We're Debt-Free!!!

We made it! On May 20, 2014, we paid off our last student loan payment and we have no more debt. Chris and I took the day off and spent the day together just hanging out at some of our favorite places. That evening we took Ethan out for some debt-free fun. Such a simple day for us, but exactly what we wanted to do. Now all of our excess will start rolling into areas we WANT to spend money.
Cue California vacation fund!

Part of our countdown was to read The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. We read chapter 40 together the morning of our debt-free day.

We wanted to pay off our last debt somewhere other than our living room. So we went to the run-down apartment we lived in when we first took the Financial Peace University class.  We submitted our last payment outside that building. (Kind of surprised the building is still there!) Chris committed to run/bike/walk 40 miles in the last 40 days, so he rode his final mile on our debt-free morning. Pictured is his mileage check off sheet. Also, one of the biggest helps to the process was paying most things with cash. That brown wallet has envelopes in it that we divide our cash into different categories. We know it was one of the tools we used to becoming debt-free.

 When we opened our front door that morning this was displayed for all to see! We have some great encouragers that helped us big time along the way! The rest of this collage is Ethan's evening with us. He got to buy a toy at the mall...he picked the villain from Toy Story 2, Zerg. Out of all the toys in the world...he was the winner! Haha! He got to pick out what he wanted to eat for dinner- one big slice of pepperoni pizza. Then we rode the carousel. The best part was when we passed Chris we yelled "WE'RE DEBT-FREE!!!" Ethan doesn't really know what that means, but he loves to yell it!

2014 Debt Pay-Off: $5,461.25

Total Debt Pay-Off: $61,334.95

Amount Left to Pay-Off: $0.00!!!!

The Countdown Begins!

I had to stop in and start the debt-free countdown! ONLY 8 DAYS LEFT!!! Here is a quick recap of our debt-free journey:

• January 2009: (broke and seriously needing a financial mediator) we took the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University Class (Get more info here)
• January 2009: we totaled our debt and realized we were dropping over $800/month in debt payments to feed our $61,000 debt monster. 
• 2009-2011: we worked the FPU plan and paid off $24,000 of debt in the first 3 years and added a family member, Ethan, aka: Hulk. 
• January 2012: we started blogging about our debt-free journey and created a motivational system to kick our debt pay-off into a higher gear. (Click here to read our first debt pay-off post) **this helped us pay-off on average over $1,300/month over the last 28 months. 
• 2012: we paid off $13,000 of debt! 
• 2013: we paid off over $16,000 of debt!
• April 11, 2014: we began a 40 day countdown to our debt-free date. Chris committed to run/bike/walk 40 miles in these 40 days and we both committed to reading the Purpose Driven Life (40 chapters) to remind ourselves the purpose of our lives and why being debt-free is part of that purpose. (Get the Purpose Driven Life book at Rock Brook Church for free when you visit or on amazon here)

This should be my last post until we make our final debt payment! Thank you for reading and encouraging us along the way. We are excited to rename our blog soon and share what debt-free looks like for us- stay tuned!! 

2014 YTD Debt Pay-Off: $4,552.07

Total Debt Pay-Off: $60,425.77

Amount Left: $911.12

Debt-Free Date: May 20, 2014

Speed Bumps

So many posts combined in this one. We have experienced some major speed bumps over the last few months and I started to write about one and another one happened! So here are the last few months abbreviated.


We began the year in full force! We came off of Christmas with the motivation to make even more budget cuts right off the bat to help our debt-free cause. We live pretty tightly already, so deeper cuts were hard work.

January Budget Cuts

• No BAM (that's what we call our blow money)
• No Date Night Money (we saved a gift card to suffice)
• No Clothes Money
• We cut our Grocery Budget by $100 

We planned this month well before Christmas and knew these cuts were coming. The best part was seeing how interested God was in our finances! A couple in our church gave us a Christmas card with a $50 Walmart gift card in it. Little did they know what kind of impact that had on our month to come! We are so grateful for times like these that show us we aren't doing this big task alone!

February Speed Bumps

So much to record, here are a few big ones-

• Our Honda's transmission went out
• Sold Honda and bought a SUV from my parents
• Our Chevy started overheating 
• Replaced Water Pump in Chevy
• Sold Chevy (we have put over $1000 into that car this year…we were ready to say goodbye!)
• Bought another Honda 
• Paid for Taxes and Tags for both vehicles

March Non-Madness

So far this month has been a typical one- so very thankful for that! After the drama of February, we had to sit down and re-evaluate our debt-free date. We initially planned on being debt-free in the middle of April. After those big bumps in the road, we are planning on a debt-free celebration around the middle of May. One month behind after all of that February craziness- I'll take it! 

2014 YTD Debt Pay-Off: $2,569.93

Total Debt Pay-Off: $57,392.58

Amount Left: $3,916.59