To be fabulously or fabulously broke
We sat on the dining room floor or in our dark, damp basement apartment and wondered why we weren’t as successful as we wanted or hoped. We had just admitted to each other how much credit card debt we had, a total of $51,000. We lived naively, unconsciously and incredibly broke.
If this sounds like you at all, Join us and hundreds of other LGBTQ people work towards financial security.
Our fabulously broken lives
Does this sound like familiar questions? Why didn’t our lives go as planned? Could such a group have helped us??
Life was great in the early 2000s! We started our careers with good jobs at Fortune 500 financial services companies. We were making decent money, and everything seemed to indicate that our climb up the corporate ladder was inevitable.
We were Finally We live our own lives, outside under our parents’ roofs. This liberation meant no longer hiding our sexual orientation – and we made the most of it:
- Tuesday evening, dancing at Bent – check!
- Wednesday evening, dancing at Wave – check!
- Thursday evening, drinks at JR’s – check!
- Friday night, happy hour and dinner with the boys – check!
- Saturday night, dancing at Tracks – check!
- Sunday morning, brunch – check!
- Sunday evening, tea dance – check!
Add designer clothes and travel and we were living the dream. We never missed an opportunity to see and be seen. Going out meant seeing our adoptive family, to meet new people and just plain old having a good time.
They say meeting someone at the bar never works, but we met on the dance floor at Tracks – the old one, not the new one for those familiar with Denver’s gay scene. Shirtless and gyrating to the music, we met in a haze of artificial fog and the sound of Deborah Cox in the air. Of course, it wasn’t until a few years later, after we met and became friends, that we finally made it happen. When we first met, we were both in long-term relationships.
When we made it official, poof! It was amazing. We were in the romance and infatuation phase of love and couldn’t spend enough time together. This tweet meant calling in sick – cough! Cough! – work a lot. We quickly found ourselves living together in our friend’s basement apartment.
At this time in our lives, we were more worried about our BMI than our credit score. We spent a lot more time in the gym than ever before Talk about money like successful people do. We were the shoemaker’s children, but we had unfortunate shoes; we were help others manage their money when we didn’t help ourselves.
Breaking our broken lives
After spending weekends in the mountains looking for land to build a vacation home, we realized we could barely afford to spend a weekend in a hotel in the mountains, let alone buy land and live there property to build. How could we have a vacation home if we don’t own a home from which to vacation? We really could have used that.
We realized that over the past few years we have been unwittingly spending money beyond our means to make up for being bullied, teased and, in David’s case, barred from ever seeing his family because of his homosexuality. We found a tolerant family in the gay scene. Maybe you can understand that. It may not be quite the same, but then again, that was 15 years ago.
Even though it felt like we were home for the first time, we still harbored feelings of inferiority and self-doubt. To compensate, we spent and lived like other successful gays. They had new clothes. We had new clothes. They had new phones. We had new phones. You had a fantastic holiday. We had a great vacation. You have to keep up, right?
That moment, that night, as we sat on the Berber carpet of our basement apartment that never saw the light of day, was our lowest point. Here we were two financial service providers making good money and bad decisions.
We were the gay stereotype that we lived fabulously but were incredibly broke. It had to end for us. We found the ending we wanted. We were tired of being incredibly broke. If you’re tired of being broke, join us and hundreds of other queer people and allies in our network private Queer Money™ Facebook group.
Stop the gay stereotype
It was then and there that we decided to change our lives. Shortly after, we developed a plan to get out of debt. With trial and error, We paid off all $51,000 of our debt. Soon after, we moved out of the basement apartment and into a 12th floor apartmentThOne floor condo in a building overlooking downtown Denver and the Rocky Mountains. We are now some of the last people in Denver to see the sunset every day.
Not long after, we went on a 30 day cash vacation down under in Australia and New Zealand. We attended Sydney’s Mardi Gras, Sydney’s pride. We saw Kylie Minogue live in her home country. We snorkeled on the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Cairns, Australia and swam with wild dolphins off the coast of Kaikoura, New Zealand.
We returned with a fortune in memories and not a penny on our credit cards. This is life We want all of our LGBTQ brothers and sisters to live.
Why is this important to you?
If you’re stuck in debt and don’t know how to move forward, if your credit is so bad that it’s difficult for you to get a job, or if you feel like you’re living beyond your means because you don’t know how Should live with fewer problems, we are here to help you. We had these feelings and worse.
To repeat another cliche: We’ve been there and done that.
After paying off our debt, we used our personal and professional experiences to write a book to help others get out of debt. Our book turned into a blog, and our blog turned into our podcast, and our goal is to help LGBTQ people live fabulously, not fabulously broke. If you are looking for financial security and success, join us private Queer Money™ Facebook group. Things don’t change unless we change. We are changing, and you can too.
We believe that a strong queer community that can withstand political and social unrest requires this financially strong queer individuals and allies. That’s why we write, blog, speak, and podcast for our LGBTQ brothers and sisters about all things money. Join us!