Even before we got married, Mr. V and I sat down to take a hard look at our debt. You know, that ever-increasing pile of money you already spent but didn't actually have? Yes, that debt. I went to public college and he went to a private school. I drove a pre-owned car. He was sportin' a nice little "luxury sports vehicle" (his words) that he bought new. We were both still making payments on all of these things. It should be said that as of this post, we are both still driving those vehicles, and only one is paid off.
Neither of us came from money and we're certainly not rolling it in now, but we noticed a disturbing trend in our finances once we put them down on paper.
Beyond the aformentioned "necessities" (education and transportation) that we had accumulated, was a list of credit card transactions as long as my arm. I was maxed out on my AMEX, Mr. V was near the limit on his after the engagment ring, and we were getting ready to pay for a good chunk of our wedding which, for us, meant dun dun dun another credit card.
Add to that the cost of replacing a few items lost when we were burgled in late March and a mattress-built-for-two, and you can see that we were just amassing debt left and right. And to make matters worse, WE KNEW WE WERE DOING BAD THINGS!!! Our montly budget told us to stop, but we couldn't.
Until August, when luck turned around for us a bit. All of a sudden, we weren't spending money on a wedding that was coming up (we were newlyweds!) and we'd already made the purchases that kept us from sleeping on the floor or eating out of the dumpster. We were working at a school participating in a grant program (extra incentive money for a job well done) AND we'd taught summer school. What would we do with our newfound riches?
I'll tell you. We went after our debt like a lion does its prey. We sought out ways to take it down, and take it down fast. We set up a realistic budget, allowing for date night and personal spending so we wouldn't feel stiffled (and we couldn't tell each other what to do with our personal funds). All of our other money was already designated to a specific cause - food, gas, bills, rent, savings, missions, tithing, etc. And anything over that was promised to the debt. We blended advice from my accountant father (pay off your highest interest debt first), and that of Dave Ramsey (attack it smallest to largest, pay the minimum on all others, and snowball your monthly payments) and came up with a plan that has really paid off for us.
To date, Mr. V and I have paid off approximately $22,000 of our debt since August, and we're very proud of that. It has taken hard work and some sacrifice, but it feels so good to own my car free and clear, to not be strangled by our credit cards, and to know that we're on our way to bigger and better things, and a more secure financial future.
We encourage everyone to look into financial classes that your church offers, OR you can do what we did and take the cheap way out: we checked out Dave Ramsey's book from the public library.
By the way, we check a lot of other things out from the library, too, including movies and television boxed sets. It allows us to cheaply decide how we're spending our time. Yes, we're behind on what's going on with Jim and Pam of The Office, but that's ok. We're pretty excited to be where we are.
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