Today, I’m so excited to share our journey to becoming debt free! In 2013, we decided we wanted to be debt free by the year of Clint’s 30th birthday. We accomplished that goal in August 2017 and a few months later we found ourselves traveling to London for a dream year abroad. We NEVER would have been able to live in London like we did if we were still in debt. We’ve experienced how limiting debt can be so we’re passionate about sharing our story and pointing others to the methods that helped us! Keep reading to find out how we did it!

Celebrating our LAST Loan Payment!

Do you ever stop to think about why you do things the way that you do them? Most of the time, the patterns we live our lives in weren’t something we made up but rather something we learned to do. We do things a certain way because that’s how we’ve always done it – maybe even for generations. Or we do things a certain way simply for convenience. We rarely consider doing things differently because the way we’re doing it now is just fine. It’s how everyone who came before us did it, it’s how everyone we know around us is doing it so we’re going to do it that way too.

This is the attitude I had towards debt.

I specifically remember a conversation with one of my best friends (who was a senior in high school at the time) and she told me she wanted to graduate from college in three years. I thought she was crazy! Why would you want to deny yourself of one more year of fun, and late night memories, and delaying the mundane parts of adulthood?! (My priorities might have been slightly out of order!) But her answer was simple: the debt!

However to me, as a then-17 year old, debt was just part of life. I knew my parents had had student loans that took years and years to pay off, I had heard of lots of other adults talking about their college debt, car debt, their mortgage, credit card debt, etc. and I had come to the wise conclusion that debt is…just the way it is. I obviously had no clue (I was 17!) at how crippling debt could be; how much debt limits you from…everything!

In the summer of 2013 while Clint and I were still dating, God put a dream in Clint’s heart and began to direct him towards a new ministry venture. As we began to dream about the future we were particularly interested in spending a short time in Europe but knew there was no way to make that happen unless we were debt free. The average student has $37,000 in student debt when they graduate. Clint and I were no exception to this. Together, we had around $80,000 in student debt, car debt, and credit card debt. The majority of it being student debt.  We decided that whether we were called to serve in Europe or not, we wanted to be debt free so that whatever God might ask us to do in the future, our debt would not be something that would hold us back. So a few months later we enrolled in Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace Class and got serious about attacking our debt.

By the time I had finished the 9 week course I had paid off my first student loan that had a balance of over $2100. I had been paying on my loans for a year and a half and had yet to pay one off. Putting what I learned in that class to practice made all the difference and I was hooked! What I remember the most about paying that first loan off was my expected payoff date…July 2022! I paid it off 9 years early!

Dave has a saying in his books and his FPU program that says “Debt is Normal. Be Weird” and that became our mantra. It helped us in times when we wanted to give up or accrue even more debt because we wanted things our friends or family were getting like new cars, houses, and furniture. But we knew that a little pain and sacrifice for a short time would be so beneficial for the long term. Here are some of the things we did to help us meet our goal:

1. Built an Emergency Fund: the first step we took towards paying off our debt was actually making sure that we had a good emergency fund in place. Although this number fluctuated, we never let the fund stay below $1,000. This fund was vital for helping keep us from accruing more debt. When emergencies arose like car problems, bills from unexpected ER visits, etc. we didn’t have to go into more debt to cover them.
2. Made a Budget…Together: Truthfully I reallly hate budgeting. I hate that budgets change from month to month. I wish you could just set them once and let them roll from month to month. But it doesn’t work that way and you have to plan for things like annual car registration renewals, hair cuts, vacations, Christmas gifts (tip: start buying a little at a time months in advance!) and more. It was frustrating learning to think ahead but it made all the difference. We also learned to give every dollar a name – meaning WE told our money where it should go. This forced us to really notice how much we were spending, where we were overspending, and where we needed to make adjustments. In places we were overspending we limited ourselves and put the leftovers towards debt. And we did this together. Being on the same page with your spouse will make or break your mission to take control of your finances.I want to add too, that it doesn’t matter how much or how little you think you’re making. It is possible to get out of debt on a lower income. Up until this year, Clint and I have worked for non profits all of our married life and did not make as much as we could have doing something else. No matter the size of your income YOU CAN DO THIS!
3. We Used Cash: A few months after we started learning to budget we overdrafted. When we looked back over our bank statement that month to figure out where we went wrong we realized we had spent an insane amount of money on eating out. To prevent this from happening again we set a limit on how much we could spend a month at restaurants and only used cash to pay for it. So each pay period, we would pull out our restaurant budget in cash and evenly split it between the two of us. Once the cash was gone, it was gone. If we ran out we wouldn’t eat out again until the next pay period. Having a set and limited amount of cash helped us drastically cut back on spending money on food. What we were saving each month by not eating out went towards our debt. Spending money on food was our weakness – whatever your weakness, figure out what it is and limit yourself by using cash.
4. Put Extra Income Towards our Debt: It’s human nature to want to make a mad dash to Target any time you get some unexpected income but we decided that any extra money we received, aside from Christmas and birthday money, would go straight to paying off debt. Bonuses, tax refunds, money from odd jobs, personal items we sold, etc. all went to paying off debt. It was hard but it was awesome because sometimes, depending on the amount of money, we could tackle huge chunks of debt at a given time.
5. We Said No: This was probably the hardest part of it all. Saying no when everyone around us was saying yes. No to vacations, no to new cars, no to buying a house, no to even renting a nicer house, no to nicer clothes, no to cable tv. And you know what? We lived! And we were happy. So often I think we get so bent on keeping up with the Joneses that we are literally chasing empty things to keep up appearances or feel “happy”. But really, we’re just left wanting all the more. It doesn’t have to be this way. Dave says, “Contentment is possibly the most powerful financial principle; with it, getting out of debt, saving, and giving are easy.” And it’s so true. It was key to learning to be grateful for what we did have.

Our final year of paying off debt was the same year God began to give us a little peek into our future. That dream to serve in Europe? It became a reality. One that we didn’t really go looking for. God placed it in our laps at just the right time. Our start date? Four months after we would make our last loan payment.

Those vacations we said no to? We rewarded ourselves with a two week vacation to Europe which we paid for with cash.

Most importantly, we now have the tools we need to set us up for a secure financial future no matter how much or how little we’ll find ourselves making.

Our journey to becoming debt free was not an overnight fix. It took discipline, hard work, and determination as we worked our way towards our goal. But it was so worth all of the sacrifices. We “lived like no one else so that later we could live like no one else.” And we believe you can do it too!