Our Debt Free Story
On January 7, 2016, my then-fiance pulled out a $25,010 one-year balloon note, with his family's cattle as collateral - his father co-signing. Why?
Because he made a tiny amount of money with his grandfather, not enough to pay for rent or mortgage payments. The only option, besides living in cramped quarters with family, was to buy and move a house onto the property. All we had to do with this note was pay the interest annually and re-sign the loan. $1600 annually was a lot easier to deal with in our financial situation, than hundreds of dollars, or thousands of dollars, in payments every year.
We married on March 26, 2016, and paid for the small, casual wedding with the money he had previously saved and a tiny amount of the balloon note. Our parents also pitched in a lot, my side paying for the venue and his side paying for things like food - which was a casual, buffet style reception and rehearsal dinner the night before, and we made our own cakes the morning of the wedding, while my maid of honor made my dress. The photographer was an aunt who did it for free, videographer was a cousin who also did it for free, and we bought our rings during Valentine's Day sales. Basically, we already knew how to scrounge and save and be as frugal as possible.
But we weren't bringing in enough to pay for anything.
Until June.
After going through a couple job options found thanks to my father-in-law, and getting turned down, my beloved got his first real job. That brought an explosion in our income ($8k/yr to $20k/yr) and we suddenly could afford to work on the house a bit more and get it a bit more comfortable to live in. There was no running water or electricity in the place, therefore no air conditioning or indoor cooking, and we showered at relatives. We didn't get to catch our breath, however, because within the month I had a bad horse accident and we found out I was pregnant. Suddenly my husband and father-in-law were feverishly working on the house to get it comfortable for me, and in August started paying the midwife.
We lived with my in-laws for six weeks while I battled a concussion and morning sickness, and then we moved back into our home with window air conditioners and running water.
We had a couple of workdays, and started making room for the baby and planning for the birth and new family member.
We had enough money to put $2k on the loan, paying off the interest and a tiny amount of the principle.
And on March 8, 2017, Yancey Lane was born.
Over that time, my beloved got a couple raises, and was working a lot of overtime. Our income was boosted quite a bit, and we got a sizeable tax return because of how little we made in 2016.
And then, on May 10, my sweetheart was sent to a 1 day EntreLeadership course in Dallas by his employers, with two of his coworkers.
While he learned a lot and gathered a ton of information, it finally clicked with him that our balloon note was actually debt.
When he came home, he came to a tired, overwhelmed mother (who also was battling some postpartum depression) and started trying to develop a plan for tackling this debt. This was May 11. That weekend, May 13 and 14, we committed to paying this debt off. We had no timeline, yet, or a real plan, but we knew we wanted to do this.
We discussed it with our families, mainly with mine because they'd done this before and knew how to get us on the trail to getting debt-free. We figured out our budget and expenses, had $1,000 in a mini-emergency fund in no time, and were on our way. We also bought a $2800 car for fuel efficiency and ditched the idea of buying something off the lot, before the end of May.
Of course, that was wiped out by deer in August 2017 and is sitting in the back yard, waiting on its repairs - which are scheduled for this summer/early fall.
Our income by now, including overtime and bonuses, was over $40k.
From May 13 to November 30, we saved a lot of money, figuring out how we were going to pay this without a regular payment plan. We set an eighteen to twenty-four month goal, and started working toward it.
And on November 30, we made our first payment. $2000. Our second payment was made four days later, another $2000. We were proving that my father-in-law could go to the bank and hand over checks for us, and once that was done we gave him a nearly $6400 check.
Why we were getting his father to do this for us was because we were rarely (read almost never) in the town with the bank our loan was in anymore. We had our new main bank a lot closer, and D worked in a town a half-hour in the other direction.
We had paid over $10k and we were excited!
We discussed more ways to save money, and on December 29 re-signed for the loan and paid another $2300 from that original bank account.
Our last trip to see my family during our fight to pound the debt out was on New Year's weekend.
By eliminating those monthly trips, we saved a lot of fuel money. They live over three hours north of us!
Another $1668 check went to the bank on January 25. Nearly $3k was paid on February 19. $856 was sent on March 27.
We found out we were pregnant again in March, and made our second-to-last debt payment on April 22 - nearly $4100. We made our first midwife payment for this second baby in May, just $400 to employ her.
We paid $200 on taxes because somehow D's employer didn't take enough out of the paychecks, instead of getting the tax return I mistakenly calculated. Oops. But we did sell a cow and yearling, and a couple other things, and on June 20 finally made the final payment on the loan.
In thirteen months and one week, we had paid $26,323.43 on what had been a $25,010 loan. That's not even counting the $2k we had paid in January 2017 to keep the loan! This just tells you what interest does!
And now, we're debt free. As of June 20, we've been debt free.
We're going to finish paying the midwife now (just another $2925) and get the car fixed, and then figure out what our big emergency fund number needs to be and work toward that.
We're excited about baby number 2 and raising our children in a debt free environment. We're going to get this emergency fund stocked, start seriously working toward becoming wealthy and self-employed, and put $10k aside for each kid and invest for our retirement. We have proven we can live under $20k per year, and make way more than that. We're in our early 20s, our future is bright, and we've got no payments. We even have only three monthly bills - electricity, Verizon phone & internet, and auto insurance.
After more than two years of debt in our marriage, we are excited to be able to say,
WE'RE DEBT FREE!
Because he made a tiny amount of money with his grandfather, not enough to pay for rent or mortgage payments. The only option, besides living in cramped quarters with family, was to buy and move a house onto the property. All we had to do with this note was pay the interest annually and re-sign the loan. $1600 annually was a lot easier to deal with in our financial situation, than hundreds of dollars, or thousands of dollars, in payments every year.
We married on March 26, 2016, and paid for the small, casual wedding with the money he had previously saved and a tiny amount of the balloon note. Our parents also pitched in a lot, my side paying for the venue and his side paying for things like food - which was a casual, buffet style reception and rehearsal dinner the night before, and we made our own cakes the morning of the wedding, while my maid of honor made my dress. The photographer was an aunt who did it for free, videographer was a cousin who also did it for free, and we bought our rings during Valentine's Day sales. Basically, we already knew how to scrounge and save and be as frugal as possible.
But we weren't bringing in enough to pay for anything.
Until June.
After going through a couple job options found thanks to my father-in-law, and getting turned down, my beloved got his first real job. That brought an explosion in our income ($8k/yr to $20k/yr) and we suddenly could afford to work on the house a bit more and get it a bit more comfortable to live in. There was no running water or electricity in the place, therefore no air conditioning or indoor cooking, and we showered at relatives. We didn't get to catch our breath, however, because within the month I had a bad horse accident and we found out I was pregnant. Suddenly my husband and father-in-law were feverishly working on the house to get it comfortable for me, and in August started paying the midwife.
We lived with my in-laws for six weeks while I battled a concussion and morning sickness, and then we moved back into our home with window air conditioners and running water.
We had a couple of workdays, and started making room for the baby and planning for the birth and new family member.
We had enough money to put $2k on the loan, paying off the interest and a tiny amount of the principle.
And on March 8, 2017, Yancey Lane was born.
Over that time, my beloved got a couple raises, and was working a lot of overtime. Our income was boosted quite a bit, and we got a sizeable tax return because of how little we made in 2016.
And then, on May 10, my sweetheart was sent to a 1 day EntreLeadership course in Dallas by his employers, with two of his coworkers.
While he learned a lot and gathered a ton of information, it finally clicked with him that our balloon note was actually debt.
When he came home, he came to a tired, overwhelmed mother (who also was battling some postpartum depression) and started trying to develop a plan for tackling this debt. This was May 11. That weekend, May 13 and 14, we committed to paying this debt off. We had no timeline, yet, or a real plan, but we knew we wanted to do this.
We discussed it with our families, mainly with mine because they'd done this before and knew how to get us on the trail to getting debt-free. We figured out our budget and expenses, had $1,000 in a mini-emergency fund in no time, and were on our way. We also bought a $2800 car for fuel efficiency and ditched the idea of buying something off the lot, before the end of May.
Of course, that was wiped out by deer in August 2017 and is sitting in the back yard, waiting on its repairs - which are scheduled for this summer/early fall.
Our income by now, including overtime and bonuses, was over $40k.
From May 13 to November 30, we saved a lot of money, figuring out how we were going to pay this without a regular payment plan. We set an eighteen to twenty-four month goal, and started working toward it.
And on November 30, we made our first payment. $2000. Our second payment was made four days later, another $2000. We were proving that my father-in-law could go to the bank and hand over checks for us, and once that was done we gave him a nearly $6400 check.
Why we were getting his father to do this for us was because we were rarely (read almost never) in the town with the bank our loan was in anymore. We had our new main bank a lot closer, and D worked in a town a half-hour in the other direction.
We had paid over $10k and we were excited!
We discussed more ways to save money, and on December 29 re-signed for the loan and paid another $2300 from that original bank account.
Our last trip to see my family during our fight to pound the debt out was on New Year's weekend.
By eliminating those monthly trips, we saved a lot of fuel money. They live over three hours north of us!
Another $1668 check went to the bank on January 25. Nearly $3k was paid on February 19. $856 was sent on March 27.
We found out we were pregnant again in March, and made our second-to-last debt payment on April 22 - nearly $4100. We made our first midwife payment for this second baby in May, just $400 to employ her.
We paid $200 on taxes because somehow D's employer didn't take enough out of the paychecks, instead of getting the tax return I mistakenly calculated. Oops. But we did sell a cow and yearling, and a couple other things, and on June 20 finally made the final payment on the loan.
In thirteen months and one week, we had paid $26,323.43 on what had been a $25,010 loan. That's not even counting the $2k we had paid in January 2017 to keep the loan! This just tells you what interest does!
And now, we're debt free. As of June 20, we've been debt free.
We're going to finish paying the midwife now (just another $2925) and get the car fixed, and then figure out what our big emergency fund number needs to be and work toward that.
We're excited about baby number 2 and raising our children in a debt free environment. We're going to get this emergency fund stocked, start seriously working toward becoming wealthy and self-employed, and put $10k aside for each kid and invest for our retirement. We have proven we can live under $20k per year, and make way more than that. We're in our early 20s, our future is bright, and we've got no payments. We even have only three monthly bills - electricity, Verizon phone & internet, and auto insurance.
After more than two years of debt in our marriage, we are excited to be able to say,
WE'RE DEBT FREE!
Comments
Post a Comment