I have been waiting to write this post for what seems like forever. In reality it is has been 6 years. Last week Josh and I made the final payment on our car and I can say we’re debt free!
We’re Debt Freeeeeeeeeeee!
We’re Debt Freeeeeeeeeeee!
We’re Debt Freeeeeeeeeeee!
6 years ago we took Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University at our church and began to pay off our debt. Here is an overview of what we owed.
Credit Card 1: $300
Credit Card 2: $1,200
Credit Card 3: $7,500
Car 1: $7,200
Car 2: $13,500
TOTAL: $29,700
We went from having 3 credit cards and two car payments and slowly began to make more payments on the lowest credit card we had. Then we used the debt snowball to knock out our debts one by one, from smallest to largest. Once the first card was paid off we added what we were paying on it to the next debt.
We have successfully completed Baby Step 1: Save $1,000 for an Emergency Fund and now Baby Step 2: Pay off Debt. And it feels so good! We are now making huge strides to having Baby Step 3: 3-6 Month Fund completed.
During this time Josh was able to take another class at our church called Truth in Financial Planning. It reinforced what we had already been doing but also touched on several other aspects that we weren’t on our radar yet like a living trust and living will.
Josh and I are a single income family. If we can do this it is possible. We didn’t take vacations or buy new clothes, we gave up cable and our swanky gym membership, purchased a used instead of new car, and really reevaluated what was important to us and our family. When we started this journey towards becoming debt free it was just the two of us and now we are a family of 5!
As hard as it was some months it feels so amazing to say we’re debt free! Looking ahead our goal is to continue to build up our 3-6 month emergency fund and save up a down payment for a house :).
