Our Journey to Debt Freedom Pt.3
To finally pick up were left off and finish this series!Currently, Hunter and I are in the last leg of debt payment and saving! With under $20,000 of school loans left, we project to be out of debt by about the end of next winter! Why, might you ask, would it take so long to pay off such a small amount?I'm so glad you asked!It's because Hunter got into grad school starting this September! We were hoping this would happen, but we're so focused on paying off our debt and saving up to pay for the birth of our new baby and all her gear, that we hadn't considered to save up towards school. Being that this is part of Dave Ramsey's financial plan so that one doesn't find themselves tempted to loan out again, we'll be continuing to pay off our minimum payments for our previous school loans, paying monthly grad school bill (aka cash flowing college) all while rapidly saving any extra money we make to have a full stockpile for grad school before Hunter graduates in two years.As long as Hunter's jobs and health remain the same, all of grad school will be saved up for by next summer! Wow! What a thought! We only wished we'd done this the first time around with the two degrees were finishing paying for currently. The idea of not having any looking school loans after Hunter goes to school is such a consoling thought. We're hoping he wins some scholarships to help too, and in the future, if I go back to work, that'll help us reach our goals that much faster!
Our WhyHaving the patience to endure these next two years of saving and paying, saving and paying is trying. We both have gone through moments where we think, "let's just get a house already and speed this process up," or "let's just take that vacation already!" Being almost 4 years into marriage and not owning our own home or being able to go on a fancy trip together can sometimes socially seem like we're behind and we constantly have to fight to remind each other that's not true.What is true is that we don't have the money! Technically, our net worth is still in the negatives, and that is not the lifestyle or legacy we want to portray and leave for our children. However, it's neither our goal to portray that we're wealthy and affluent either. Instead, we want our children to grow up being more financially savvy and educated than we were from a young age. But the time they start to remember their lives, we hope that it's not of a house of scavenged furniture and an extra tight grocery budget. We want them to understand hard work, perseverance and giving lovingly and faithfully to others around them. We want to be able to be in a place ourselves that when our kids come of age, we can help them with college and their first cars or whatever it is they may need to get on their own as young adults.Whenever the time comes that we've hit our marker to buy our dream property, we want to know that our contributions towards retirement and college savings are well underway. That we have our 3-6 month emergency savings in place. That if as soon as we move in, the pipes burst or something tragic like that happens, we can afford to fix it without it being a stressful tragedy.Remembering our "why" puts that temptation to reach into the cookie jar at bay. At this moment in time, the money simply isn't there. And that's okay because we're making good steps to bring it in!
Our Debt Free Dreams!If our projections hold true, in about a year and a half we'll be able to start paying for a down payment on land and building a bardominium on it.If you're not familiar with what a barndominium is, it's basically a condo in the shape of a barn! Where we live now, building a home like that is relatively affordable compared to buying a house, and the land to put it on is plentiful and cheap too!We want to raise chickens and maybe a goat or two. Adopt a big dog to man the property, have a pool and woods our kids can run around and play in. I look forward to the opportunity to design a place of our own and have plenty of lovely space to have friends and family over. Eventually, we want to use that barndominium as a short- term rental property and build a bigger home on another location of the property.One of our next goals is to foster and adopt. I personally have only ever dreamed to become a mother through adoption, and I'm thankful that God has given me two kids biologically! However, that is still something Hunter and I would like to do, and so we might need a bigger house!! I hope we get to foster children of all ages and keep as many with us as we can handle, really. We certainly couldn't put a number on that, but we know we financially couldn't properly bear that burden right now, so we eagerly look forward to paying off our debt for we can serve God and our community in this way.Another small dream of ours is to buy Hunter a new (used) car! His current 2004/05 Mazda 3 is such a champ, and he's a trooper for driving it, but I do look forward to him having something more comfortable, stylish and that has A/C! Especially in this Texas heat!When I was in college I had the opportunity to go on an overseas trip to Europe, which has been one of the highlights of my life! I so greatly look forward to taking Hunter to my favorite places I've gotten to visit so far as well as places that are on both of our bucket lists. We love to travel and wander and can't wait to do this without the stone if debt tied to our ankles.Lastly, one of our biggest and most treasured goals is the opportunity to sponsor more missionaries and evangelism opportunities both in our local city, country and overseas. Potentially, we hope to even become missionaries ourselves within the United States (this is always subject to change!) within the next 5 or so years. This has been a role I've felt us being lead to for just under a year. We pray it's what God wants for us, but it's something we can't move forward in pursuing and getting serious about until our debt is GONE. So, in the next two years, look out for any word that this role is being filled! Pray for it now! We hope to see it come to fruition!