From Stealing Toilet Paper to Debt-Free: Ann's Story
I got out of debt in 14 months. In 1993 I was a young engineering graduate in Johannesburg, slipping toilet paper into my bag at work because my pay was gone a week into every month. What changed wasn't my salary. I realised I had a money pattern problem, not a money problem, and I made one firm decision: no more consumer debt. Fourteen months later, my future husband and I were free of all consumer debt. That journey became the Debt BLITZ, the method in my Break Free Forever book.
This guide is part of my complete guide to getting out of debt and staying out.
I'm sharing the whole story, embarrassing parts included, because people don't need another lecture about debt. They need to see that someone who felt like they do found a way out, and stayed out.
Where it started: 1993, a red kayak and a roll of toilet paper
My debt didn't come from one big mistake. It came from trying to look like a successful person on money I didn't have. On the surface I looked fine: a job, a social life, an engineering degree I'd studied hard for so I wouldn't feel so financially vulnerable.
I also had a red plastic kayak, bought on a bank overdraft. That's what successful people do, isn't it? They have hobbies. They have things. They have "the life."
What I really had was a pay cheque that disappeared within the first week of the month, and a low hum of financial dread I thought was normal.
The whole of South Africa was singing about freedom that year, as Nelson Mandela headed towards the country's first democratic election. I wasn't singing. I was standing in a company bathroom, ashamed that I couldn't afford a roll of toilet paper, asking myself: how did I get here?
It wasn't a money problem. It was a pattern.
The turning point was seeing that I wasn't bad with money. I was running a pattern nobody had ever taught me to see. I was intelligent, hard-working and reasonably paid, and none of that protected me.
That kayak was a prop for a life I was performing. In the Break Free Forever book I call this Identity debt: debt created by trying to maintain an image. It's one of the five origins that make up your Emotional Debt Fingerprint: your mix of the five emotional origins of debt: Rescuer, Identity, Hope, Relief and Survival debt.
Underneath it all sat what I now call the Enough Gap: the belief that you are not enough, which drives spending to fill the gap.
The promise I made to my father
What finally moved me from wanting to be out of debt to actually getting out was a promise. Understanding my pattern wasn't enough. I needed a reason bigger than the discomfort of changing.
When I was 22, my father was dying of liver cancer. I drove 500 km almost every weekend for a year to help look after him and give my mum a break. One afternoon he looked at me and said:
"Life goes past in a heartbeat. Before you know it, it'll be gone. Live your life. Bring your dreams to life. Do the things that scare you and enliven you. Do them — because before you know it, it'll be too late. This life will be gone."
I promised him I would. Then I drove the 500 km back home and kept making exactly the same choices.
Eighteen months later, I was about to marry a man I loved deeply, and I discovered he had more debt than me. He hadn't even known he was supposed to be making minimum repayments. I could see where we were heading: a life spent servicing the past.
That's when I remembered the promise. I didn't make a budget or set a goal. I made a decision: "We are no longer going to be in consumer debt. We are going to be debt free." No negotiation. No "let's see how it goes."
How we got out of debt in 14 months
We got out of debt by asking how radically we were prepared to change our lives for a short time, so we could live a completely different life for the long term. Our answer was: very radically indeed. Here's what that looked like.
| What we did | What it cost us at the time |
|---|---|
| Faced our combined debt together | Sitting with the full picture, for the first time, of what we both owed |
| Rented out both our townhouses | We moved into a spare bedroom in my sister and brother-in-law's home, just before our wedding |
| Sold one car | I took public transport, including minibus taxis, which people of my background in 1993 South Africa simply didn't do |
| Sold everything we could | The red plastic kayak went, along with the other props bought on credit. Every rand from each sale went straight to debt |
| Kept the dream alive | Every taxi ride and every night in the spare room was going somewhere specific: the freedom my father had asked me to claim |
Fourteen months after making the decision, we were free of all consumer debt. Eighteen months after it, we had saved enough to travel around the world. I kept the promise.
Your version of radical will look different from mine. The point is that a short season of hard choices bought decades of easy ones. The present self feels the cost of the hard choice. The future self lives in the result of it.
What my debt-free story taught me (and how it became the Debt BLITZ)
The lessons from those 14 months, and from years of helping other people since, became a method anyone can follow. The Debt BLITZ is The Wealth Chef's get-out-of-debt method from Ann's Break Free Forever book: Bring it into the light, Lock the leaks, Identify your target, Turbocharge the fuel, Zero it and roll. The debt snowball is used inside it.
| The lesson from my story | Where it lives in the method |
|---|---|
| The decision comes before the plan | The No More Declaration: a written commitment that consumer debt is no longer an option |
| You can't clear what you won't look at | B, Bring it into the light: your Debt Truth Inventory |
| Short-term changes free up real money | L, Lock the leaks, and T, Turbocharge the fuel |
| The pattern has to change, not only the balance | Your Emotional Debt Fingerprint and the #WTF practice |
| When the debt is gone, the money needs a new job | Z, Zero it and roll, first into the next debt, then into building wealth |
The first step is the one I avoided for years. A Debt Truth Inventory is a list of every debt with eight facts each: balance, interest rate, minimum payment, term, special conditions, what you actually pay, why you took it on, and its emotional weight. Here's how to do your Debt Truth Inventory, with the 8 things to know about every debt.
When I catch an old pattern in myself, I use the #WTF practice: "Wow, that's fascinating": meeting your money patterns with curiosity instead of shame. You can't change a pattern while you're busy hating yourself for it.
And I now teach something we didn't have in 1993: an Emergency Pot of about £800, $1,000, €1,000 or R10,000 in a separate account, built before the BLITZ. It stops a surprise bill sending you back to the credit card.
Life on the other side of debt
Getting out of debt was the first step towards financial freedom, even though I didn't know what that meant at the time. I've been debt-free since 1994 and financially free since 2006. My assets pay for the life I've chosen, so working is a choice.
Today I live between a home on the Atlantic Seaboard in Cape Town and one inside the Kruger National Park, where wild animals wander across the lawn. I've spent months at a time in Italy and Portugal. When a stone chip from a lawnmower shattered a glass door at our bush home while we were away, it was an inconvenience, not a crisis. That's what a Cash Safety Net is: the cash buffer that makes an emergency an inconvenience, not a crisis.
Over the years I've helped thousands of people with their money, including on Channel 4's Save Well, Spend Better, and wrote The Wealth Chef book and the Break Free Forever book. To see how the method chooses where to start, read how the BLITZ hybrid method decides which debt to pay off first.
Questions people ask
How long does it take to get out of debt?
It depends on what you owe, your income and how radically you're willing to change for a while. It took my husband and me 14 months to clear all our consumer debt, because we changed almost everything at once. Most people take longer, and steady progress still gets you there.
Can you get out of debt without earning more?
Yes. I didn't get a big pay rise. We freed up money by renting out our homes, selling a car and selling what we'd bought on credit, and sent all of it to our debt. If the pattern behind your spending doesn't change, earning more usually funds more spending rather than clearing debt.
Write your own debt-free story
If my story sounds a little like yours, you can start your way out today. ZARA, my free AI debt assistant, builds your Debt Truth Inventory with you, sets your BLITZ order and freedom date, and shows what each extra pound a month buys you in time and interest saved. Save your plan with your email at the end so you can come back to it.
Build your free Debt BLITZ plan with ZARA
The whole story, and the complete method that grew out of it, is in the Break Free Forever book: every step of the Debt BLITZ, the worksheets, and how to make sure that once you're free, you stay free.
If you're in serious financial difficulty, you don't have to work it out alone. Free, confidential help is available from StepChange, MoneyHelper or National Debtline in the UK, an NFCC-member non-profit credit counsellor in the US, or an NCR-registered debt counsellor in South Africa. In the UK, MoneyHelper's debt advice locator helps you find a free adviser online, by phone or face to face.
This article is for education only and isn't financial advice.
Written by Ann Wilson, founder of The Wealth Chef and author of The Wealth Chef and Break Free Forever. Debt-free since 1994 and financially free since 2006.
