And Another $1500 Bites the Dust

What a crazy experience it is to budget your money. I only get paid once a month at my job, and since I started at the beginning of July, it was hard for us to REALLY know how much money I will be making. I get an hourly wage along with bonuses, so I really didn't know what to expect. We made a decision to only use my hourly wage for budgeting purposes and use my bonuses to pay our debt. Well, I got a lot more than I was expecting!

Not only did I get more, but we cleaned 4 houses in the last 3 weeks and are cleaning 2 more tomorrow! What a blessing!

All that to say, we made a payment of.... wait for it.... wait for it....

$1500!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, all together, we paid down our debt by $2800 as of today and have anther $300 scheduled at the end of the month. How are we doing this? I honestly don't know. We are making a budget, but it's not like we are pros at it. Yet, we have more money now than it seems possible. I have a theory:

You would be surprised by how many people I have talked to or heard on Dave Ramsey's radio show say, "Once we started budgeting, it's like we got a raise!" I think it's just that you know where your money is going. You have a plan instead of just using your debit card like it's going out of style. We haven't bought clothes since we've been married. I think we have eaten out 2 times. The only things we have purchased have been groceries and things we can use gift cards for (from our wedding). We are keeping track of our groceries by holding onto our receipts. We are just being smart. Honestly, it's not that hard.

I can't imagine how good it will feel to pay off our debt. Even just to get it below $20,000 would be a spectacular day!

Here is one thing we have done that has helped a lot. (I stole this idea) Get a white board, can be big or small, and put your budget on it. Write down where your money is going and how much money you have. Put the amount of your debt and anything else you want on it. For us, it is REALLY nice to see that every day. When you look at the amount of debt you have, you stay motivated. Sure, sometimes it is discouraging, but then when you get to erase the old number and write the new (lower) number, you feel a sense of joy.

I apologize if our blog isn't more "practical". We are still BRAND NEW at this and are hoping to become pros in the not-to-distant future.

- Brian

Gosh, I Hate Debt

It’s hard with this blog to find the motivation to give updates. Honestly, I hate talking about money. I always feel like I could be spending my time thinking about so many other things than cash and how to make more and save more. However, money plays a very important part in our lives. We need it to survive. People abuse it in spending too much and holding on to too much. Money reveals the true character of someone. If you give someone money (no matter the amount), you will be able to see what kind of person they are in how they use that money. So, because of that, it is a worthy topic to discuss.

Stephanie and I are learning a lot about who we are as people through this process. We are realizing how selfish we are and how much we envy other people. As I have said before, waking up on Saturday at 8 AM to clean houses is not my idea of a wonderful Saturday. I would rather sleep in and spend the day being the most unproductive human on the planet. I have realized that the more you are selfish, the more you are selfish. If I spend my day thinking about myself and what I want, I will spend more time thinking about myself and what I want. It’s like a snowball of selfishness that gets so big, it crushes everything in its path.

This last Saturday, we left our house around 9 AM and didn’t get back until almost 4:30. We cleaned 2 houses and made $130. It was awesome, but we realized how hard this is going to be. We are trying to clean as many houses as possible before volleyball season starts as she is a coach and she won’t have as much free time. After our entire day of cleaning, Stephanie then went and baby-sat for a few hours Saturday night and then on Sunday morning I mowed my parent’s lawn for a few bucks. We have 2 more houses to clean this Saturday and probably 2 more the week after that. This is all on top of us both working close to full-time jobs.

If a few things work out like I think they will, we will be making another $1000 payment towards our debt at the end of the week. How cool is that!? We have made $1,300 so far in 5 weeks when we started on this little journey with another large payment waiting in the wings. It’s funny, I enjoy making payments. It gives me great joy to push the “Submit” button and watch our debt shrink. I feel like I am sticking my 2 middle fingers at my computer screen and saying, “We aren’t going to be a slave to you for much longer!” We hate our debt (in case you couldn’t tell).

Also, we are growing together through this process. You want to find out a lot about your spouse? Spend 8 hours with them driving all over town and cleaning houses. By the time you are done, you are so exhausted, your true self comes out. You don’t have the energy to “try” at that point. Have Stephanie and I gotten into arguments because we are so tired and cranky? Absolutely! But, I can feel the strength in our marriage growing. It’s a wonderful thing, really. We are working together as a team when we clean those houses. She has a part and I have a part. We do it together and get done quickly because we want to get out of there. We don’t have time to bicker about the small things, until we get in the car that is.

Dave Ramsey always talks about finding ways to increase your income. It’s actually a lot easier than you might think. This whole cleaning thing, we are doing it by word of mouth now. Hopefully we can get a schedule down to where we go back to the same houses on a consistent basis. But we aren’t some cleaning pros who have a website and business cards. Our friends tell their friends and they call us. If you are looking for extra income, cleaning houses is a GREAT way to do that. We even had to turn someone away because we are all booked up! That is a great, and strange, feeling to have.

We are excited to see what God has in store for us going forward.

- Brian

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God's Goodness

It’s been a while since a post has been seen on this blog. I wish we both could write more, but it’s hard. We enjoying writing and enjoy telling people our story of paying off our debt. Unfortunately there just aren’t that many "interesting" things that happen to us. Paying off debt is rather boring, to be honest.

To give you a quick update, we are back to filling up our debt jar again! We are at about $390 as of last night! We cleaned a few houses 2 Saturday’s ago and got some cash for a wedding gift. We are getting ready to spend almost our entire upcoming Saturday cleaning houses. We both have the same reaction when we think about doing that, a sort of “Ugh” but we know we need to do. The sooner this debt is paid the sooner we can stop doing this! Also, Stephanie has been getting steady business with making those greeting cards and that is awesome to see.

This last weekend we went to a friend’s cabin with 2 other couples to escape the heat. It was the first time we have ever gone anywhere on a budget and we stuck to it! We brought up a certain amount in cash and spent every dime. It was rather freeing to know that we could spend money without worrying if we actually had the money. We got to fully enjoy a vacation with some good friends and money was of little concern since we had the cash ready to spend. Not only was it freeing, but it made the vacation that much better. Knowing that we didn’t have to do math in our head to make sure we had the money to go out to dinner. We just said, “Okay, this is how much money we have left” and that was that. We are looking forward to future vacations that we can bring even more money with us once we are out of debt!

I know that I have spoken before about getting motivated to pay off your debt. However, I didn’t realize how truly difficult it is. I’m not saying you shouldn’t pay off debt; I just want to make sure you are counting the cost of doing that. Stephanie and I are coming to the realization of how long this process will be. Honestly, it’s hard for us to see the finish line. We have so long to go. It’s easy to get discouraged and want to give up.

On the other hand, God is continually reminding us of the blessings we have. We have a roof over our head and food in our bellies. It’s funny because people always say that God promises to provide our basic needs, which isn’t exactly true. Whenever I think about “God’s provision” I wonder about those who die of starvation or live without a real home. America is blessed. We are blessed. However, God can take all of the comforts away in an instant if He chooses to do so. If our cars get stolen, our apt. burns down, and we lose everything; does that make God any LESS good? That is a question I constantly think about. I always thank Him for the blessing I have and call Him “good” because of those blessings. But isn’t His goodness constant no matter what circumstances we are in?

If we believe His goodness only goes as far as we are happy, then we will be very fickle with how we view God. Does God stop being good because our car breaks down or we are stuck in traffic? Is He no longer a “good God” when someone close to us dies or we lose our job? I think these are questions we need ask ourselves. We must realize that God is good because He is good and not because good things are happening to us.

For Stephanie and I, this is applied in paying off our debt. He didn’t stop being good when I got into student loan debt nor did it stop when we began paying it off and sacrificing our wants. In fact, His goodness is made even more obvious in this time for us because of how much we need Him. We need His promises of salvation and we hold onto the hope He offers us. This time of paying debt and sacrificing is so short compared to our whole lives, not to mention eternity. That is what you and I must remember when we go through those more difficult times. Our hope is eternity; not having things go our way on earth.