Starting Our Debt-Free Journey

Written August 2018

We’re starting our debt-free journey and we have officially hopped on the Dave Ramsey “debt is dumb” bandwagon.

Why We Want to be Debt-Free Now

Mark and I are getting married in December with plans to start a family in the next couple of years, but being in debt makes me uneasy. In addition to the mortgage we just acquired a few months ago for our condo, we have student loans and consumer debt to pay off. I am not as worried about the credit cards because we usually pay those off pretty quickly. I am worried about the more than $100,000 in student loans that we have that we need to pay off. In speaking to colleagues around my age (late twenties, early thirties) about student loans, I learned that it is keeping some people from starting a family, buying homes and doing whatever else they had planned on. Debt is putting lives on hold.

I don’t want to put my life on hold for very much longer because I feel like it would force me to make decisions I would not ordinarily make. For example, I don’t want to move out of our house and out of Chicago until we have paid off our mortgage and built equity because I don’t want to lose money. That would mean not moving to and raising our kids in North Carolina, where we would be closer to family and friends, when it comes time to start residency seven years from now.

That would also mean only raising two kids instead of the four we planned on. It would also mean not going on vacations and having to worry about saving money for each child’s college education. Without the equity built in our current home to take with us, even if we did manage to move to North Carolina, we would not be able to purchase a plot of land and build our custom estate with cash. Basically, being in debt is going to force us to settle for things in life that I don’t really want. This was major inspiration for starting on our debt-free journey.

What We Have Done So Far

With $1000 put away as an emergency fund (baby step #1), Mark and I have been hustling on this Debt Snowball. If everything goes as planned, we should have our student loans paid by June of 2020, and our mortgage paid off 18 months later. Then we would be free to save for retirement for five years unhindered, and save for dream home. I am not playing any games this time.

Furniture that we don’t really use–sold to the highest bidder on OfferUp. The TV, some small appliances and most of our clothes are gone. We are also planning to sell one of our cars to get the ball rolling as well. I have been taking surveys, trying to get into focus groups and enrolling in Psych studies at the school. We pay everything in cash, and we are not taking a honeymoon until we are able to pay with cash.

Now that I put this out there in the world, we are now accountable to follow through what we began. Updates are forthcoming. Dave Ramsey has a podcast and a YouTube channel if you all want to know more about this plan. He is a little bit tough with his callers, but it seems to work, so I am okay with it. Let me know in the comments if you are also on your debt-free journey!

Cheers to making smarter financial decisions moving forward!

–Spring