Growing up, I did not learn how to manage money well; I learned how to spend and borrow money very well. I learned that if you need money, no matter how big or small the amount, you just go to the bank and ask for it. I did not learn a good way to save and give, and the words “can afford it” were only used to reference payments.
Needless to say, this way of life caused a lot of stress on my family, but my parents were very good at hiding it. They always seemed to have everything under control and everything they wanted. Looking from the outside in, my family would seem very normal, and unfortunately, I think that they were.
When I bought my first car, I paid $1250 for it, and yes, I borrowed the money and made payments. I remember it well, my monthly payment was $97/month for 24 months. Now, any normal person can tell you that $97/month for 24 months comes to way more than $1250, but I never did the math, I never questioned it, and if I ever would have, I can guarantee that I would have never cared. That was just the way of life… the normal.
As I grew older, I began to see the effects of debt. I eventually began to question it and then resent it. I realized that some of the tension I felt growing up was due to family debt, and it was then that I knew that I wanted out. I didn’t know how, and I didn’t know of any resources to help. Something deep down inside of me knew that I just didn’t want to live that way, and now I know that it was God prompting me through the Holy Spirit.
When I was 23, I met my now husband. As our dating became more serious, and we were making plans for the future, we began to talk about finances and debt. To my surprise, he felt the very same way about debt as I did. We both had accumulated debt, but it was very small in numbers. We started making plans to pay off everything before we got married, and I am happy to announce that we entered into our marriage completely DEBT FREE, and this is where our actual story begins.
You see, I had a great job. I was fully vested in the company that I worked for, and I continued to invest the most amount that I could in stock options. My husband was a full-time musician. He was the drummer for a Dove Award nominated, Christian rock and roll band, based out of Atlanta, GA, but don’t let that fool you. I was the breadwinner in the early years of our marriage. (smile)
After the first year of being married, an opportunity came up for me to travel and work with my husband, and because we were debt free, I was able to quit my good paying job and take that opportunity. We had so much fun traveling the US, Mexico, and Canada, and just experiencing life together. While traveling, I had the opportunity of being their truck driver, working for World Vision, being in charge of and designing new merchandise, working for another Christian music artist, and meeting so many amazing people that will forever leave an imprint on my life. This would have never happened had we not been completely debt free.
Once we found out that we were pregnant with our first child, my husband decided that it was time to come off the road and be home. He was able to get a full-time job at our home church in the audio/video department. We were so excited to finally have a “real” income (more on this in another blog) now that we went crazy, and this is where our debt-free status radically, and very sadly, dwindled away.
We lived in a very small, one-bedroom duplex apartment, and everyone knows that you can’t raise a baby in a one-bedroom apartment, right? (enter sarcasm here) Well, we decided it was time to buy a home. Although we had quite a bit in investments, we didn’t have enough to pay for a house; however, we did have enough for a good down payment, and that’s what we did.
We moved in to our newly purchased home one month before our first child was due, and the rest of the story goes like this… The day we moved in to our home, we got a dog (No! That is not a typo! I really mean “the DAY we moved in”). Three months later my car was breaking down way too often, so we decided to finance a minivan because everyone knows that as soon as you have ONE child, you HAVE TO HAVE a minivan! (more sarcasm, in case you missed it) It was used, non-the-less, but we still financed it. Over the course of the next few years, we got cable, financed another used car, and began to run up credit card debt.
After a few years of being in debt for the first time in our marriage, we were over the stress it created and finally said that enough is enough. We began to pay off debt the best we knew how. I think that it was around this time that we were introduced to Dave Ramsey for the first time. His teaching was spot on to the way that we think and believe, and we took it as the confirmation that we needed to press forward. We buckled down and were able to pay off all of our debt, except our house, within a year. That was nine years ago as of the time of this posting, and we have continued to be debt free ever since.
Believe it or not, we had A LOT of scoffers tell us that we were crazy – that we couldn’t or shouldn’t do it, that it wasn’t possible to live debt free or without a credit card. The truth is that sometimes I felt a little beaten down and insecure myself – wondering if we were really doing the right thing and if it was really possible to live without a credit card. Now that we have been debt free for so long, we truly know that it is completely possible, and we will never go back! This year marks our 20th year of marriage, and we have spent 14 of those debt free. This is truly the life – living like no one else, so that we can live like no one else.
