our financial story

Because we have been so blessed by Dave Ramsey and are passionate about inspiring others to live debt free lives, we shared our story on his website!   After much interest in our story, I find it appropriate to share on this blog as well as it totally aligns with the pursuit of fruit and specifically pursuit of health!

Before the details, we MUST give credit where credit is due!

We credit our ability to get out of debt to:
1. The incredible teaching and applicable principles of Dave Ramsey
2. The generous support of family and friends in prayers, meals, gifts, and checks
3. The grace and provision of God as well as the anointing of the Holy Spirit to make choices

Because our story is unique, it may shed light on my previous post in which I shared that we were willing to press past the pain in disciplining ourselves to reach our goal of living a debt free life!  Hebrews 11:12 says, "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.  However, later on it will produce a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it."

It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit that we are able to stand and declare that our debts have been paid in full.  We are so thankful for this anointing and the gift of choice.  

we did it, twice!

Because our story is a bit complex, with enough details to fill an entire book, I will do my best to summarize as briefly as possible.  I am actually editing a book right now that I wrote about this story with the major theme of CHOICE interwoven throughout each chapter.  More than anything, throughout our financial experience, we have learned of this priceless gift of choice as we have been empowered through the teaching of Dave Ramsey to choose to take control of our finances and lives, and to continue to make daily choices toward financial peace even in unexpected and painful circumstances. 

The most basic summary of our story is that we climbed out of debt twice.  We first beat $32,000 of student loan debt after following Dave Ramsey’s teaching through FPU on two teacher incomes in just under a year!  We were ecstatic and I immediately started writing our story on this exact same website, when literally one week later my husband made a mistake that led to the loss of his job and career, along with $32,000 of new debt. 

We moved out of our apartment and in with my husband's parents for 9 months.  We tightened up every possible expense and pressed into the pain of loss as we adjusted our financial plans and dreams to our new reality.  We grieved what could have been and then made a life-changing choice to try again.  

After 2.5 years of painful choices, we are excited to report that we are now, officially, debt free!  We did it, twice.  By the power of the Holy Spirit we were able to stand up again after falling down and recreate our gazelle like intensity in building another debt snowball to motivate ourselves to beat a second round of debt.

These principles and baby steps WORK, and we should know because for us they have worked twice!  In all, we paid off $64,000 in 3.5 years on an extremely inconsistent income as, for almost 18 months, my husband was unemployed.  God miraculously provided an incredible new career opportunity for him and he is now in an apprenticeship to become an electrician.  We are thrilled to finally move onto the baby step 3 and excited to have new financial plans and dreams!  

To God be the glory!