There are days when my mind is so full. Full of what’s for the next meal, what needs to be in the laundry, what is on the to-do list, what do we need from the grocery store, what are my teens doing, what are our bank account balances??? Sometimes I have to stop, breathe and focus on the task at hand.
I also have Big Dreams! I think quietly without voicing them, I always have. I’m not one to say much about my goals and dreams beyond my husband and children. I’m more of a get-it-done and keep moving on type person. The problem is that it takes patience, and sometimes I don’t want to have patience!
That makes me think of life: where we’ve come from, where we’ve been and where we are now. I say we because I hardly remember life before my husband, AND we are on this journey together! So to introduce you to us, I will describe where we came from first. He is a pastor’s son who was fully supported by a small congregation. I am the daughter of a logger/mechanic/do it all kind of guy. Our mothers are the backbone of the families, who have always kept our lives running as smoothly as possible. Neither of us grew up with a lot of extra, and the budget was always tight, but we never did without our needs.
We were young and full of dreams when we married. My husband an extremely responsible no-nonsense kind of guy when it came to finances. I had already learned how to clip coupons, make our food budget stretch, and conserve our money wherever we could. We lived the first two and a half years mostly on one income. We had bought our first little starter home a month before we married; he had a new truck and a small car. He worked every hour he could, and one Saturday, I decided to tear the kitchen apart!
I wish I had pictures but imagine white countertops with green vein lines and gold glitter speckles; now imagine the same backsplash panels. Not a pretty sight in the early ’90s! That started a remodel on our little house that would continue for five years while paying double payments on the truck and our home. We paid off the truck in 2 years and our home in 6 years on mostly an electrical helpers pay through hard work and perseverance. When I did begin working, we had managed our budget so well that my income became our savings.
Within that first few years, I began listening to a radio teaching program about Biblical money and budgeting. I purchased their books, but we didn’t strictly follow their budget plan. Instead, we both had dreams of building a house, so we did. We were living the American Dream, and where once we were out of debt, we jumped into more debt than we even considered. Yet by many standards then and now, it was minimal because we did nearly everything on the inside of the house ourselves.
As life would have it, a couple of years later, the little bundle of joy that we had been told medically wouldn’t happen DID! Time to rethink this and change plans! So we both worked every hour possible, saved every penny possible, and had enough saved to pay off the SUV by the time our bundle of joy arrived.
Nine months later, we sold the over 3500 sq ft house that we had built. What next? Oh, we just decided to build another house with a 9-month-old baby. She learned to walk over piles of lumber, and by the time we installed the hardwood, she was handing us pieces of flooring out of the stacks! We had made money on both of our previous homes. We invested those funds into our new home, still, we owed more than we wanted on the second build, and I was now a stay-at-home mom. Wow! How plans can change so quickly!
My husband continued to work every hour possible, and I learned how to make dollars stretch with a budget. We moved into the new house when our daughter was 18 months old annnnddd about eight weeks later we found out that another miracle was on the way! By the end of the year, we had a new house, a toddler, and a newborn on one income. Everything seemed to be going well for several years. We were paying off our mortgage, two car payments, and saving money as we could.
Along came the fall of 2007, stocks began to tumble, and my husband’s job did not look as secure as a one-income family needed. We started a job search, and within a few weeks, he was hired at a company where he had previously been a contractor. Did we get a big raise? Oh no, that’s not always how it works! He took a large cut in pay. We needed the stability, and he could work his way back up within about five-six years. So we tightened the belt and got serious about our debt, paying the auto loans off within a year.
That mortgage that was a ten-year loan became a target! We sold anything that didn’t have an immediate purpose, anything that we felt we no longer needed or had use for, and we had garage sales. When I say that every extra penny went into paying our mortgage, I mean e.v.e.r.y penny! I would make quick trips to the bank to pay principal payments on our loan when we sold anything of value. I did not keep that money in hand or deposit it into our regular checking. The mortgage loan was paid within two years of taking a large income cut and paid off four years early. Life was settled now. We began working on college savings, emergency funds, and retirement – we were responsible ADULTS! Until… an accident happened!
My husband took a bad fall from an 8’ ladder and fractured his heel in two places. Yes, I heard all of the horror stories of how people fall and die from ladders… Well-meaning, I’m sure, but my world had just been shaken! That night made a significant change in our lives. Within months made a decision to sell our home, and if you’ve gotten this far, you must have guessed it – we decided to build again, and this time the requirement was land.
I think I thought it would be a passing idea. We had casually looked at property before and always came back to decide we loved our home. This time we found 20 acres very wooded, very overgrown, somewhat remote, and on top of a mountain. Suddenly, I was outnumbered! My husband loved it, and both of our children loved it. We gave our realtor a number, and she suggested a lower offer; a couple of days later, she called to say our sellers had countered at our preferred price. WHAT?!?! Wait! This is going faster than I had ever expected. We prepared our home for sale and had a contract within six days.
We have never done life boring; it’s been an adventure for sure! We decided to purchase a “fixer-upper” home to live in while we were building. Did I ever mention that we homeschool AND they were teens by now? No Stress! Well, maybe a little, and I may discuss the health of that stress sometimes in another post; let’s say the effects of stress on health is REAL. We rented a house from a friend for two months while we got our fixer-upper livable, not complete by any means. This new house to build had many more requirements than any previous homes we had built.
As in our second build, we hired a contractor to get the house under roof. We subbed out the plumbing, exterior, sheetrock, and concrete. From there, the inside was ours. This time our home is all one level with a bonus room, full basement, and the entire main level would be handicap accessible. We did not equip it, but a day’s work would make it fully equipped. The main goal was to cash flow the entire house and not go back into debt. A few obstacles and some large unexpected expenses cut into our budget more than expected. The fixer-upper was paid for with cash and repaired with cash. We did end up having to pull funds through a HELOC (Home Equity Line of Credit) to complete our new build. However, within seven months of moving into our home, our fixer-upper was completed from a new roof, new doors, new floors throughout, and a completely new kitchen – was SOLD!
I wish I could say from that point, life became autopilot, and we’re back to saving money and preparing for retirement, which we are, but OH! Wait… College, yes, College! Guess where the cash flow goes now? By fall of 2021, we will have two in College!
I’ve taken you through this journey of where we began, where we’ve been, and where we are now to say – Life Never Stops Changing and surprising us in unexpected ways! However, by making responsible, logical financial decisions, we can survive through them without our world falling apart. Have we made all of the right choices? Oh No! For sure we haven’t! But when we were on two incomes, we never LIVED on two incomes. When times were good, we never spent like times were endless, and we’ve always tried to prepare for the next punch. I may have bought more vehicles than I wish I had, and shoes are a weakness.
We’ve done our best to give our kids life experiences instead of always buying the latest, greatest gadgets. We’ve taken two vacations in the offseason most years instead of just the typical one in the middle of July. Birthdays end up being week-long affairs of outings and fun. I also no longer clip coupons; for the past 10-12 years, we’ve eaten more of a whole, fresh foods diet. It is not often that salad, carrots, or celery get coupons. We kept a core budget; when things got tight, we pulled back the purse strings and stayed closer to home. We have learned and have tried to teach our children that rewards don’t always come with instant gratification; sometimes, patience pays excellent dividends. Perseverance and working hard are vital ingredients to successful goals and dreams.
I challenge you to write your dreams down, give them a name. Make a goal sheet of things you would love to do or accomplish. Don’t just work the same little wheel going around and around thinking that car payment, a house payment, credit cards, and student debt are everyday life. It’s NOT! Write down all of your expenses, list their amounts, dates dues, and make a plan to eliminate them one by one. It doesn’t happen overnight, just the same as gaining weight doesn’t. It may take a year, two, or maybe five, but living debt-free is not going to happen without a plan. My family is proof that it can be done even when life has many unexpected blessings, twists, and turns with determination. Living your best Debt Free Life can be done.