My husband, Dustin, and I met in October 2009. Throughout our years of dating, marriage and having a family, we have hit so many amazing milestones. Below are our biggest moments in our almost 10 years of dating, including the day we decided to change our family tree!
- December 21, 2009 | Dustin and I officially began dating. D says I can no longer say this is our anniversary since we have a wedding anniversary now; however, I want credit for all the years together!
- October 2012 | Dustin and I moved from Florida, where we were both born and raised, to Dallas, Texas.
- May 15, 2014 | Dustin asked me to marry him!
- July 26, 2014 | Dustin and I got married!
- May 2015 | Dustin and I had an amazing Hawaiian honeymoon that we planned and saved for, for 10 months instead of having a traditional wedding.
- September 2015 | Dustin and I went to my 10 year high school reunion where we decided we wanted to have a baby!
- December 5, 2015 | We found out we were pregnant and were keeping it a secret until we visited all of our family in Florida for Christmas.
- August 14, 2016 | We welcomed our son, Mark Alan Robinson, into the world at 5:35 a.m
November 15, 2018 is a very different milestone than any of the ones listed above. That is the day we decided we needed to focus our efforts on getting out of debt. Why that day? That was the day we f.i.n.a.l.l.y. paid off my 2010 VW Beetle named Betty.
You see, I took out a loan for that car in August 2012. It took me 6 years and 4 months to pay off a crappy, not-super-functional car, and one I would never have bought had I truly thought of the future. But, back then, I didn’t think of the future. I only thought of the now.
I paid way too much for it, but didn’t know that at the time – first car purchase! I skipped a payment every other year with my lenders “Skip a Pay” plan which was offered every Christmas season. My thoughts on that were, “oh yay, more money to have for the holidays.” I didn’t give any thought to the interest accruing and the fact that I was only delaying the payoff of my car by another month, every time I accepted the “Skip a Pay,” – again, never a thought in my mind!
November 15, 2018 is the day our debt free journey began. The day we realized it shouldn’t have taken us so long to pay off a car that we hoped would last us at least another year. Now that we knew we wanted to be on a plan, where do we start?
Two words. Dave Ramsey.
We had heard of him and knew of his principles, but had never turned our goals over to his plan. November 15 was the day that changed.
(insert extreme Googling of – Dave Ramsey Baby Steps)
- Save $1,000 for your starter emergency fund.
- Pay off all debt (except the house) using the debt snowball.
- Save 3-6 months of expenses in a fully funded emergency fund.
- Invest 15% of your household income in retirement.
- Save for your children’s college fund.
- Pay off your home early.
- Build wealth & give.
Debt is so ingrained into our culture that most Americans can’t even envision a car without a payment… a house without a mortgage… a student without a loan… and credit without a card. We’ve been sold debt with such repetition and with such fervor that most folks can’t conceive what it would be like to have NO payments.
Dave Ramsey
We knew we did not want to be slaves to any lender any longer than we needed to. We especially didn’t want to raise Mark with debt looming over us that could prevent us from building the life we wanted for ourselves, but more importantly, for Mark!
November 15, 2018 is the day we decided to jump onto the Dave Ramsey bandwagon and go all in to getting out of debt. Since that day of decisioning nearly a year ago, we have made tremendous progress on our quest to becoming debt free. I plan to share all of our ups and downs, the good, the bad and the ugly with you here! Because there has been all of that! For now, I want to share with you one of the first ugly side of our journey… the beginning! Here is our debt update from day 1 till now.
Day 1 | November 15, 2018
$158,933.78
- Miscellaneous: $713.30
- Student Loans: $51,000.87
- Credit Cards: $50,942.37
- Personal Loans: $43,912.24
- Cars: $12,815.00
Day 47 | January 1, 2019
$150,927.91 – Total paid off: $8,005.87
- Miscellaneous: $627.88
- Student Loans: $50,255.69
- Credit Cards: $51,312.38
- Personal Loans: $39,469.28
- Cars: $9,262.88
Day 92 | February 15, 2019
$144,690.54 – Total paid off: $14,243.24
- Miscellaneous: $627.68
- Student Loans: $48,245.67
- Credit Cards: $49,909.85
- Personal Loans: $37,262.36
- Cars: $8,644.98
Day 136 | March 31, 2019
$133,751.38 – Total paid off: $25,182.40
Miscellaneous: $0- Student Loans: $46,545.34
- Credit Cards: $45,398.89
- Personal Loans: $35,119.65
- Cars: $6,687.50
Day 166 | April 30, 2019
$128,035.72 – Total paid off: $30,898.06
Miscellaneous: $0- Student Loans: $44,087.78
- Credit Cards: $43,487.82
- Personal Loans: $34,059.59
- Cars: $6,400.53
Day 197 | May 31, 2019
$118,341.34 – Total paid off: $40,592.44
Miscellaneous: $0- Student Loans: $43,756.01
- Credit Cards: $43,648.03
- Personal Loans: $24,947.04
- Cars: $5,990.26
Day 227 | June 30, 2019
$111,130.28 – Total paid off: $47,803.50
Miscellaneous: $0- Student Loans: $43,424.47
- Credit Cards: $43,577.89
- Personal Loans: $24,127.92
Cars: $0
We have been making exceptional progress this year! But, that won’t always be the case month over month. As most of you know, we are doing surrogacy, which brings some compensation; our son hasn’t been in daycare all summer which saves a couple thousand dollars, and we have cut back so much in our budget. We are giving every dollar a name, and will continue to do so until our debt update shows a big fat whopping ZERO!
Our ultimate goal is to be debt free by November 15, 2020. We have 502 days to get there, and are going to do our best every day to hit our goal!
Are you on a debt free journey too? I’d love to hear your game plan and get some updates on how you’re doing! Let’s tackle this debt together!