You won’t believe this. Seriously–WE can’t even believe this. We are ONE MONTH AWAY from being debt FREEEEE! This month we crossed a threshold that seemed like it would be forever away. We have paid off $61,340.10 and we are finally down to under $4525.54 of debt remaining. WHAT EVEN IS THAT??
Okay, we are trying to calm ourselves down here, but c’mon. THIS IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING! Holy-freakin’-crap. We are actually gonna do this. We are going to be DEBT FREE. It’s so close we can taste it. If you’ve been following along this journey from the beginning with us, can you taste it, too?!
(Haven’t been following along? Here’s where you can catch up from Jan, Feb, March, April, and May)
We’re officially 9 months in and we are alllllmossst there! We are thiiissss close to our debt free goal!
(Let’s just take a minute and let that sink in for a sec. *cue happy dancing*)
And can we tell you something?
We swear this is getting easier and easier. Fo’ real.
When we look back over the last few months there were so many ups and downs but there was also this trend of budgeting and life getting easier. And we don’t mean easier in the sense that things all went smoothly–they didn’t. But we are becoming more and more confident and capable at handling it. (That’s where the ease comes in!) It’s a pleasant side effect we never would have expected by getting our financial ‘ish together, y’know? But now that it’s here–it’s awesome.
This month has made us stop and think, “Life is so good.” — We know, it sounds corny and cheesy and all self-help-y, but it’s so true! If you were to have told us 9 short months ago that we would be a month away from being debt free, both gotten promotions, been able to handle financial emergencies and hiccups like pros, and have the rest of our lives to enjoy financial freedom?? –We wouldn’t have believed you.
We truly felt like we could never get ahead. We were frustrated and confused. We were baffled as to why we made a good income but were still broke. We had no idea where a huge chunk of our money was going every month and constantly wondered where it went. Jake and Tay 9 months ago would have laughed in disbelief if you told them what was just around the corner. (Little did they know.)
Friend, now we are right at that corner and sprinting to the turn. We can’t even put into words how amazing it feels to be on this side of our $66K in debt. Woohoo!!
Alright, so what else happened this month?
We smashed our goal of 4K debt payment (yay!!) with a whopper of a payment at $6,727.51 (more on this in a sec!), and we stuck hard to our budget. Which, honestly, wasn’t really difficult this month. We didn’t have too many hiccups and like we mentioned before, it’s getting easier and easier to handle.
Alright–so if you just blew by that debt payment, let’s rewind that for a sec.
A $6K+ DEBT PAYMENT? WHAT IS THAT MADDNESS??
For some reason, we forgot how much our minimum debt payments were actually eating up in cash when we started paying off our debt. We had SEVEN minimum payments a month. As we rolled through the “Debt Snowball”–it picked up so much intensity! Now that we only have our last remaining debt and NO OTHER PAYMENTS–it feels like we are rolling in money. Remember when we wondered where our money was going? THAT’s where. Minimum payments on student loans, credit cards, personal loans, etc. As each debt fell away, it freed up payment after payment after payment.
When we started our debt free journey we had about $1.5K-$3K to play with in our budget a month. As we started batting the debts outta the park it’s left us with over $6K a month to play with.
*picks jaw up off of floor*
YEAH…WE ARE AS SHOCKED AS YOU ARE.
Yes, we are working harder, we’ve gotten promotions, we’ve tightened our budget down to “beans and rice“. But c’mon. $6K extra a month???? To pay our debts off by next month, JULY?? (When we initially projected 2 years?!) We NEVER would have imagined that. And it’s made us that much more excited for our future.
*cue legit tears* (Yes, one of us actually cried when we found this out!)
Okay. So, where does this update leave us in the numbers this month? Let’s dive into all the nitty gritty.
Here’s the breakdown:
Our Debt Starting Balance: $65,865.64
Our Debt Starting Balance From May: $11,253.05
Our Debt Payment For June: $6727.51
Drumroll…
Our Debt Ending Balance From June: $4525.54
That means, to date, we’ve paid off… $61,340.10
Seriously — We’re not crying, you’re crying.
That means we’ve paid off both our credit cards, ALL of Taylor’s student loans, ALL of Jake’s student loans, our personal loan AND almost ALL of our home loan!! We have one little $4.5K payment left.
That’s it.
We almost can’t believe it.
We can’t describe to you the security you feel when you know your money.
We know, we’ve said this before. But when you know exactly where you stand, where you are going, and how to get there — it’s unlike anything we’ve ever known. (Or even expected.)
We almost can’t believe we’re saying this next bit though:
We LOVE talking about money.
WHAT?? Oh yeah. Something that is the number one reason for divorce has been the single thing that has brought us closer together this past 9 months. We now LOVE talking about money together. We love budgeting, throwing our money around, and we can’t wait to be debt free so we can start living and giving like we’ve always wanted to. WE ARE SO CLOSE FRIEND!
Alright — one more thing:
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. We see you working hard, sacrificing, and being brave anyway. That’s what it takes and you’ve got it. You are one of the few folks in the world who is actually taking action to change their life and we admire you, salute you, and are walking right beside you. If we can help ya in any way, we’ve got your back.
And if you’ve been here since the beginning (and there’s a few of ya!) THANK YOU. Your support, your comments, messages, and cheering has truly been the wind in our sails. We are so grateful for you!
Okie Dokie, there you have it. Our 9 month update and we are on our way to fast forward-ly hit our DEBT FREE goal of December 2019 JULY 2019. (AHHH!!)
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!
Leave a Reply