Debt Free

Our goal over the past 13 months or so has been to get completely debt free - everything - eventually, even the house! At church, everyone was talking about Financial Peace University and Dave Ramsey and what not and I was curious what all of the fuss was about. The preschool I worked for was doing a book sale for a fundraiser and if you purchased a certain amount, you received a free book. So, I bought everyone on my Christmas list (2006) a book so that I could get free stuff (yes, I'm obsessed with thriftiness) and I carefully selected Dave Ramsey's book entitled "Total Money Makeover".

I love to read. When I actually find time to go to the library, I love to pick out a suspense thriller, murder mystery, FBI or lawyer novel. My favorite authors are John Grisham, James Patterson, Iris Johannsen, and many more. I've read nearly every book written by my favorite authors and when I get one in my hand, I barely put it down. Usually, I finish a good book in a day or two. Then, I will go months before I return to the library to pick out another.

Anyway, I love to read fiction, but I'm not a big fan of non-fiction. Other than the Bible and textbooks (which were forced on me - not the Bible, but the textbooks), I really haven't picked up very many non-fiction books in my life. So, I was expecting to have the same result with the Dave Ramsey book (yes, we're back on that again). I expected to start reading and somewhere around page 10 or 15 to put the book down and never pick it back up again.

Shocker! I picked up "Total Money Makeover" and barely put it down again until I had finished. And - all in less than a week!! I was convinced of the Ramsey way of life - living debt free. I spent an entire evening passionately telling Tommie everything I had learned from reading this book and trying to convince him to subscribe to the way of life. It didn't take much convincing. Both of us realized that we had slipped back into some bad financial habits that we needed to break - and fast.

So, we set out on a mission to become "Debt Free"! Almost every financial conversation that we have had since the reading of THE book has centered around the phrase "debt free". We have closely followed a tight monthly budget, cut out excess spending, discontinued use of credit cards (for the most part) and in general, tried to find ways to spend less and earn more. In the summer of 2007 following a major medical issue, we decided that we could attain our goal of becoming "debt free" more quickly if I went back to work full-time. It was intended to be a short term solution to our "problem". We have never intended and do not intend to live off of two incomes. My income is purely to pay the bills and start saving. We have continued to live on the same budget, in spite of the increase in income.

2007 brought a firm financial discipline to our lives and it also brought many financial challenges. Between my medical bills and Tommie's dental bills, we added nearly $13,000 to our debt... but by the grace of God, we were able to pay the bills and still pay some debt off.

God is so good to us. He is faithful to provide for our needs even when we are not expecting it. Both Tommie & I have been a little discouraged by the lack of progress on our debt. We were hoping to be a lot closer to our goal by now. Originally, we were scheduled to be out of debt by Christmas 2008. Now, it looks like it may be closer to mid-to-late 2009.

Today, God provided for us in a way we least expected. Tommie's 401K through work has changed a couple of times and today, he had to change his log-in to something related to his social security number and VOILA! A 401K from a previous employer appeared! We knew that he still had that 401K that we had never rolled over, but it had been so long ago that we both had pretty much forgotten about it. At the time, it was so little and the penalty for cashing it out was not worth it, so we just left it alone. Well, several years later, cashing it out will pay off quite a bit of our debt!!!! Praise the Lord!!! Talk about a pick-me-up! We're so excited to be able to pay off some stuff that's been weighing heavy on us. Now, the goal of being "debt free" by Christmas 2008 does not seem so un-attainable.

Did I mention that God is good?