The Beginning

I am not a very original person. Most of what I do and say has already been done and said by someone else. This blog is no different.

My friend, Billy, sent me a link to this guy’s blog where he chronicled his repayment of student loans. He started with $91K in student loans and was tired of being held captive to his debt. He decided to try and pay off the entire balance in 10 months. The blog follows him and how he tried to do this. He told stories of the sacrifices he made to accomplish his goal. 7 months later, the entire $91K was paid off.

That is an incredible accomplishment and I don’t want to diminish what he did at all. But, at the same time, he had $30K in savings, a few cars, and made about $90K when he started this little project. He wasn’t exactly hurting for money. After I read about all that he made and saved I thought to myself, “Well, of course he paid it off so fast, I could pay off my debt too if I made that much!” But could I? Could I really pay off my own student loan debt if made that much money? I could, I guess, but I probably would blow a lot of my money on dumb crap that I don’t need because I “can afford it”.

Anyways, in the days following, this guy’s story kept bugging me. I did some praying and talking with friends about it as well. I thought about starting a blog to also chronicle me paying back my student loan debt. However, I kept procrastinating and putting it off. During this time I got married so I brought my new bride into this debt of mine. For all you single people out there, it’s not a good feeling bringing your spouse into your mess. It sucks. She is great and supports me and knew the mountain we would climb, but it was still hard for me.

My wife, Stephanie, and I have done a lot of talking about our finances. We have done a budget and are doing a “cash only” system for purchases. We put our money for groceries, gas, going out, and everything else into different envelopes. This way we can keep track of what we spend. They say that you will spend 15-18% more when you use your card because paying with cash “hurts.” You can actually see your money going away instead of just swiping a card and trying to keep track in your head. We want to be committed to this but know that it’s going to be a challenge.

Also, I got a new job. I am excited about what God has done with this career change, but I am taking a pay cut from where I was working before. After a while, not sure how long, I should be making close to what I was making before. But, for now, it is less. That means that we will need to be extra frugal and mindful of how we use our money. We want to pay off this debt for so many reasons. We would like to start a family in the somewhat near future and we hear that having a kid can be a little expensive. We also want show our friends and family that living free from debt is possible, even on a smaller income.

We are both strong believers in Christ and believe that the money in our bank account is His and He wants us to use it with great discretion and be charitable with it. One of the downfalls of debt is that you are not able to be as charitable as you would like because of that debt. I have had many people say, “Well, you should give as you feel led and not worry about your debt.” I agree with that, to a point, in that if I feel a strong push from God to give a certain dollar amount than I should give it. However, there are times when I just want to give, because I want to. But because of my debt, I can’t. It sucks, to be honest.

Proverbs 22:7 says that if you are in debt, you are slave. This is completely true. I feel like a slave to my stupid debt. I have this huge weight on my shoulders and it’s very tiring. Now, my wife also has that burden and I don’t want to have her live with that.

I’m not going to debate was is right and wrong with certain debt. I think that if you can avoid it, you should. Credit cards and car loans are silly because we can so easily avoid those things with a little sacrifice. We live in a culture that tells us we should have everything we want and have it now. We have credit cards and car loans so that we can have what we want now and worry about it later. Is it any wonder our country is $15 TRILLION in debt?

Anyways, Stephanie and I have decided to do something about it. This blog is about us paying our debt and being an encouragement, hopefully, to anyone else out there facing some of the same issues we are. We will be transparent and open about how much we owe and our progress. We ask that you will talk to us about our debt and help keep us accountable. If you have any tips or suggestions, or need some, please comment in the comment section.

On to the good stuff.

As of this very moment, we have $41,634.15 in student loan debt (all mine, by the way). Thankfully, we have 2 cars that are completely paid off. We have a $2K emergency fund set up in case anything happens. Our combined income, is approximately $2,200/month, but we will know more once I know the exact amount of my new salary. Our payments will be a minimum of $300/month starting the end of July. If we paid the minimum of $300/month, it would a shade under 19 years to pay the debt in full and we would have paid about $25K in interest. Sucks, I would be approaching 45 years old when that happens. Sucks, doesn’t it?

Well, we aren’t going to do that. We are going to attack this debt and crush it into the ground. Stephanie and I will be sacrificing many things for this, but are excited to see what God will do with our marriage through this time. She will be doing some extra babysitting and I will try to pick up a second job. We know that this will be hard, but we are ready.

Finally, we set a target date for paying this off: November 2nd, 2013. Why? Well, no other reason than it’s a date that is kind of far away and also Stephanie’s birthday. This won’t be easy and I know we will hit some potholes. Both Stephanie and myself will be posting periodic updates about our progress and anything on our mind. Thank you for reading and being a part of our journey.

P.S. If any of you know of a part-time gig we could do to make some extra cash, any and all ideas would be very helpful! Thank you!

Brian and Stephanie