I debated this morning about how to best share and how deeply to share about a big milestone Jon and I reached this morning. After talking with Jon a bit about it, I decided to go ahead and share! Today, January 28, just 10 days shy of being married 19 months, we have paid off $20,600 of debt since May 2010!!! So, I guess the purpose of this post is to express our gratitude and to potentially motivate others!
Part of me just can't believe it, but mostly, I'm just so grateful! So grateful mainly to the Lord! He has been our guide, our motivation, our strength in our marriage and very much so in how we've moved forward with our finances! For the first 15 months of our marriage, Jon and I lived solely on my income while he worked hard to finish grad school. Those first months we learned how to just give it up to the Lord and trust him. Trust Him to guide us in how to merge our debt and get and stay on the same page with our spending. Thankfully, Jon and I have the same financial goals and are similar in our spending. However, I'm much more of what Dave Ramsey would call a "NERD" and Jon a "FREE SPIRIT" with money :) These differences have helped us each to grow and appreciate each other and to strengthen our financial situation. It was hard to fully trust at times that all of our bills would be met, but there has not been even once when the Lord has not provided! He is so GOOD!!! God turned a car accident that totaled our best car into an opportunity to eliminate a car payment and pay cash for a used car! He used our move to Kansas to lower our expenses, found us a GREAT tenant in GR, and work towards more financial goals! He led us each to new positions that allow us to continue to live off of one income, while using the other to tackle debt and prepare for baby! Again, God is so good!!
Obviously, I'm grateful to Jon because he's been my partner in this! We've grown so much through this experience, not only in how we budget and plan, but also in having a clear sense of what we want for our family in the long run! We've learned to live on less than we make, to not use credit cards or incur new debt, how to compromise, how to communicate more effectively in many areas of our marriage, to delay gratification and work towards a purchase, etc., etc.! Words really can't express how thankful I am for such an awesome husband and these life lessons from the very beginning of our marriage!
We're also extremely blessed to have such awesome parents, family and friends who have helped us reach this milestone. Jon and I haven't accomplished this milestone alone - we never could have! We reached this marker only because of the support we've received through amazing people in our lives! From wedding gifts, birthday money, a little extra here and there - we've done our best to thoughtfully use all of it! Thank you, THANK YOU for the generosity that you've each extended to us! In my mind, this is as much your celebration as it is ours because you contributed to it!
We also definitely have to give credit to Dave Ramsey's ministry! I've been a DR Fan for a long time! Jon and I started our first Financial Peace University class while we were engaged, but we dropped out half way through lol! We didn't stop going because we weren't interested though! We stopped because it was weeks before our wedding, I was traveling a lot for work, and it was at 8am on Sunday morning :) We started another FPU class a few weeks after our wedding, and had such an awesome experience with the leaders and group! It really helped us to get motivated! We've since kept up with the concepts, tweaked a bit here and there, and are going to start another class on February 5th! We strongly recommend his teaching to any and all!! (I'm listening online right now to Dave haha!). For us, two of the most effective teachings from Dave at this point have been 1 - doing and STICKING to a monthly budget; 2 - CASH ENVELOPES! Talk about teaching us discipline! They've been great tools!
We still have a lot of progress to make with our student loans, but are SO PUMPED to be where we are today!!
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