Our Debt Free Journey – Update (March 2019)

We’re officially 6 months in. This month we are allllmmmost halfway to our debt free goal! We’ve paid off: $29,182.97 (Let’s just take a minute and let that sink in for a sec. *cue happy dancing*)

This month was hard.

We hit a $1000 speedbump; a ceiling leak.
Jake’s phone broke. (Ahem $600 later…)
And it was tax time. So there were many extra costs that had to go out this month with that. (Accountant fees, taxes, assessments, etc). Being self employed, we’re always left wondering–what’s the damage this year? Disclaimer: It’s about 20 grand. And yes, we had that money set aside–don’t panic!
Oh! And we got hit with a $750 addition to our home loan debt that we missed in the fine print. (Boo.)

Howeverrrr…This month was also good.

We hit a higher income goal than expected! Close to 10K! That’s after deductions. WOO! How did this happen? If you guessed ‘A lot of extra work’ you’d be right.

The ceiling fiasco happened right at the beginning of the month and in a way, that was a good thing. It made us take action. We knew there were going to be extra costs this month and we debated: “Do we use our emergency fund? This is an emergency, right? Or do we try to cash flow it? Do we have room in the budget? What about all the other costs we know are coming?”

This emergency put us into high gear.
We decided to cash flow everything (except taxes we owe, cause we had that set aside) which meant we had to pick up extra work to make this happen because we didn’t want to knock our debt payment down. (Reminder: Our goal is to hit a 4K debt payment every month!) So, if we had to throw an extra thousand at the ceiling issue, $600 for Jake’s phone, accountant fees, factor in all these other hiccups, where is that going to come from? Well, it came from here: Over time, extra clients, lots of commission, picking up shifts.

Just straight hard work. There wasn’t a gifting fairy or a tax break (not even close), it was just hustle to make this happen. And we did. (Cue the happy and exhausted collapse into bed.)

And yes, the ceiling is fine now. And the taxes are handled. And Jake’s phone situation is settled. And we just added the extra $750 of debt to the finish line. Boom.

So what else happened this month?

We juuuust hit our goal of 4K debt payment (yay!!), started attacking our 3rd to last debt: a personal loan, and we stuck hard to our budget. Which, honestly, was reeeeally difficult this month.

For some reason, March just feels SO long, we were really cutting it close. Because we were working so hard, we also didn’t have as much time to plan meals. This meant that we tried not to order in or eat out or pick up “one time” groceries. This meant we used discounts for meal delivery services like Hello Fresh and Fresh Prep. This meant we ate weird stuff in our pantry and cooked odd combinations of food. And yes, we literally ate rice and beans. (And it was pretty good!)

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Okay. So, where does this update leave us in the numbers this month? Let’s dive in.

Here’s the breakdown:

Our Debt Starting Balance: $65,125.64 (add in $750)
Our Debt Starting Balance From Feb: $39,990.50 (add in $750)
Our Debt Payment For March: $4,016.24
Drumroll…
Our Debt Ending Balance From March: $36,682.67

That means, to date, we’ve paid off… $29,182.97
WOOP!

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We almost can’t believe it.

We’re gonna be honest here. When that ceiling leak happened, one of us broke. (Her name rhymes with sailor…) It shook her pretty hard at first. Listen, she’s all about achievements and progress. She’s been busting her cute booty to make this #debtfreejourney happen and to hit a snag like that, around her ‘time of the month’ (Yes, her period. We’re adults.) — she took it hard. She might have panicked…just a little. She might have had an anxiety attack…And cried…A little. But you know what else happened when the dust settled on the issue? She felt secure.

Wait. What? Why?

Because we know our finances intimately. Because most of this panic was around “What are we going to do??”, and guess what? We know the answer to that. We know where our money is coming from and where we tell it to go. We are literate, knowledgeable, and confident in our money now. This was a huge test, and success, in that regard. Once the nerves simmered down, it really wasn’t a big deal. Then when allllll the other snags happened this month, they weren’t really a big deal either.

We can’t describe to you the security you feel when you know your money.

When you know exactly where you stand, where you are going, and how to get there. It’s like this feeling of standing confidently in front of the classroom and some dink asks you a hard question to trip you up and you know the right answer–and then some. Yeah, it’s like that!

We are starting to really feel the emotional rewards of this work. The real change that is happening for us around how we think and use money. Simply put, it’s awesome. And we’ll need that as we attack our last 3 remaining debts. Like we said before, these guys are the big ones. We have a personal loan (which we knocked almost in half!), a home loan, and Jake’s monster student loans as our largest debt. Oooooooh we’re comin’ for ya big guys.

Y’know, talking about money was scary. But now? It’s getting easier and easier. That alone is priceless. And we have YOU to thank for that. Yes, you. Reading this right now. YOU make this easier because you’ve been so supportive. You have been encouraging us every step of the way. We notice and we really appreciate it.

And if this journey has inspired your own, if you’ve joined us in a webinar or two, if you’ve started your own financial journey too — KEEP GOING.

You’ve totally got this. It will get easier, smoother, and better. You are doing so well and you have everything you need to make your dream happen. We see you working hard, sacrificing, and being brave anyway. That’s what it takes and you’ve got it. We believe in you!

Alrighty, there you have it. Our 6 month update and we are right on track to hit our DEBT FREE goal of December 2019. (AHHH! Maybe even sooner!) If you want to see how we started and how we’re doing this, head here. We have our Debt Free Webinar Replay available here for short while if you’d like us to walk you through the details of our plan and our Budget Webinar Replay here if you wanna dive even further.

And as always, if you have any questions, just give us a holler! We’re more than happy to share what we’re doing so you can achieve this goal, too.

Can we ask a favour? Cheer us on? Just a little? Every comment, share, email, message, like–we notice. And it affects us. Like we mentioned, it really give us the extra push to keep going and stay accountable.

We can’t thank you enough! (We’re so glad you’re here!) See you next month!