From Hot (Broke) Mess to Work In Progress: A Q&A with Nancy Trejos

Two years ago Nancy Trejos found herself, like many young Americans, under a mountain of debt. She was living in Washington, D.C., on a low salary, trying to live out her haute couture dreams on a Walmart budget.

What made her different from most of her peers, however, was that Trejos was (and is) a financial reporter for The Washington Post. She knew a lot about financial matters but couldn't sort out her own finances. Student loans, credit card debt and a failed mortgage and a car payment left her deeply in debt. Instead of burying her head in the sand and digging herself into a deeper hole, Trejos sought out a financial planner and learned to live on a budget.

In her memoir/financial advice book Hot (Broke) Messes, Trejos is candid about her own financial shortcomings and doles out tough love for the less-than-solvent set.

ForbesWoman spoke to Trejos about her money mishaps, financial literacy programs and what it was like to ask her parents for rent money.

Click Here for an Exclusive Excerpt from Hot (broke) Messes: How to have your latte and drink it too by Nancy Trejos

As a financial journalist, how did you decide to come clean about your messy finances in such a public forum?

It was a really difficult decision. I'd spent many years in denial about my problems, but I got to the point where I needed to be honest with myself, my friends and my family. My job as a finance writer actually helped me to get there, because I spent every day talking to people who were literally on the brink of bankruptcy. I realized they weren't bad people, they weren't dumb people, they just didn't know how to make things right. And what I came to see was that I wasn't alone, and that it was OK to talk about it. I had a story to tell, to let other people know that they weren't alone, and that there were livable steps to getting your life and your money back in order.

What were the first steps you took to start fixing your finances situation?
I decided to work with a [financial] planner, which I know isn't for everyone. But I wanted--and knew I needed--some guidance in getting my finances in check. The first time we met, we sat down and talked about my financial goals, and my planner said, "We need to look at these numbers." So I went home and opened every credit card statement, every bank statement and loan document to honestly assess my finances.

I looked over my fixed expenses and variable expenses. And after she crunched the numbers, we made a budget. And after that I started living on it. Or trying to--it's not easy to go from not having to plan to planning every expense. There were times when I slipped up, but she warned me that was going to happen. And there were times when I shouldn't have gone out to dinner, but did. And then I would try to make up for it later. The more I did it, the better I got at it.

After a lot of hard work, how did it feel to see your plan working, and your finances beginning to steady?
It was a few months before I began to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I remember it was the end of 2008 when I started felling like "Next year is going to be better." I was finally hopeful. It was around the same time that I started getting really good about being open with friends about my budget. I stopped being embarrassed to say I couldn't go out to dinner because it wasn't in my budget. I learned that it was OK to say I couldn't go--and to suggest more budget-friendly options.

Click Here to Keep Reading: Q&A with Nancy Trejos, Hot (broke) Mess