My Credit Score Went Up 158 Points This Month
A transparent look at how I regained control of my finances
The last time I logged in to my student loan dashboard, my amount owed read $0. Not because I had paid it off. On the contrary, I had neglected to acknowledge this debt in over a year. So my accounts were turned over to a collection agency. Earlier that year, I also missed a handful of credit card payments, maxed out my accounts, and found myself jobless, clientless, and feeling rather hopeless.
That month, my credit score dropped over 100 points and I had no one to blame but myself.
I‘ve always had a complicated relationship with money
For most of my life, I believed that talking about money was taboo. This resulted in my becoming a fully grown adult with no financial literacy and no desire to learn about it. Growing up, I learned from my family that it was shameful to imply that you had money problems, and even more shameful to not be able to “keep up” with the people around you — a mentality that I adopted until late into my twenties.
I spent too much, saved nothing, and every paycheck felt like a reason to treat myself. I woke up one day to find myself in upwards of $60,000 in debt (student loan and credit card combined) and no…
