If you have been there, or are there, then my story will sound all too familiar to you.  Some would call me a  shopaholic, and while this may be true, the word has been so overused lately that I think I will avoid it.  So the story begins somewhere in my early college years.  For me, this was a time of learning the difference between being provided and providing.  And the transition did not go as smoothly for me as it does for some.  I had worked as a teenager, but I had not paid bills, put food on the table, managed a budget.  Call me young and stupid, or just stupid,  but when the credit card companies made their rounds at the university, all that I saw were possibilities.  Finally, I could go out to dinner with my friends, catch a movie whenever I wanted, wear cute new styles, and of course, stop at the department store beauty counters with each new collection.  I was young, care-free, and the world, and all the wonderful things in it, were mine.

One thing led to another and one major credit card turned into three, not to mention the store cards that sounded so enticing.  You get discounts now, after all!  And as the story goes, the bills came and the fun started to sour.  It did not happen all at once.  The payments were so low at first that it did not seem all that bad.  After all, I had what I wanted.  But the cards got closer to their limits, the payments got larger as the interest free promotions wore off, and the fun came to a screeching halt.   I started scheming to pay things on time and bills started to become an orchestrated dance lasting the entire month through.  The things I had once enjoyed were now sending me into a panic.  I was grocery shopping with a knot in my stomach, eating dinner with friends and barely listening to the conversation, sitting through movies  with nothing but my own thoughts racing through my head.  “What are you doing?  What have you done?”  I was losing sleep thinking about what was due next and if the interest was going to put my over my limit.

I wish I could say that I realized right then and there that this had to stop.  But I didn’t.  My friends had nice things, were doing fun things, and I thought that I had to keep up.  I went on spring breaks, which of course required new clothes, accessories, cosmetics.  How could I miss out on this experience that was college, independence- even if it was killing me?  I did my best to ignore the sickening guilt, to thrive off of the high I was getting from living like everyone else, from things.  I tried so hard to work myself into denial that I had a problem.  There was no point in even trying to dig myself out of a hole so deep.  To make a long story short, I graduated college with a Bachelor’s degree and more debt than I knew anyone could even acquire.  I was convinced that I was going to be trying to make this right for the rest of my life.  Something had to be done.  When I started my first “real” job I was determined to dedicate every spare penny to never having to see another credit card bill again, but I just did not have enough.  The interest was faster to compound than I was to pay and I was getting nowhere fast.  I knew I needed help or else this was going to give up and relapse into spending.  A very dear person in my life offered their help, and over time, and it really did take time and will power, I got rid of the burden that was credit card debt.

Now why, you ask, is a beauty webzine publishing a story about debt?  Why did you just waste five minutes of your life that you could have spent reading about lip gloss and contouring?  Becoming involved in the makeup and beauty product community can be a very overwhelming experience.  We publish information about things and there will always be new, beautiful, and expensive things that are attractive, desirable, and portrayed in a way that make you think you cannot live without them.  You can.  When a $10 lipstick costs you $100 in interest, it just simply is not worth the trouble.  When stores offer me their in-store credit card to “save money”, I cannot help but feel like they are serving drinks at an AA meeting.  I will never trust myself to own a credit card again, nor would I want to if I could.  I do not want to preach to anyone, the decisions will always be your own, but I wanted to share that I have been there.  For me, makeup is something that I enjoy and collect, but I had to learn that it is not about keeping up with anyone.  If my story helps even one person to realize that it is okay that they cannot run out and buy something from every new MAC collection or every single guru haul video on YouTube, then it is completely worth telling.  Loving beauty is not entirely about things, but the friendships to be made, the tips and tricks to pick up, and the way it makes you feel to communicate with others that share your passion.