By the time I was 25 years old, I was almost $50,000 in debt.

At 25 I had amassed an annual salary worth of debt. I know you may be thinking, “That sounds about right because you went to college.”

But what if I told you, it was not from student loans?

I went to college on a four-year Army ROTC scholarship. So how could I walk away from college paid for and end up with a degree’s worth of consumer debt?

Good question.

This article will be in two parts. In Part I, I discuss how I got into this mess and why it was bound to happen. Part II will discuss how to avoid this mistake in your life and if you are already there, how to get out of it.

How It Started

I am a first-generation college graduate.

I graduated from Hampton University with a degree in Finance. Upon graduation, I was commissioned as an Army Officer, another first in my family. Not only was my school completely paid for, but I also had a guaranteed job after graduation. Double the blessing.

So how does someone graduate college with zero debt, walk into a job paying about $50,000 a year, and still end up in debt? I’ll tell you how. Programming, lack of discipline, and lack of identity.

The Programming

Let’s start with the programming. There is an underlying program that we are all introduced to at a very young age.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, a program is a set of related activities with a particular long-term aim. In this case, the program is consumerism. I was trained to think like a consumer.

There was always something that I ‘needed’.

Like clockwork, I learned what I wanted to buy and when I must have it. Because I was receiving this as a child, I didn’t why I wanted it so bad and why I could not have it other than we didn’t have the money for that. So, when I heard the word, No, I remember promising myself that when I became an adult I would buy everything that I wanted.

Finally, my graduation day arrives and I’m a newly minted 2nd Lieutenant in the United States Army. I kept my promise.

Let the program begin.

Lack of Discipline

Because the program had already conditioned my thinking, I just needed the opportunity.

When the opportunity came, I had no restraint. I had no financial discipline.

You may be wondering how I could be trained for the military and lack discipline.

Another great question.

While I was trained to follow the rules of the Army, I did not receive any financial education on how to manage and build wealth.

As far as my finances were concerned they let the bull run loose in the china shop. No one could reel me in. I did not have any financial goals for building wealth. My only goal was to buy what I wanted at any cost.

As a result, I purchased so many things that it is hard to remember. But some of the items included thousand-dollar TVs and fake designer purses. (Because who in Korea has the real thing?) Lol. I will spend at least $500 a month on fake purses. Now why did I need so many purses when I couldn’t even carry a purse at work? More than that, they were fake. Make it make sense. Besides the purse addiction, I also would get custom-made suits. Sigh…. Did I tell y’all that I was in the military? I had a set uniform every day.

The more I write this the more foolish I sound, but I’ll keep going.

I also would purchase several mink blankets and paraphernalia, just because. These were the tangible things I bought, but I also had a good time eating out, hanging out with friends, going to events, and taking trips. I called myself saving, but then I was spending more than I would save. I spent more than I earned on credit cards and then paid a portion of the balance.

I’m also a book lover, so I purchased many books and DVDs from Amazon. It seemed like every week I was getting a package. While I thought I was managing my money I was winging it. Winging it is a technique, but it’s not a very good one. Trust me. I had the results to prove it.

I spent excessively without a plan.

I thought I was saving money by putting money in a savings account, but I was spending all my money and more on credit. So at the end of the month, my savings balance was growing, but so was my debt. It looked a little something like this. Savings equal $1,000 plus spending on credit $2500 equals -$1500 deficit.

When I only looked at how much I was saving, I failed to see how much I was spending. I got the illusion that I was saving money. I learned that I could only do this for so long before things started to crumble. Compound interest was working overtime against me. I once heard this phrase if you are not using compound interest for you, someone else is using it against you. This was me. Compound interest was working against me silently until one day I realized I was drowning in debt.

While my financial foundation was already unstable, once I left the military, I continued to dig further into a hole. I purchased a brand-new car, purchased new furniture for my brand-new high-rise apartment.

My lack of financial discipline dug me further into a financial ditch, where I had no choice but to change.

Filling Voids

The last reason is probably the most important point on why I was in debt.

It was because I was trying to fill a void that I didn’t realize that I had. From my spending antics I mentioned above I had to realize that I had a spending problem. Now I didn’t realize it at the time but after reflection, the pattern was clear. Now I’m not saying everyone who spends money has a void but when you spend in excess, you need to pay attention. I was addicted, and I didn’t even realize it because most people around me seemed to be doing the same thing. I didn’t see I know the difference. So what was the void? What was I missing that I tried to fill with stuff? Well, the first boy was lonely. I miss my family and friends.

After I graduated college, my first duty assignment was in South Korea; thousands of miles away from home. This was the first time that I traveled internationally, let alone going to live there for a year. In addition, to leaving my home to live in a foreign country, I began a new career in the Army. Everything I knew was halfway around the country. So yes, I was alone and lonely.

I eventually made friends and participated in activities that I enjoyed, shopping became a coping mechanism to let the time pass. It also created a sense of anticipation when my deliveries would arrive. It gave me something to look forward to.

Another void was boredom. While I kept busy after work, it was a lot of idle time.
Spending money became a hobby. I shopped as an activity or for something to do. This would make sense if I was a personal stylist or if I was looking for something specifically, but I wasn’t. I was wasting time and spending money. This is an indication of not having goals. Not just the lack of financial goals, but goals in general. I was flowing with the wind and my money was flowing right out of my hands to the person who did have goals.

So, I was lonely and bored, and finally, I was trying to fill a void that money or stuff could never fill. That was my identity. This one took me a couple of years to figure out.

I was buying all these things only to realize that it would never be enough when I did not know who I was. While the clothes purses and jewelry were nice, it never satisfied the feeling of being enough. Now again you can spend money and not have this issue. But just know that material things can never fill the emptiness. I realized it was deeper than just material. It was spiritual. I had to understand the root of my spending habits and why they were there.

These were the main reasons I accumulated so much debt. I accepted the consumerism program, I had no financial discipline, and lastly, I tried to fill voids that nothing material could ever fill.

In the next article, I will discuss the steps I took to overcome these challenges to go from deep in debt to building wealth.