We are Debt Free

Today Mitchell and I paid off the very last of our debt. We are officially debt free and it feels amazing. No credit card debt. No student loan debt. No car loans. Nothing.

When we got married, we had debt for my CR-V, his Tundra and my student loan. We set financial goals for ourselves right away and developed a budget based on our two incomes. Our goal was to live off of one salary (Mitchell's) and use mine to start paying off debt. Well that worked fine until we decided to move to California where I would have to figure out an entirely new work situation because my Texas teaching credential didn't count in California (dumb). We knew we were going to have to do something drastic to get out of debt sooner on one income...

We decided to go down to one car in California. We sold Mitchell's truck, left it in Houston (tears), bought a scooter for $750 and found a place to live in Cali 2 miles from where he works. Being a one car family has not been as hard as you would think. Mitchell rides his scooter to work every day and I take the car around for errands, visits with friends, volunteering and jobs. There have been probably less than 5 times our entire time out here that it was really inconvenient to not each have a car and then, we just made it work.

We were able to save and pay off my car in March of this year. It was a sweet feeling to receive the title on the car I bought in 2009. It took 2.5 years to pay it off.

Our last bit of debt was my student loan that I have been paying on since I graduated college in 2007. I/we had knocked out a good chunk of it over the years but still had a bit more to go. We kept doing the monthly payment and any time we had extra money in savings we threw it at the loan to get it lower. About a week ago, Mitchell was looking at our finances and realized we had enough in savings to pay off the rest of it in one chunk and have enough left over. So we did! Hooray!

We feel blessed that this was possible. That we both had awesome jobs when we first got married and Mitchell's job here in Cali is able to support us both. But it has also taken us both being super conscious of how we spend our money. Seriously. I have to say no to myself a lot. I know Mitchell does too. But it is worth it. Dave Ramsey says, "Live like nobody else so you can live like nobody else." Now our goal is to save, save, save whatever we can for the day when we are ready to buy a house or need another vehicle or whatever life may throw at us.

But for now, we are going to the Cheesecake Factory to celebrate! :D