Baby Step 2 CHECK!

Giddy. Excited. Ecstatic. There are so many words that can help describe this feeling but none will do it complete justice.

WE’RE DEBT FREE!!!!!

In 7 years (almost 7) we have:

Paid off about $3,000 in credit card debt

Paid off about $14,000 in car loans

Paid off about $20,000 in Student loans

Along with other minor crisis’ along the way that have depleted our $1,000 emergency fund several times.

That’s $37,000 in debt, gone!

We’ve lived on a puny food budget some weeks eating almost only Mac N Cheese and eating out maybe 1-2 times a month if we were lucky.

We’ve paid cash only for food and gas and if the cash wasn’t in our pocket we wouldn’t buy it (yes that means on occasion we were stuck at home since we didn’t have the cash to put gas in our tank).

We’ve gotten hand me down clothes and furniture and avoided buying things we could wait to buy no matter how inconvenient.

We’ve gone cable-less (until recently that is).

We’ve gone without seeing movies, going to concerts, or just any night out really.

We’ve even had to scrimp and sometimes not even buy birthday or Christmas gifts for our kids or extended family and friends.

We’ve struggled.  It’s been hard and we’ve made mistakes along the way.  But we DID IT!

Does this mean our life is changing dramatically? No, we’re still super broke and really the debt we paid off only adds $40 a month to our budget that will be used for afterschool care for Taylor.  But the burden of debt is gone.

We owe nothing to anyone but ourselves now.

We’ll still be on an insanely tight budget as we now start the saving process, but at least we’ll have a little wiggle room so we can splurge on occasion.

So in this moment I’ll enjoy the relief from debt.  I will make the promise to stay out of debt (until we buy a home of course with ONLY a 15 Y Mortgage and that Mortgage being ONLY 25% of our income).  I will promise to teach my children a life of living within their means and staying debt free.

Hopefully this is the start of a new way of living for the Davis family that will surpass our generation.

The most important thing to note is all of this is by the GRACE of God and not by our own means.  We have continued to tithe 10% of our income faithfully since it is only through him we have it.

So now we move on to Baby Step 3 which should take us a couple of years.  If you want more info on the plan go to: http://www.daveramsey.com/new/baby-steps/