Goodbye, Mr. Bill

The happiest day of my life

by Kris Frieswick

In my life, I've had many happy days. I'll never forget the day I graduated from college. I will always cherish the memory of the day I landed my first journalism job. My heart was filled with joy the day my niece came into the world. But among them all, today will stand out as the single happiest day of my life.

Today, I finally paid off the balance on my Visa bill.

My credit-card balance -- a living, breathing nemesis, a financial ball and chain that grew like a mathematically correct cancer at an annualized rate of 18.9 percent each month -- has followed me since I was 21. I first got the card during the last month of my senior year of college. Its officially stated purpose was "emergencies." And in that way, it has served me well. There was the time the entire exhaust system fell off my car during a trip down the coast of California, with the rest of the US yet to cross. My card also helped me out when I needed a new outfit for my first job interview.

Then there were the lean, desperate freelancing years when I used to use it to buy groceries. (This was back when people still looked at you funny when you did that.) And what about the time I really needed ski boots for the trip to Aspen? And the Italian loafers, and the Caribbean vacation, and . . . alas, this is how it happens. This is how balances are built. This is how credit cards make slaves of us all. The ease with which anyone can get, and abuse, a credit card has convinced Americans that even though we may be cash-poor, we can still buy as if we were rich. Credit cards insidiously encourage us to live well above our meager means, and, like John Bradshaw's malevolent twin, they teach us never to say no to our greedy little inner child.

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Within four years, the card had made me feel unworthy of the title "responsible adult." My father, who approved car-dealership loans for GMAC, had taught me at an early age that credit addiction is a dangerous thing. My family viewed my out-of-control credit-card activity as no less heinous than heroin use or murder. Mortgages and student loans were one thing; at least you got something valuable out of the deal at the end. But credit cards -- well, credit cards were for the weak, the undisciplined, the morally corrupt.

Guilty as charged, I thought, but I just couldn't stop. I didn't want to stop. For a small blood-money payment of $50 a month on each card in my growing collection, I could keep the evil credit-card man from dialing up my personal telephone number and assailing me with threats and accusations. The payments kept him off my back long enough for me to charge up some more stuff that I didn't need but really, really wanted. The balance grew, hunched over in the darkened back closet of my mind like a silent monster.

Like all good drugs, the card held me in its grasp with its promises and the momentary rush that I got when I bought things I knew I could not afford. A trip to France? No problem. A new computer? Whip that thing out, baby. A stylish new dress for the big company Christmas party? Hey, it's work related. The litany of excuses I came up with to violate my "no more charges" vow would fill a large loose-leaf notebook. The credit card had become, for me, an evil clown. It looked all cheerful and innocent, but upon closer inspection, it had glowing red eyes and the soul of the devil.

At some point, even the most pathetic credit addict makes a decision to change. I don't remember what spurred my epiphany, but one day I just said, "No more." I snapped my cards in two, promising never to use them again. I paid double -- nay, triple -- the minimum balance. I finally felt that I had some semblance of control over my credit cards, instead of the other way around.

And I was able to maintain this ruse for a while. But then the envelope arrived. "You're pre-approved!" it said. The lure was too great. Balances were shifted, using those spiffy fake checks that you "simply send to your current credit-card company to pay off your existing balance!" As if the balance will somehow cease to exist once the magic checks go out.

Pure, unadulterated wickedness. By the time the balance was transferred off an old card to a new one, the "grace" period of 6.9 percent interest was over, and I was back to 18.9 percent land, usually with a few more impulse buys tacked on.

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But no more. Thanks to a generous bonus at work and some serious self-evaluation, I have finally cast off the shackles. Now I am free. Never again will I gasp in horror each month as I see the total balance climb from three digits to four, and then five, seemingly of its own accord. I'm clean, finally, after 15 years.

Apparently, I'm not alone. According to the Wall Street Journal, the excellent economy has allowed more people to pay off their credit-card balances now than ever before. Credit-card companies' profits from interest payments are dropping like a stone, and credit-related earnings are down. I cannot help but snicker. Now they know what I've been dealing with for the past decade and a half -- years when my earnings were imperiled even before they got to my checkbook.

I, for one, am dancing the Macarena on their graves -- graves that are, unfortunately, still empty. The credit-card people are still out there, trolling the streets ever more aggressively for people who feel, as I once did, that they are entitled to a certain standard of living, whether or not their paychecks can keep up. As long as those people are drawn like moths to the flickering illusion of free money, consumer credit cards will continue to have a place in our society. But one day, the evil credit-card man will get his. Oh yes, then he too will know what it's like to have a big scary red-eyed monster living in the back closet.

Kris Frieswick is a finance-magazine editor and writer living in Newton. She can be reached at krisf1@gte.net.