Filed under: Lynnette Khalfani-Cox
And my story, no doubt, is a unique one: I had $100,000 in credit card debt back in 2001 and I paid it off in three years. Now I work as a Money Coach teaching other people how to better manage their finances. That's the story that many people know. But what most people don't know is a lot of the other challenges I faced during that time I paid off my debt and immediately afterwards. So let me set the record straight and provide a little background behind the headlines.
First of all, a lot of naysayers look at my story and go "Well, of course she could pay off her debt. She was making $100,000 a year!" In reality, I got downsized in 2003, and lost my six figure job as a Wall Street Journal reporter for CNBC. At the time, I was not only trying to pay off my credit card bills, I was also dealing with a crumbling marriage and writing my first book, Investing Success.
My original plan was to finish the book, and use my CNBC television gig as a platform to promote the book and share investment tips and advice. After losing my job, however, I had to come up with another strategy. Not just another strategy to promote the book, but another strategy to make money altogether and to support my family.
So I decided in 2003 to make writing my full-time career. Thus, I launched a small-publishing company, called Advantage World Press, which published Investing Success. I figured that one pink slip in a lifetime was enough for me. I didn't want to be subjected to Corporate America's whims, so I decided that entrepreneurship was a better path for me.
My second book, called Zero Debt, was written in 2004 and also put out by my publishing company. Zero Debt became a New York Times bestseller after I made national TV appearances on Dr. Phil and The Jane Pauley Show.
Because I owned the rights to Zero Debt, I made all the profits from book - not some big publisher. After that commercial success as an independent author, I knew I wouldn't be going back to corporate America and that I would pursue a career as a writer and Money Coach, teaching others about a range of personal finance topics.
Also, in 2004, I became a victim of one of the things I call The Dreaded D's - Divorce. After more than a decade of marriage, I decided it was time for my ex-husband and I to go our separate ways, which we did in January 2005.
If it wasn't for being self-employed, and having my publishing/writing business, I would not have been able to manage paying not only my own regular bills, but also a slew of new obligations in 2005: including child support and alimony to my former spouse. That's another assumption people make. When they hear that I divorced, they automatically think that I had a "rich" ex-husband and that he paid me. Actually, it was the other way around, with me paying him for nearly five years, from January 2005 until mid-2009.
In 2006, I landed a six-figure book deal (through my then literary agent and publishing consultant Earl Cox, who is now my husband) to write The Money Coach's Guide to Your First Million. In late 2006, Earl also got me on Oprah, which brought more recognition.
After the Oprah hit, Earl also committed to not going back to Corporate America, and focused exclusively on building my brand. He had already started his own literary agency and consulting business, initially part-time back in 1999, and then full-time in 2002, when he left his former job at John Wiley & Sons.
In 2007, Earl and I got married - on a lucky date, in fact: 7-7-7. By then, we'd had a daughter, Alexis, who is now four. In recent years, other media highlights, books and business deals have followed - along with same economic ups and downs that all entrepreneurs face. Through it all, though, I'm happy to say we've done well together and are stronger than ever.
This month, we launched my sixth book, Perfect Credit: 7 Steps to a Great Credit Rating. And we've decided to make Zero Debt free online. So many people are struggling with debt issues that it just seemed like the right thing to do.
You can read Zero Debt online via my blog, at AskTheMoneyCoach.com. Just click on the tab that says "Free Zero Debt" and it's all there. You can go beyond the headlines, and see for yourself the strategies and techniques that worked for me, and for countless other people, to pay off debt.
You may like my advice or not. Agree with it or disagree with it. Either way, I hope the real takeaway people get from my story is a message of inspiration and hope. No matter how troubling times get, no matter how deep your financial problems, I know you can get out of debt, too.
Lynnette Khalfani-Cox, an award-winning financial news journalist and former Wall Street Journal reporter for CNBC, has been featured in the Washington Post, USA Today, and the New York Times, as well as magazines ranging from Essence and Redbook to Black Enterprise and Smart Money. Check out her New York Times best seller 'Zero Debt: The Ultimate Guide to Financial Freedom.'