The seeds of debt

As a newly wedded couple in 1984, one of the first goals of my wife Lisa and I was to build our credit. I can't remember when the seeds for debt had initially been planted, but the common theme amongst well intentioned friends and family was to build your credit so that you could purchase a home or car. So, there we were willing to enslave ourselves to anyone who'd offer us a line of credit. Five months into my four year Air Force commitment, Lisa and I had decided that we couldn't bear the separation and so decided to get married. Anyone who's been in the military will remember the predators lined up just outside the base gates waiting to get a slice of that guaranteed biweekly check paid to every soldier by the U.S. Government. These purveyors of debt include businesses offering payday loans, furniture rental, new cars etc.

Those first years of marriage were filled with financial missteps. Once the decision had been made to get married, I went to the mall and put an overpriced ring on lay-away to profess my love for Lisa. Still in technical school and living in the dorms on base, I was able to pay the ring off in just a couple of months. Paying for the ring had absorbed all of my salary and savings, so I took a pay advance to pay for our wedding. My future salary would be garnished for the next six months of our marriage until the loan was paid. I can remember sitting on the bed the night of our honeymoon opening the wedding cards to pay our remaining wedding expenses including the hotel. Two days after our wedding, Lisa and I drove to Omaha Nebraska in the Chevy Chevette, that had been given to her by her father, with all of our worldly possessions jammed in the back. We found a small apartment and paid our deposit with our remaining wedding funds. Less than a month into our marriage, the transmission failed on the chevette. Lisa's dad agreed to be a cosigner on a new car loan. We purchased our first car on a five year note at 15.75%, which was the prevailing rate back in the mid 80's. The service light went on several months after purchasing the car. I left the car at the dealer and received a call later that day. The car just needed a minor part. I assumed that everything was covered under warranty, so told them to go ahead and fix it. After work, a coworker drove me to pick up the car, I received a bill for $175. We called her dad, and again he came to our rescue wiring the money the next day. Amongst our many blunders, sticks out another instance.
We'd been watching a borrowed 12-inch black and white TV and decided that we needed a color set. We still hadn't saved any money, so again tried our luck at financing. We wrote a down payment check for about two hundred dollars with the assurance that the store would call us the next day to let us know if we'd been accepted for credit. The following day we were informed that we'd been denied and that our check would be mailed to us. Assuming this to be true, we added the money back into the account and began writing checks against the balance. A couple of days later, we began receiving notices for insufficient funds. It turns out that the check had been cashed. Five bounced checks and several days later, we were eventually able to get the issue resolved. We were indeed living the American Dream....