Living debt free

This time of year I’m especially…incredibly grateful that we are one of the weird ones. Well, I’m always weird but weird meaning debt free. :)

If you’ve read along with me for awhile you know our story – we were $125,000 in debt. It was a combination of everything – I took out a ton of credit to get through college and had a pretty decent student loan bill at the end of the four years (even though I had grants for almost half of my education!). We financed absolutely everything as adults too – TVs, cars, trips, furniture, a hot tub…all of it. We did what “everyone” does.

What’s funny is it never crossed our minds to save for those items. We wanted it…so we got it. We now know the meaning of delayed gratification. Sometimes it sucks. But three months later, six months later, two years later when we still would have been paying it off, then it does not suck. ;)

It’s been almost four years since we got rid of that massive monkey on our back (all but the house and we are chipping away at that) and it is now just our nature to use cash. To save. To be patient. To be deliberate with our money. That is huge.

It’s hard to explain the freedom that comes with not having debt – it just becomes normal so it’s hard to put into words all this time later. We now live like no one else and some think that term means living extravagantly. That’s not the case. Living like no one else means you get to do things you weren’t able to do before, yes. But more than that it’s living with a peace that we didn’t have before.  

Deep in my soul I am thrifty. Most every time I will do something myself before I have anyone else do it if I’m able. I will always wait for a sale, use coupons, and try to find the least expensive way to do things (well). My car is now nine years old and I still love it. My husband’s car was 11 years old and this year we were able to buy him a new-to-us car. I’m not a big bucket list person but that was one of those things that I’ve dreamed of doing my whole life – we paid for that car with a check. Amazing!!! I tell you what, it makes me tear up to even write that. Who gets to do that??

And of course we give way more than we did before. I can’t really put that into words either – giving more is easily the best part about being debt free.

It took us years, a lot of sacrifice and a ton of work to get through all of our debt. We used the teachings of Dave Ramsey and they truly changed our lives.

I got to meet him two weeks before we paid off the last bill:

He was the nicest guy and genuinely excited for each one of us that stood there with him.

For us it started when I caught his radio show on a business trip. I think he actually annoyed me a little bit at first. ;) I was all…I have it under control! We don’t have that much debt! We could stop any time we want! And then the more I listened the more I woke up and then dreamed of us doing the same. I told my husband about it and he bought his book – we were hooked.

We worked through the debt for years and it was when we took his Financial Peace class that we really got hard core about it. A few months later we were debt free. The book is wonderful, the CDs are great…but those classes changed our lives.

That’s why I chose to give a few of them away every year. I missed last year so I’m making up for this Christmas. ;)

I’m giving away five Financial Peace classes/packets and the lovely folks at Dave Ramsey are throwing in five as well. I’m thrilled to have developed a relationship with his team over the years and am so grateful that they continue to do this for my readers.

Things you should know – this includes a packet of info (including the book) and you can follow along on your own at home. But I strongly recommend making the commitment to the classes. They meet once a week for nine weeks. Our church offered free childcare during the class so that was a huge help.

You will meet others in your situation and will get a lot off your chest – it helps to just be able to talk about it with people. You don’t have to share any details at all – but the group setting helps immensely.

Go here to see if you have a class starting in January near you. Or any time – it doesn’t have to be January. If you want to take the class or get a packet, feel free to comment to enter. I will sign up the ten (randomly chosen) winners or have the packet delivered to you.

This giveaway is now closed, thank you so much for entering!

This is a feeling I want for everyone that feels completely overwhelmed by their debt and finances. It is worth it.

 

Affiliate link included for your convenience.

The holidays, debt free

I don’t know what it is about this time of year, but the last time I blogged about our debt free journey was last November as well. I guess it’s the upcoming holidays coming up that gets me thinking about it.

This year it’s extra special because I was asked to participate in the Dave Ramsey Merry Different Christmas series over at daveramsey.com. It was such an honor to be asked to write about our experience and I so cherish the relationship I have built with the people there.

It’s been almost two years since we finished paying off $125,000 (in credit card, car, student loan and I-have-no-idea-what-we-bought debt) and became debt free, and yes, I can easily say it’s been the best two years of our lives. It has changed us, our marriage and our outlook on life in general for the better.

I get asked all the time how it’s changed our lives. To say there is a peace and a feeling of FREEDOM is an understatement. The only money we owe anyone is for our house, and we’re chipping away at that at a good rate too. After living our entire adult lives in debt, that is an amazing feeling!!

It’s the little things that make a difference to me – I can buy primed wood if I want to now, instead of unprimed. Silly maybe, but it’s still not lost on me. This year I went to the salon to get my hair highlighted for the first time in five years. I don’t shop Goodwill as much as I used to, which I think bothers some people. Thing is, I believe I’ve saved money by not stopping in a couple times a week anymore. I used to buy items just because I’d be afraid to “lose” them for a good price -- and my house filled up with STUFF I wasn’t using. It was a waste.

Some things have not changed though – our two cars combined are 16 years and 300,000 miles old. They are…interesting. ;) But we’ll keep fixing them as long as we can to avoid buying new (used) ones. And although we can now hire help sometimes (no, I didn’t frame and drywall our basement, thankfully we hired out for that), I still find great joy in doing things myself and always will.  :)

A time that I feel the change in our home the most was last Christmas (our first without debt), and that’s what I wrote about over at the Dave Ramsey site here. A few years ago, right about now, I would start to feel the panic of not having enough money to pay for Christmas. Then that panic would be “eased” by our fall back method of using credit cards throughout the season.

But it returned a couple months later…and for months (years?) after, as we continued to pay off the holiday (and everything else from months and years before). It’s just what we did. It’s what so many do! And I’m not mad at you if you do either – but if you are fed up with the debt, I write this to tell you you CAN do it differently.

That day that we asked each other – “Can we REALLY live without credit cards?” -- caused a shift and changed our lives.

This year the folks at Dave Ramsey are encouraging you to be weird too with their "A Merry Different Christmas” series. They want you to avoid going into debt for Christmas gifts, parties, decorations and focus on what really matters. To celebrate, they’ll be doing product and cash giveaways that total around $75,000 ($10,000 per week and a $15,000 grand prize)! There hope is that this will ultimately provide someone the chance to celebrate being debt-free for Christmas. AWESOME!! It gives me chills. And yes, every time I hear a debt free scream on the radio show, I still get tears in my eyes. It is an emotional thing.

My hubby and I would like to pay it forward too. If you are struggling with a little or a lot of debt, we want you to know that is really IS possible to become debt free. So like last year, we are giving away the Financial Peace University classes to five of you. This is the nine week series of classes that got us SUPER excited to kick some debt butt. The end of our debt journey was the hardest for us, and these classes motivated us SO much.

You can just use the CDs in the packet to go through the class on your own, but I highly encourage you to go to the classes if you can. It makes a difference!

You can take a look here to see where there are classes near you. Many start up at the beginning of 2013 – I can’t think of a better way to start the new year!!

The Dave Ramsey folks are throwing in 25 desk calendars as well:

Believe me, when his words are staring at you every day, it motivates. ;)

To enter to win one of the five Financial Peace classes, just leave your comment here with an email so I can contact you if needed. And of course, if you’d like to enter privately, please just send me an email at thriftydecorchick (at) gmail (dot) com with the subject “Financial Peace.” I’ll leave this open all week, till this Friday, the 9th, at noon. Winners will be contacted via email.

Good luck, and if you have a debt story to share, please feel free to do so in the comments! I love hearing them!