My Opel Corsa Sport 1.4 Light was and probably will always be the car I am most proud of. Every cent of it was bought with my own money and good heavens was it fun to drive.
When my ex husband and I split, I was left with all the responsibility, including needing to cover rent for our home on my own, being the main guardian to our son and being stuck with a mountain of debt, since we took out all loans and credit on my name, and stuck with a barely running car all while juggling an incredibly taxing career.
I forget how traumatizing this year was for me. I started divorce proceedings, moved in with my mom, changed jobs and sold my car The Opel Cub, I also decided to sell myself into debt review as the interest I was paying on loans and credit was more than my salary. There were a lot of big changes, and it was an extremely scary time for me, but slowly, with the support of friends and family, started to rebuild my life.
I landed (what I thought was) a great job, which had me jet setting all over the country, enjoying glasses of Champaign in almost all the major cities in South Africa while I headed up the marketing team and organized events and golf days, nationwide.
I gained so much of my self-esteem back, and learned to love myself again. A lot of this was due to finding my own feet again and a lot of it was realizing how much love I was surrounded with.
The most tangible example of me finding myself again was the car I managed to buy myself. So the bank I'd borrowed all the money from to keep my ex husband and I afloat, fed, clothed and not evicted didn't want to consolidate my debt. I owed a few other creditors money, bringing my total debt to around $10 000.00. It may not sound like much to many people, but to me, it was so heavy. Unfortunately for me, and I am probably the only person ever to say this, I signed a prenup before getting married, because, you know, I just had a lot more ambition and figured I would protect myself, but all it meant was that because the debts were all taken out in my name (since he was blacklisted) it meant I was left alone to pay them all off by myself.
The bank did, however, offer me a loan of ZAR50k which wasn't nearly enough to make a dent in my debt, but helped me squash one or two store credit cards, but most importantly helped me sell my hunk of junk car and put the money together with the balance of my money to buy myself a really great car.
Something I could really be proud of!
It was really powerful for such a small car and I found it really awesome for zipping around town. It also had a killer sound system!
Straight after I bought the car, I put myself under debt review which actually gave the big middle finger to my creditors. They could no longer charge me exorbitant amounts of interest and I was no longer drowning in debt. Look, it's not for everyone. While you are under consolidation you can't take out any new debt until you've cleared your name, which makes total sense. But in one swoop, I managed to get myself a little dream car and pay a minimal amount at zero interest to one creditor who then distributed my funds equally among my debtors. Which was absolutely awesome.
I remember driving to the beach with Matthew and tonnes of carpool karaoke on the way to work.
Unfortunately, the story doesn't end well though. My little car was written off when a truck hit me from behind at a red traffic light.
The whole incident put things sharply into perspective for me though, as I had just dropped my son off at school barely 8 minutes before the crash and by some miracle, no one was injured.
It took months of fighting with the truck's insurer, but I finally got enough out of them to buy myself a lovely little Chevy Spark, which will be the subject of my next installment!
