How Brice Capital Helped Me Consolidate Debt So I Could Invest in the Spotify IPO

When Spotify broke all the rules this Spring by listing their shares on the New York Stock Exchange instead of taking the traditional route of hiring underwriters to introduce the stock to the financial market, I bought up the IPO at its go-public price. Since it was offered at a low price, I pocketed handsome gains after the lockup period expired and I sold the stock.

Friends are surprised that I’ve become a skillful investor because they still remember when I was broke, struggling to pay off my credit card debt. I don’t blame them for their bewilderment: I’ve never shared the story of my financial turnaround before.

My Credit Card Nightmare

After graduating with an MBA,  I got a good job at a brand marketing company. Pretty soon, credit card companies sent me offers in the mail. I don’t know how they figured out I was a good target for their offers, but at the time I didn’t give it a second thought. After I accepted a few offers, more showed up. Now in retrospect, I realize I must have been on some list broker’s target audience mailing list.

Since I was an ambitious person, I used the credit cards to artificially bump up my social status, dressing for success at the office, generously paying for drinks at the local restaurants our team frequented after work, and throwing barbeque parties during big games. In fact, if you had walked into the office, you might have mistaken me for upper management.

Gradually these “lifestyle expenses” cut more deeply into my salary, and I leaned on my credit cards to make up the difference between how much I was earning and how much I was spending. I was also careless about paying my invoices on time and covering the minimum balance, which resulted in late fees and accumulating high-interest rates.

I realized that I had taken things a little too far after getting demand notices in the mail and calls from various collection agencies. Things went from bad to worse. My wife and I now argued about money most of the time.

Everything was falling apart faster than I could put it together  —  until we discovered Brice Capitol.

Here’s the backstory of how my wife figured out the solution: 

Instead of relying on her husband to become more financially responsible, she stopped trying to talk sense into me and researched how to pay off debt. 

She kept on coming up with a common theme on personal finance forums: people who were wrestling with credit card debt resolved them by consolidating their debts. 

She learned that someone could pay off all their creditors in one go with a consolidated loan. What’s more, they could then repay the loan in affordable installments, only writing one check a month. 

Her network of online friends suggested Brice Capital. We approached them and they offered us excellent terms on a consolidated loan.

My Mindset Reboot

My wife not only saved our marriage, but she saved my pride and sanity, too. Our financial stress disappeared after we put a budget in place, cut up the credit cards, and made regular monthly payments to the lender.

In truth, I was embarrassed that I had nearly wrecked our home. I had spent years in school acquiring a fancy degree, knew more than enough to help companies build their brand in a competitive marketplace, but was too vain and inept to handle my own finances. I decided to re-educate myself, doubling down on reading books on personal finance, attending seminars, and studying investing.

It wasn’t easy. I struggled with saving enough to get started. I struggled with identifying good stocks and tracking their performance. And I struggled with timing the market and figuring out when to sell. But, fortunately, by the time the Spotify IPO showed up, I was ready to make my first successful investment.On this long journey, my wife was with me all the way. Her discovery of the resetting power of consolidated loans and her quick study of personal finance encouraged me to learn about stock trading and turn our household income right-side up.