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Just after marriage as we first set out for our struggle I found myself in a soup. My husband was buried in deep debt. His debts comprised of unpaid student loan, credit card debts, car loan and what not. Yet he kept borrowing money to maintain his luxurious life. Being frugal by nature, I wondered “How could he be so indifferent to such a situation?” Probably it was the hip hop city culture that influenced his extravagant life style. He maintained such a laborious life style that in a way he seemed to be Mr. Spendthrift.

Thereby we started looking out for different ways to get out of these debts. Mrs. Davis my next door neighbor, now came as a guardian angel for us. Analyzing our condition she suggested “Why don’t you go for Credit Counseling?”. The very next morning we went to a credit counselor as suggested by her. There we came to know that to reduce our debt burden we would first require to determine our current finances. That was only possible he said by calculating our “DEBT TO INCOME RATIO”.

Immediately we calculated our Debt to Income Ratio by dividing our “Total Monthly Debt Payment” by “Gross Monthly Income.” Practically my total monthly debt payment comprised of house rent, credit card bills, other revolving credit balances, car payments, etc. However we did not include grocery, telephone, and utility bills or any debt that will be paid off in the next few months .Our gross monthly income included our total salary before any deductions made or tax imposed on it.

Soon, both I and Mr. Spendthrift came to an understanding. He promised to lessen his expenses and I assured to make savings out of it. We believed, this way we could reduce our debt burden. Somehow our plan did not work. Despite consistent effort he was not able to cut down on his expenses. So to come out of the situation he now assured to increase his income. Then on, though he did not lessen his expense, he did not increase it either. On my part I kept fighting to recover the crisis situation. I took up a job and started to earn so that I could save more.

Finally, by adding my savings and his excess income we managed to clear up all our debts. Today, at the end of five years of our marriage we are enjoying a healthy debt free life. Careful and regular monitoring of our debt to income ratio helped us to a great extent in every turn.

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