We're DEBT FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Hey y'all.  Long time, no post.  Sorry about that.  I am not dead, I did not secretly run off and have a baby, I did not get abducted by aliens...I just kind of burned out on the blogging thing, then a lot of stuff happened. :)  I may (or may not- who knows?)  update about that later.

I *did* however want to pop in to announce something.

We paid off our mortgage on Thursday, May 29 .

For reals, yo.

We. Paid. It. OFF.  That sucker is GONE, and we are debt free.

I am stunned.  We have purposed to do this since the moment we decided to take the mortgage out, but to actually have it done is...I mean....I'm speechless.  I don't even know what to say in this post.  Just that we DID IT, and it CAN be done, and we are now 100% debt free, including the mortgage.

Why not? You can afford it!

This post at MoneySavingMom had me nodding my head. A quick recap- Crystal's husband Jesse is an attorney. They are saving very aggressively for some impressive goals. They've been having car troubles and rather than replacing it or continuing to fix it, it looks like they may end up being a one vehicle family again.

This has gotten her some snarky responses asking her why, if her husband is in the lucrative field of law and she earns money at home from her websites, they just don't go buy a new car.

I'll let you go to Crystal's post to read her reasons. I have different issues, but we are experiencing the same reactions.

My husband is an engineer in the aerospace industry. He does earn a lovely wage. We're not rich or anything, but we've come a long way from the year when we earned 17,000 with our combined incomes. And then I got a contract job in a field that pays pretty well. Ever since he got that job, and especially since I got my job on top of his, I've heard the following phrase more than I can count-

"I don't know why you don't (buy new clothes/go on vacation more/buy a better TV/spend more money). You can afford it! Your husband is an engineer/you have two good incomes!"

Yes, some of these things are true. My husband is an engineer. We do have two incomes. But we can't afford it.

You never really know what is going on with other people's money.

Our reasons for not being able to afford it have nothing to do with how much we earn. Our goals are what keep us from affording new clothes and the latest trinkets. As I've said here, we want to pay off everything- including our home- by 2012. So although our current income would be considered on the higher end, we don't live on much more than we were during the 'po grad school days.

Instead, we are aggressively paying off our debts and saving.

• We pretend that we any money I earn does not exist and we send almost all of my paycheck to our debts. (We send the rest of it to my Roth IRA.)
• My husband contributes as much as his company will match to his 401K. That's a nice chunk of his paycheck.
• We save a good chuck of his income as well. We want at least 1 year's worth of living expenses without having to sell our stock. We're getting closer, but we're not there yet.
• We send as much of his income as we can towards our debts.

We live on what is left.

That's not to say we live a miserly, unjoyful life. We're having a great time. We decide what we want to do with our money. We evaluate what we have to have. We also know that we can still live on very little. We're not letting the amount we earn ratchet up our lifestyle very much, we're using it to pay off the house and the student debt.

We decide and chose to do this. We don't let anybody else's expectation of what a double income no kids family should look like. We don't let anybody tell us that "we can afford it." We just smile, continue enjoying our life as we are choosing to live it now, and move on. As Dave Ramsey says, we're living like like no one else so that later, we can live like no one else.

Financial Shape in 2008

I've been meaning to join this party of MoneySavingMom's, but here we are in July and it's only my first post. Better late than never, right?

Our ultimate financial goad is HUGE. By the end of 2012, we hope to be 100% debt free. Our debts currently include a student loan and our mortgage, but those two debts are big!

As of this writing, we owe $83,053.39 and we want it gone.

We've been told not to pay off our mortgage because of the tax benefits. (We actually did not benefit this year- we itemized and the standard deduction actually ended up being better! Even if that were not true, we will save much more by not paying so much interest than we ever would in tax benefits.)

We've been told that we should be saving for retirement. (We are, and quite aggressively.)

We've been told that it will be impossible for people our age to pay off a house before we are 40. We don't care.

Even if we fall short of our goal of doing all of this by 2012, we will be ahead overall. We've just decided to ignore those who say that say it can't be done. We've done several things in our short five year marriage that "can't be done," so we're not so sure that the impossible, whatever it may be, is really so impossible.

These goals will not be achieved by the end of 2008, unless some previously unknown super rich relative leaves us all their money, but we are making decisions this year that will help us in that ultimate goal! This blog is a testament to those decisions.

Since I'm late to the party, allow me to outline a few of the decisions we've made in 2008 that is helping us meet our goal:

In January, I started keeping track of how much the library saves us. I'm still doing that, and will post on my progress soon. Let's just say that it's saving us a lot. I also challenged my assumptions, which is an exercise I continue to do on a regular basis.

In February, I thought about vet bills. Partly because of this kind of question, we have decided that we are not going to get any more pets while we are paying off our home. We're keeping our current three guinea pigs, rabbits, and dog because we love them so much, but we are done with adding to the menagerie until we can scream that we are debt free al la Dave Ramsey.

In March, we were on vacation, but I reran a piece that I find one of the most relevant parts of frugal living. You have to start with a goal of some sort- why are you saving all that money?

In April, I really enjoyed a series by Debt Free Revolution- she put her 14 year old son on his own grocery budget.

In May, I talked about how I freeze pretty much everything, even stuff that you supposedly can't freeze. I'm such a rebel. :) Doing this has saved me truckloads of cash over time.

In June, I considered work/life balance. This is one of the primary reasons my husband and I strive to get out of debt as soon as possible. We want to be able to say no to any work situation that we are not comfortable with. We only have one life on this Earth, and I don't really want to spend it chained to a desk.

This month, I'm cooking from the freezer as much as I can. You can join me every Thursday to see my creations, other's creations, and even post your own freezer finds!

I'll pop in next month with our debt's grand total. Go here to be inspired by other people who want to be in financial shape in 2008!

Frugal Reruns: Have a Goal

Welcome to my week of reruns! I'm out of town at Exotic Location...so enjoy a blast from the past until I return! In this entry, from February of 2006, went over why I started to be consciously frugal:

For me, frugality started with a goal.

I always knew that I wanted to live alone at least once before I married. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it, if need be. I wanted to have time to reflect, to be by myself, to do everything without somebody there to help me. I did not anticipate getting married so young- I thought I had lots of time!

Enter my engagement during my junior year of college. The wedding was set for just after my graduation. To attain my goal, I would have to live alone during my senior year of college. My favorite roommate ever was graduating anyway, so it seemed extra appealing to not do roommate roulette again.

My parents were not as keen on the plan as I was. They did pay my room and board in the college dorms, and said they would help me find an apartment as well, if it did not exceed the cost of the dorm. (Dorms are very, very expensive, so that was not hard.) After doing some research, they said that I could live alone if I could do the following:

1. Find an apartment within walking distance of campus. (There were no single dorm rooms at my school. We were so overcrowded that people were living in the study lounges.)

2. Find an apartment for $350 or less. (Which was the going rate of a room in a shared house or apartment in that area.)

3. Pay my own utilities.

4. I had to pay the deposit and such by myself.


These things seemed impossible. I worked every summer, but my money always started getting low by the end of the school year. I had no loans, and had to buy my books and pay all fees, etc out of my money. Apartments in my area were not cheap, and in walking distance of the school? Very hard. My mother suggested that I find a roommate and just have my own bedroom. I reminded her that this defeated the purpose of living alone.

I was determined.

So, long story short, I found a hole in the wall tenement studio apartment three blocks from the school, for 325 a month, utilities paid. (Paid utilities was unheard of in that area.) My parents were shocked to say the least. They set forth those conditions because they thought them impossible, and that I would be forced to find a roommate. Parents out there- if you don't want your kid to do something, just say no. If they are determined, they WILL find a way!

So I had my 200 square foot apartment, with utilities. What I did not have were cabinets (really- none!) or any decent closet space, except one very small one that was 15 inches wide and 15 inches deep. I had a fridge that was slightly bigger than a mini-fridge, with one of those tin freezers inside the fridge part. I had no bathtub, just a small shower. No cabinets in the bathroom, just a shelf over the toilet. I truly sympathize with people who say they cannot bulk buy because of lack of room and freezer space. I've been there.

My parents grudgingly gave me the promised 350 a month, which left 25 dollars extra for my other expenses. I had a job at the library where I got 200 dollars a month, paid on the last day of the month. (Even now, I hate getting paid monthly.) I needed to survive, and save money for my upcoming marriage. I had to make this work. I was determined to make this work with no debt.

If I knew then what I know now, I'm sure I could have done much better, but everybody has to start somewhere.

Goals for 2007

What do you want to get done in 2007?

I want to do several things. We'll see how it goes!

FHP's Goals:

1. Find a way to earn a little bit of money from home, without having the home job take over my life. Crystal at Biblical Womanhood really inspired me with this post.

2. Clear out clutter from our home. We're pretty good at this, but the move from the apartment to the house showed us that we have a lot more stuff than we think. This can even tie in with my first goal, as I'm selling some of my books on Amazon, and I plan to E-bay some things. The DAV also picks up donations from our new neighborhood about once a month, so we've designated a bag in our closet to put things while we wait for the "we're coming to your area!" card in the mail.

3. Recycle more. Our trash pickup has recycling, so there is really no excuse.

4. Get things we need from yard sales, Freecycle, and thrift stores as often as possible. I already do this a lot, but I know that there have been a few things that I did not really *need* ASAP that I ran to Target for. I'm always annoyed when it turns up at a yard sale for less than half than I paid. I must learn to be more patient. Along with this, perhaps try to recoup the cost of my clothes, etc through getting something to sell when I shop. I got this idea from Meredith at Like Merchant Ships. I have not tried it yet, but it seems like a really great idea! Now I must figure out what will sell and what won't...

5. Eat out less, and when we do eat out, only eat at places that we have coupons for. We vow to eat out less every year. Buying the house helped us be a little more motivated.

That's my list for this year!