A couple of years ago, I was turned down for an FAA job. I was never officially told why, but having gotten unofficial information about my passing some of the other hurdles, I strongly suspect it was because of my bad credit history. During the process of being screened for said job, I was interviewed by a Federal investigator. During that interview, we talked about the financial situation of my wife and I. I disclosed my standing debts, and stated that I had no intention whatsoever of declaring bankruptcy as a way to be free of them. I told the investigator that these were my debts, and I would find a way to pay them.
Cut to a few years later. Despite an unstable employment situation, we have whittled our debts down, and are now poised to vanquish the last of them with one stroke. The mortgage on our house is being refinanced, and we’ve been told that our house’s value has been appraised as 20,000 dollars more than the current mortgage. We are going to refinance for enough to cover the current mortgage and the last remaining debts marring our credit, and still have a mortgage more than 11,000 dollars less than the value of the house. Other terms of the refinancing are also better than the old mortgage.
This is something the wife and I have dreamed of for a long time. Having some debt is good for one’s credit rating, I know, but this was old stuff that just hadn’t been paid, and that had been haunting us for years. We were financially irresponsible for a long time, but then we wised up and began slowly digging our way out. With the end of the tunnel visible (he said, mixing metaphors shamelessly), we look forward to spending smart as we work to make new dreams come true.
The above is not meant to look down on anyone having financial troubles. Everyone’s got troubles; we have our own that have nothing to do with money. This is just something we’ve worked towards for so long, and now it’s here. The refinancing may be a bit of deux es machina, but I pat the wife and myself on the back for our part in this.
P.S. This is post #100 for me. 
