I apologize for the lack of updates on our debt progress. It
has been a combination of not having a ton of updates and also forgetting. We have been plugging along, cleaning some
houses, but not making any “large payments” recently. Our debt is down to
$39,011.50 as of today (each day it grows because of interest). We started on
7/2/12 with a total of $41,634.15. Which, if you do some math, means we have
paid off $2,622.65 worth of debt in just over 2 months. That’s pretty
encouraging when you look at it that way.
Unfortunately, looking at $39,011.50 alone is discouraging. The
road seems far and the mountain is so high. Dave Ramsey talks about having a “Debt
Snowball” where you gain momentum paying off all your debts, but we just have
one debt. So, we don’t get the same thrill that someone might get when they pay
off a smaller debt. However, we are trying to continue in our progress. We are
doing our budget and trying so very hard to stick with it. However, we did our
last budget and realized there just isn’t any extra money to put towards the
debt.
Sure, we can clean houses every weekend and do things to
generate more income. However, Stephanie is now coaching volleyball which means
that she has practice and games every single day of the week except for Sunday.
Also, I am a basketball coach and I am doing a lot of pre-season stuff with the
team, which takes up 3-4 days a week for me as well and when the season starts,
it will be 6 days a week.. To us, this coaching stuff is our ministry. We love
doing it, but it doesn’t leave a lot of free time to try and make extra money.
Our friends told us about a guest house their parents have
and that we could possibly live there if we were interested. It would save us
about $600/month in rent. At first, we wanted to but then decided against it as
it would involve moving (which we hate doing) and then moving again within the
year since this isn’t a permanent situation. Also, we liked our apartment. It
was the first placed we have lived together and finally made it feel like home.
So that was that.
Then, we paid rent again this last month. For us, that was
kind of the straw that broke the camel’s back. We looked at the amount we were
paying and just couldn’t do it anymore. We liked our apartment, but we will
like being out of debt more. We contacted our friend and met with the parent’s.
They told us the amount and we were in. They are wonderful people and we are so
thankful for them allowing us to do this. Not many people are okay with
strangers living in their backyard.
We won’t have a dishwasher and will have to get used to another place.
But saving $600/month and using that towards debt? Sounds good to us! We are planning on staying
there anywhere from 8 months to no more than a year. If we stay there a year,
that is about $7000 we can put towards debt. We would have to clean 110 houses
to make that amount. We are having to break our lease, which means we need to
pay 2 months in rent to do that, but we figure we can make that money up quickly
enough at the new place and then really start attacking this debt. I did that math, with our regular $300/month
payment and our new savings of $600/month, we would be able to put about
$11,000 towards debt in the next 12 months. That doesn’t include any extra cash
we put towards it from cleaning houses or things like that. Pretty much a
no-brainer when you look at that way.
Again, we love our apartment, but we hate debt more. I hate
not having that extra money to put in savings or go on vacation. We are doing
our best to keep our eyes on the future and making sure we are focused on the
goals for our family. We feel that God placed this opportunity in our lives and
we would be fools to pass it up.
Thank you for your continues support and prayers!
