When I met Stephen, and we started dating, I knew within a few weeks that he was My Person. After the first month or so we started talking about our future, we quickly knew we were both on the same page and that we wanted to get married sooner rather than later.
Once the conversation started about getting married, we also brought up the dreaded topic of finances, what a way to burst the cloud nine bubble! I remember saying out loud to Stephen the same thing I’d told myself for the last ten years, “I’m debt-free EXCEPT?.”
It was at that moment that I knew that I had been lying to myself.
So here’s my story.
I got a job at 16, working at a local Dry Cleaners, and I stayed there until I graduated from college. It was an easy job, I could do my homework during slow times, most customer’s loved me, and the owner’s trusted me. I’ve always worked side gigs even after college, including selling skincare at Beauty Shows, a blackjack dealer for casino parties, setting up trade show booths, support for my dad’s telecom agency, a Children’s Pastor, hosting international students, and I’m sure there are a few more odd jobs that are missing.
I lived with my dad and decided life wasn’t busy enough, so I decided to get my MBA online. At the same time I was working 45- 60 hours a week on average at my full-time job, still working side gigs, dating (which was a part-time job in itself), but I knew I wanted more out of life and that my current career path wasn’t going to cut it. So I did what every fresh out of college, directionally challenged, student thinks they need to do to find purpose and applied for Grad School and some unsubsidized student loans to go along with it. I was lucky that my dad covered most of my bills; all I had to worry about was my car, gas, and food. Plus, I had this “savings account,” which was funded because I decided to take out DOUBLE the amount I needed for student loans each semester.
In July 2013, my life changed forever, midway into my 3rd semester of Grad School, I woke up one morning to find that my father passed away in the night. Suddenly I no longer had that security blanket. I was now wholly responsible not just for my circumstances, but I had to figure out how to handle the MESS that was my father’s estate.
I woke up the next morning to find that my father wasn’t necessarily “covering” me as I thought. He had no will, the house was in foreclosure, his car was one week away from being repossessed, our phone bill was three months past due, his bank accounts were less than 100 in each, and he had borrowed over $2500 from me in the last few months coming from that “savings account.”
I am an enneagram 6, so this threw me in ultra action mode making all the list, running down all the worse case scenarios, and avoiding my grief because I had a project. I felt like I had to do it all because I needed to feel in control of something and that there was no one else to do it. So I got to work. I made all the arrangements, planned my father’s memorial service, and paid for everything out of my trusty student loan funded savings account. Within two weeks of my dad’s passing, I moved out of the house to an apartment 45 minutes away from my job, packed, sold, and donated most everything in the house, quit grad school, and went back to work, not even a week later.
I was an adult.
Less than a year later, I took a financial peace class at my church at the time. I remember being so proud that I was “Debt Free” well except my car, oh, and my $35,000 student loans, which, of course, were deferred because WHY NOT?? It was in that class that I realized how much the interest was adding up, so I decided to cut a check and pay off my student loans from my dad’s life insurance money I had gotten, and MAN WAS THAT HARD. That money sat untouched, as a cushion in mind against some of the stupid decisions I was making financially.
I lived without a budget, spending more than I made and chipping away at my “Nest Egg” little by little. Then in 2017, I decided to buy my first house. I touted the fact that “I was putting down 20%!” However, I didn’t tell anyone that 20% plus the closing cost was ALL I had left.
Once I moved in, I went down the 0% interest for the 18-months rabbit hole. I needed the necessities: new kitchen and bathroom countertops, furnishing the whole house, a new Louis Vuitton bag to celebrate that new house?..
Of course, right as that 18-month window of interest-free ended, so did my employment. I lost my cushy job; I was “laid off” for the 2nd time in my life. Even before losing my job, my income had decreased by 40% in the last year, so I was already using my other credit cards more and more.
Before I knew it, my inner monologue of I was “Debt Free” except? included almost $30,000 in credit card debt and $15,000 on a car loan. I remember the feeling in my stomach, sitting on my soon to be husband’s hand-me-down Ikea sofa about to admit THAT number out loud. I was about to fess up to all of it, the facade of having it all under control was coming down for the first time.
I knew I wanted the combined finances, what’s “mine is his,” kind of marriage, and so I came clean. What I didn’t consider before that moment would be that he would be coming into this marriage with his mountain of debt too.
Once we added it up, we were just shy of $100,000 in DEBT?what a way to start a life together.
Our decision to start our married life off on the right foot financially was not for the faint of heart. We dedicated ourselves to budgeting and sticking to that budget. It was HARD, there were lots of tears, lots of mumbled annoyances, lots of passionately worded arguments (mostly by me saying I NEEDED this or that), but we knew at the end of the day this was all for a greater purpose. It was so we could say we were WEIRD by being debt free, that we broke the generational standards of drowning in credit card debt and car loans we didn?t need, but mostly so we could obtain Peace when it came to our finances.
We started living by the principles of Dave Ramsey?s Financial Peace University and started using those Baby Steps to get out of the mess we made.
14 Months later, with me working full time and running 2 businesses on the side and Stephen working full time and running a business on the side, we did it. We made our LAST payment toward debt and kicked our creditors to the curb for good!
Things I gave up during our Debt Free Journey:
- Make-up or hair products over $15
- Getting my nails done
- Vacations
- Expensive date nights (over $40 unless it was gifted or budgeted for way in advance)
- Expensive wine (this one was so hard)
- Going to Publix, I was forced to shop at Walmart
- Expensive presents (Stephen got me a BUGZOOKA for our first Christmas!)
- Starbucks (coffee not at home period actually, unless it was from my ?Fun Money)
- Subscription services
- Cable TV
- Ordering lunch out most days at the office
- A new headboard when we sized up to a King Size bed
What I gained from our Debt Free Journey:
- Peace
Was it worth it, ABSOLUTELY!
