Long Time Coming

I did something this afternoon that Leah and I have been working toward for quite some time.  While we aren’t totally “done,” we are at a place we have dreamed of for many months.

If you have been reading this blog (or have been around us) for any length of time, you know that we love Dave Ramsey’s teachings about money.  We have been to a live event (in Birmingham, Alabama, about 4 years ago) and own the book The Total Money Makeover.  Beginning in the next couple of months, we are going to coordinate a Financial Peace University class at Lebanon Road.

Following the “Baby Steps,” we decided to get out of debt and take control of the money with which God has blessed us.  What you are getting ready to read is nothing that we are bragging about, but something we have been blessed by God to do.

We knocked out Baby Step 1 ($1000 in an emergency fund) immediately, and started paying off debts.  That was May 2007, and we owed $29,879.  That included the loan for Mary Carol’s adoption, some medical debt on Turner’s birth, and our car.

As of 1:30 this afternoon, that’s all gone!!!  That’s right, we have paid off all that original debt. We still owe about $2100 in medical debt (that we are disputing and still paying off quickly), but we have paid off everything with interest and that we owed when we started working together on the plan.

We have made mistakes along the way, but we continued to press forward.  One of the Biblical things that has been true throughout the process is that we have never missed a meal and we have always “had enough.”  We didn’t get to do everything we’d like during that time (we ate out less, and bought very few gifts), but it’s all been worth it.

Now, why mention this when we aren’t debt free yet?  Because now it’s easy! We’ve been destroying that car payment, and the medical debt isn’t much (and interest free), so we are taking a slight break.  Even with that slight break, the final debts should be gone by the end of the year, if the Lord wills.

Folks, you can do it!  You can give to God (we never gave less than 13%) and still do this.  What a feeling!

I can’t wait until I can write that those medical debts are gone and that we are starting to “live like no one else.”  It may take awhile, but the feeling is, literally, indescribable.