best to support Katryna and to give her a better life than I did growing up. Including being there physically but also financially to chase after her dreams and passions.
To be clear, since I joined the Marines, I never had a moment where I really worried about having a roof over my head or food on the table. I learned some lessons really young where I always felt like I could cope and have something in reserve for emergencies. To the point where, when UTV was shut down, I could take my time to look for a position and even had the time to carefully consider various offers such as the one from 38 Studios, which was really hard to turn down considering I didn’t heave the hindsight we all have now of what happened at that studio, and Spiceworks, where I have now been for 10 years.
But, shortly after we formed Stray Bullet Games in 2006, I’ve had debt that grew over time and wasn’t until March 15th of this year that it was fully paid off. Granted, what I paid off a few weeks ago wasn’t the same debt. The original debt was probably paid of years and years ago; it was the interest fees and the other things that compounded over time. But it was an ever-present weight on my shoulder that grew to an amount almost equal to my monthly mortgage payment just to get it and everything but the mortgage finally paid off.
It will take a few months before I really feel like it is gone. But it does feel like a great personal accomplishment that will not just benefit me but my family in the long run. True, I will have debt again; a new car, major updates to the house, maybe being crazy and someday starting my own MMO, etc. But I never want to put myself (or those I care about) in the situation again where it takes me more than a few months to pay something off (outside of real-estate, heh).
But, it feels really good to finally have that behind me and to take that money allocated to paying off that debt and instead use it to enrich my life and my family’s future.