Hi friends! Today I have an awesome debt-free post from @thedreamtracker (follow them on instagram!)
@thedreamtracker and her husband, B., got married in August 2017 after being together for 7 years. They enjoy hiking, traveling, crushing debt, and pondering how to love people like Jesus. @thedreamtracker has a Bachelor’s degree in Kinesiology and is currently in seminary for her M.Div. She loves talking and living health and fitness, reading, and is currently completing a chaplaincy internship at a local hospital. As soon as the internship is complete in May, she plans to start up a blog, read more, hustle more, run more, save more, and breathe more (because life needs more of that!).
1. What kind of debt do you have? How much is it? How long have you been paying it off and when will you be debt-free?
When we first sat down to look at our finances in July 2017, we had $32,696.65 (although we didn’t know about all of it right away!). While I only had mountains of student loan debt, B. had lots and lots of little mystery debts (car debt, gym debt, cable debt, medical debt, phone debt, tax debt, and school debt) that kept popping up for the first few months we were tracking our debt payoff (mega-frustrating).
We officially started paying off debt as soon as we got home from our honeymoon in September 2017. We are on track to pay off debt before March 2019 (although, I’m reeeeeally trying for by the end of the year if possible!). As of this writing, we have $15,428.96 to go – all student loans.
2. Why did you decide to pay off your debt?
Because debt sucks! 🙂
In July my mom casually threw Dave Ramsey’s Complete Guide to Money on my bed and I thought “eh, might be kinda helpful-ish?”… I read it in a day. It has CHANGED MY LIFE. And now it has changed the entire course of our marriage. We want to live freely and feel secure in doing so. Sitting around in tens of thousands of dollars in debt does not help us do either.
3. What strategies are you using to pay off your debt? What was the craziest thing you did to get out of debt?
We more or less stick to Dave Ramsey’s snowball method of paying off debts from smallest to largest. That being said, we still do budget for travel and a little fun/adventure as well. To me, that’s important and, while we certainly limit ourselves, it makes the journey more bearable. The biggest support for our debt free journey has been the phenomenal Instagram #debtfreecommunity (found within the hashtag!). I have met so many incredible, determined, real people, all on a mission to crush their debt, build their savings, and live a different life than they are living today.
A lot of people use cash envelopes on their debt free journey, but we stick with cards/accounts. A super helpful tool for us has been our Capital One 360 Savings accounts which act as our “sinking funds”. I didn’t know what that even meant until finding the #debtfreecommunity, but now we have our travel/gift/insurance/car repair/entertainment/clothing/etc. money automatically taken out of our account each month, put aside each in a personal account which accrues a decent amount of interest for a savings account and waits for us to need it. I love it. Technology is fantastic!
Craziest thing? Well my husband just sold his car which I thought was big! I haven’t added that
into our payoff number yet, but it will make a huge difference. We also only spend about $75-
$150 a month in groceries; some people think that’s crazy. We eat a lot of burritos though, so to
me it’s just yummy. 🙂
4. How has your family been impacted by your financial journey?
B. and I have certainly grown closer through this mutual effort. I know not everyone has their husband in their corner with this stuff and, while it took some time, he has been all in lately and it is a beautiful thing. Some of our friends think we’re nuts and a little too intense, but our family members have been super supportive so far.
5. What’s the hardest part about getting out of debt?
Patience. Seriously. It sucks. I’m The Dream Tracker and (surprise) I like to track dreams. ‘Tracking’ feels more active than what we’re doing right now. These past few months our journey has been mostly passive – waiting to get to the end of each month so we can finally throw money at debt. I’m looking forward to my internship being finished as I know it will allow me more time to hustle (sell, work, side gigs!) which will help a ton – right now it’s a lot of waiting around for paychecks to come/deposit. That’s tough.
6. What are your goals once you’re debt-free?
What aren’t our goals! 🙂 We have too many dreams to count and haven’t really narrowed them down yet (which, don’t worry, we’ll do before tracking them!). We’ve been looking into passive income lately and would love to build up some side businesses to support a lifestyle of freedom and flexibility that allows us to travel more, read more, and serve more. We have thought about the RV life or traveling the world for a year, but we also have some pretty big ministry dreams as well – some of them involving additional school for me. Each of those options will take some serious savings and lack of debt, so for now, developing those two pieces (after my internship!) is the real focus.
7. How do you think your life will change by being debt-free?
It will fling wide the door for what is next in our lives. Whatever we want, wherever we want. For now, we feel stuck. Stuck in this country, state, and town, stuck in our apartment with low rent, stuck staying home when we want to go out. Once we become debt free, that allllll changes. There is a freedom experienced when you are no longer slave to the lender. And it is going to taste oh, so sweet!