Our Journey

My hubby and I have been married for over 7 years. We have had individual debt issues before marrying in 2004. We have each done all of the wrong things with money. I have had the electricity turned off, the phone turned off and other things for late payments. At one time I had a horrible credit rating. My husband had one as well. We had to drive 15 year old cars because we didn’t qualify for a decent car. My husband was severely delinquent on a student loan of over $30,000. He was being charged over $250 in interest per month at one point. I went through the phase of not opening the bills (If I don’t look at it, it didn’t come in the mail). I have bounced checks albeit unintentionally. As embarrasing as it is to admit, I even had a credit card confiscated by a store clerk when he called the credit card company because I was declined ( I think they gave him a reward for mailing my card back-LOL).   

Why am I telling you all of this??? I want you to know that no matter where you’ve been, I have been there too and there is hope. You can turn the ship around and live a different life. I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that it’s simple and happens instantly. It doesn’t. It takes work, but it can be done. 

Let me show you the other side of things. At one point in time, we had over $100,000 in non – mortgage debt. That’s an astounding amount of money to owe. Then the ultrasound technician told us that we had twins on the way-YIKES!!! We realized then that we had to live differently. 

We are now debt free except for the house.  Actually at the moment we have 2 mortgages because we recently moved into a single house.  Our older townhouse had 7 floors (one room on every floor) and no central air conditioning.  That was rough with twins (especially when they were babies) as their room was on the 5th floor.  We have just put our old house on the market and are waiting for a quick sale.  Had we not been debt free it would not have been possible to purchase our current home, which is perfect for us. 

It feels GREAT.  My hubby says that we need to rack up some more debt so that we get some mail.  We don’t get alot of mail these days I actually have credit card companies begging me to use their cards.  

I can honestly tell you that while we’re not done yet, life feels different now. We don’t argue about money. I don’t worry about affording my daughter’s wants and needs. I don’t lose sleep because of money. The list goes on and on.

Keep following our journey and please tell me yours. It helps to have a support system when you are going through this. Keep checking in for deals to get freebies and really cheap household things and then come home and make an extra payment to your credit card! Your debt can be gone soon too!

I feature a segment on my site called What Have You Done to Get Debt FREE ?  We all make dozens of money decisions each day that impact the financial standing of our family.  The point of this segment is to write about all of the things we have done each day in our quest to get debt free.  My goal with this segment is for my readers to encourage and inspire one another on our journey. It isn’t easy, but it helps to make some friends along the way! Please join us!