Two years ago, a credit card company canceled my card, so out of stubborn pride I refused to pay the $105 I owed them for a hotel stay. The company was within their rights to cancel my card, and in just two years the balance ballooned to almost $600 — 500 percent more than the original balance.

One conversation with the very large bank went like this:

“OK, I'll pay for the original charges, but I'm not paying you the interest. You canceled my card even though I've always been in good standing.”

“But Mr. McAbee, your card member agreement clearly states that even though your card is canceled you still pay interest on the unpaid balance.”

“You must have missed my personal card issuer agreement which happens to contain a clause that says “(Name of Very Large Financial Institution, Inc. here) will crumble to pieces and go out of business before I pay interest on a canceled card.”

“Hmm. What about all the people who would lose their job?”

I was frustrated and angry.

“You knew when you applied for your job who you were working for. Haven't you heard to keep skunks, bankers and lawyers at a distance?”

Click.

Oops, those calls are recorded.

Then 2012 rolled around and I decided it was time for me to take action and do something about all the stuff that was in my control. If my life were a tall travel coffee mug, the outside of the mug would be shiny stainless steel, but the inside of the mug was stained around the rim, about a quarter full of two-week-old brew with mold starting to grow on it. I need the inside to match the outside.

I set some goals to that effect and decided a drastic change was in order, for nothing I tried on my own had worked in the past. Thus a new quest was born within me. I desired to live debt free — with the possible exception of a mortgage.

However, I struggle with self-control. Sticking to a budget has been next to impossible. I decided to enlist some outside help. I came across Dave Ramsey, found his website and almost enrolled in a 16-week class. Almost. But I decided I couldn't justify the cost of the class so, I ordered his book “The Total Money Makeover” from the library.

He says, “The rich rule over the poor and the borrower is slave to the lender.” As I suspected, it is better to be in the black financially (while skiing in clothes and gear that are old enough to look old but not old enough to be “retro”) than it is to be totally broke and wearing the newest styles or skiing this year's insane new technology.

Ramsey espouses the “debt snowball.” Basically, you pay off your debts from smallest to largest. With the momentum that came from reading new material, I called the collector back.

“Hey, I want to settle my debt with you.”

“Great Mr. McAbee, $589.16.”

“Uh, I'll give you $105.”

“I can't do that.”

“Then I'm not paying you anything. I'll talk to you in two weeks and my offer will be the same.”

“If you don't pay, it'll ruin your credit.”

“I don't care. I don't need credit.”

“You don't care?” You don't need credit?” It was an incredibly foreign concept to him just as it was to me a few years ago.

Ramsey says, “If you live like no one else, later you can live like no one else.”

We finally reached an agreement. I got an email letter confirming that upon receipt of the payment the account is considered closed and satisfied. I paid them $161.90.

Instead of feeling really good about paying off an old debt, or later that day cutting my cell phone bill by $70 a month, I felt pretty crappy. See, by settling up with my lender and dropping the all-inclusive smart phone plan, I had to admit that in the game of finance and capitalism there are winners and losers and I am on the short side of that equation. That's a tough pill to swallow.

For a long time, I begrudged the winners (the true winners not the posers) because it was easier to demonize and criticize someone for their lifestyle than it is to take a hard look at yourself. At least now I'm doing something about it.

Winning isn't everything. The true measure of your wealth is how much you'd be worth if you lost all your money. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't want to win — or that skiing on sick, new-school rocker skis is a bad thing if you can afford it. Go powder gangster.

Even a debt collector knows that.

“Breckenridge, huh? The ski town.”

“Yep.”

“I guess you ski a lot.”

“Well ... more than most I guess.”

Jeff McAbee lives in Breckenridge. Contact him at jjmcabee@yahoo.com or via Twitter @Jeff_McAbee.