Disclosure: Post may contain affiliate links, meaning we earn a small commission if you make a purchase, at no cost to you. As an Amazon Affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

Our Debt Free Story

In 2005 we had an epiphany. As a young married couple, we woke up and found ourselves deeply in debt. We had two car loans, a student loan, revolving credit card debt, and a home equity loan.  In total it saddled us with a $75,000 burden – not to mention a big mortgage on a 5 bedroom house with only 2 people living in it.  Our financial lives were a mess but it was “normal” and we accepted it like everyone else does.

Our Wake Up Call

Two things woke us up:

• People in the industry in which we both worked were routinely being laid off.
• We wanted to have kids and valued one of us staying at home to raise them.

When we looked at our situation we were sickened by making so much money but having so little left each month to show for it. From the outside it didn’t look like we were in financial trouble but we were really living paycheck to paycheck. The loss of a job or any emergency would have ruined us.  We were ready to have kids but couldn’t lose half of our income to afford the luxury of a stay at home mom.

We sat down one night and added up all of our debt payments and found that one of our two incomes was going entirely to make just the minimum payments on all of our debt.  That night we decided to change what we were doing. We had read Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover but decided to go all in this time.

Getting Real About Getting Out of Debt

We embarked on a plan to aggressively pay off our debt – the “debt snowball.”  We lived on a budget for the first time ever.  Through our journey we discovered the importance and value of tithing and how much God honors that commitment even though the math just doesn’t add up.  In two years we had paid off $75,000 and become debt free except for our house.  My amazing wife was able to quit her job to be able to stay home and raise our two kids.

Our monthly budget was really tight on a single income.  Our mortgage payment kept bogging us down.  As friends and family kept being forced to take jobs they didn’t love to pay their high mortgages or move out of state to follow a paycheck, we decided that we wanted more stability in our lives. We began to intensely attack the mortgage like we had with our other debt to kill that huge monthly payment so it would never stand in our way of doing what we wanted to do.  We wanted to provide our family with the incredible security of knowing that our home was ours.

It took another four intense years of cutting back to almost nothing to do it.  My wife has sacrificed and worked a variety of part time jobs while staying at home with the kids.  Every spare bit of money from raises, bonuses, birthday presents, and more went into making extra payments on the mortgage.  We sold thousands of dollars of our stuff at garage sales and on Craigslist to make extra payments.  In May of 2013, we became liberated from the bondage of debt and have truly achieved financial peace.

How We Celebrated Becoming Debt Free

We wanted to celebrate to mark the occasion. We wanted it to be EPIC. We wanted our kids to have it etched in their memories the day we made our final debt payment ever.

We printed one of those gigantic checks with our final mortgage payment on it. We hired a stretch limousine to take us (and our giant check) from our house to the bank. We hired a photographer to follow us to document this moment for our family forever. We prepared the bank that we were coming and they put up a congratulations sign and had balloons up for us. We ran out the door like we were crossing the finish line of a marathon and that’s how it felt. We checked into a fancy hotel for the night. When the manager heard why we were there and what we were celebrating, he upgraded us to the top floor penthouse suite. We swam in the pool. We went out to a fancy dinner. We ordered the most obscenely large hot fudge sundae with almost every flavor of ice cream at Baskin Robbins. We gave each of us $100 cash of fun money to go spend at Target with no restrictions. After so much discipline and so much scrimping and saving and saying “no” to the kids for this toy or that snack, we removed the chains and lived with extravagance for a day.

The funny thing was, all told, we spent less on our celebration than a single month’s mortgage payment. Without a mortgage, we had earned the freedom to “live like no-one else” because we didn’t owe our paychecks to anyone anymore. It had taken us 8 years of hard work as a family but now we could give and invest and enjoy the fruits of our hard work without giving most of it to a bank.

One of our deepest desires is to share what we’ve learned with anyone who is like we were –“normal.”  This is why onFIREfamily is here. We suggest you pick up a copy of the book that got us on a plan to debt freedom and explore this site for more information about our own story to help and inspire you along your path as well.

The Numbers

Two cars: $10k each
Student loan: $20k
Credit card: $5k, paid off each month
Home Equity Loan: $30k
Total (non-mortgage) Debt: $75k (paid off in 2 years)

Mortgage: $190k (took 2 years off making extra payments when our kids were born then paid off house in 4 years)
Total Debt Paid Off with Mortgage: $265k

Conclusion

Our Total Money Makeover started in 2005 when, as a young married couple, we woke up and found ourselves owing $75,000 in debt, working in a volatile industry, and unable to stay at home to raise children. We embarked on what would turn out to be an 8 year process to get rid of all of our debt, house and all! Without debt payments, we got on a path to be able to pursue financial independence and enable us to retire early to live the life we had only dreamed about. Thanks for joining us on this adventure!