This blog post came sooner than we had expected! Our original end goal was September 2021!! But here we are, officially debt free!!!! 29 months early!! Its surreal! We paid off our last debt on April 24, 2018.  We were very fortunate that things fell into place for us. It really does feel liberating, and now that we're on this end of the journey, we highly encourage all of you to get on some kind of debt free journey. It doesn't matter what method you do, or follow, just be on one. And go all in.  Live frugally until you've reached your end goal, because its so worth it. As Dave Ramsey would say "Live like no one so [later] you can live like no one else." Having debt seems to be the norm. Everyone has it, or has had it. You got a car loan? You're in debt. Since getting on this journey, we have truly understood how it is to live below our means. It meant saying no to things that did not benefit our journey, being picky about the things we buy, and really plan ahead when it came to our finances. Most of this journey is about having a plan and sticking to it. Don't compare your journey to others because we all though all walk similar paths, its not the same situations. Do you, and do it with purpose. Prioritize what is important to you, and right now having the financial freedom was way more important than upgrading my car (which we almost did). The van can wait.


Seeing that "Congratulations" banner when I logged into my student loan account after the payment had been processed, felt really really good.  Im sure you're curious to know, how we crushed baby step 2 in just 7 months? Consistency and determination. We set a budget and stuck with it. Also, the odds were in our favor. John re-enlisted back in January and with that reenlistment came a bonus. We used some of the bonus pay he got to pay down debt and using majority of the profit we made from selling our house to eventually pay it all off. Being able to pay everything off last month couldn't have come at a perfect time.  John moving to a shore duty command and no longer on a ship, meant he lost sea pay... which meant a pay cut. All $500/month of it. Thats a lot, since we were already on a good rhythm with our budget. So we had to sit down and adjust the budget plan. We had to cut back in a lot of areas. He does eventually get instructor pay to make up for some of the money lost.

Fast forward to April! We sold our house and at asking price!! We decided to sell our house when John got new orders. We were thinking of putting it up for rent, but after several horrible stories we've heard about rental properties and horrible tenants, we just didn't want to deal with it at the moment. John does eventually want to buy a couple of houses (in the future) to use as rental properties, once we've saved up a good amount of money. We also decided to just rent a home in our new duty station since we will only be here for 3.5 years, and promised we wont be those horrible tenants we hear of! Haha! We will most likely continue renting until John retires in about 8 years. With the profit we made from selling the house, we were able to pay off my student loan and become DEBT FREE, while putting the rest of it in the FFEF, putting us at 85% funded by the end of April. Surreal!!

I used to only read stories of people being debt free, now here we are a part of that tribe, sharing our story. It all started one summer with Dave Ramsey's book and the drive to change our lifestyle. I hope that we at least get one person to think about their financial goals and journey. We all get wrapped up in wanting all the new gadgets, keeping up with the trends and keeping up with the Joneses that sometimes we get into so much debt for it. Its pretty human nature. Trying to fight the urge to splurge/shop was hard, but it was definitely a habit we had to break. We hope to pass this life lesson down to our kids so that they'll hopefully make better financial decisions. Its possible to have a good time, while being on a budget. Don't let the word "budget" scare you. Being on a budget doesn't have to restrict you, if you play it right, it actually has the opposite effect, at least for us. It is so liberating because the burden of having debt has been lifted. Being debt free is just the beginning. We've got so many more financial goals to accomplish.

Tune in and follow us along to see what we're up to now that we're debt free!