Getting Out Of Debt: Our Journey To Paying Off $315,000
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We started our marriage off with $475,000 in debt. None of which was mortgage.
Since we started our debt journey we have paid off $315,000… down to our current debt amount of $160k.
But it has not been a straight shot…not even close.
How the heck we got here
Did you know that the average chiropractor comes out of chiropractic school with $150,000+ in student loans? Pair that with my student loans for a degree that I have done little to nothing with and a few car loans between the two of us, and we started our relationship with just about a quarter million in debt.
Good healthy financial start, wouldn’t you say?
A year into our relationship we took a leap of faith and packed everything we owned in our sweet apartment on the north shore of Boston into our Expedition, and took off for a 2 week cross country adventure to the Golden State of California leaving all we knew behind us.
We hung up our hat in Santa Barbara with nothing but a few thousand dollars in our bank account and a dream in our hearts.
After meeting with almost every bank in the city, and being rejected by all of them, we found one bank who could see the potential in what my husband wanted to build.
Within just a blink of being in Santa Barbara we found ourselves with another couple hundred thousand dollars in debt to build our dream chiropractic practice.
We were oh so sweetly naive as to what the heck that really meant.
Finding our man, Dave
My husband worked his tail off and his heart for his profession was big. We grew a thriving business that grew 30% year over year for the first few years.
But somewhere along the way we realized that the amount of debt we had was not sustainable.
The cloud of naivety was starting to lift, and we realized we needed to do something different.
Honestly, I wish that I could recall with crystal clarity the moment Dave Ramsey’s book “The Total Money Makeover” fell into my hands.
I wish I could say that someone in my life serendipitously handed me this book and then the rest was history.
But our story was a lot messier than that, with a whole lot of starts and stops.
Over the course of the first two years of our marriage, we half assed our debt repayment. We had moments of intensity and inspiration, quickly to be brought to a halt with shiny distractions…
Enough is enough…sort of
In 2014 we gave birth at home to our sweet Bennett boy. Our first born.
I’d love to say that was the moment we got our shit together and pulled up our bootstraps. But the story actually took an ugly turn.
That first year of Bennett’s life we freaking lost our minds.
We were easily spending $1200 a month on groceries for two adults and one little human that mostly drank milk off my dang body. Not to mention we also went out to eat 3-4 times a week totalling our “eating out” budget to another $1200 a month.
What 2.5 people need to spend $2400 a month on food?!
We got caught up in living a lifestyle of convenience, and a lifestyle that we didn’t earn.
Yes, my husband worked his butt off and created a business that was thriving… so in that regard we “earned” it…
…but we were drowning in debt.
So in 2016 we finally decided to get serious and join a Dave Ramsey class, Financial Peace University.
“Is that the average?”
The first night of the class we were all given a piece of paper to write our current (non-mortgage) debt on. It was all anonymous.
At the end of the class, after the class facilitators had tallied up the collective debt of the entire group of 15-20 people, they read us the total debt for our class.
The total was around $500,000.
My husband, Nick, leans over and asks me, “is that the average?”
“No sweetie, the total.”
I literally could see his brain melting.
As one of the many couples in that class, we ourselves wrote $350,000 on that damn piece of paper.
The entire rest of the class made up the remaining $150k.
I guess you could say THAT was a wake-up call for us.
Our debt-crushing days
After taking that class, our drive to get the heck out of debt was bumped up a notch or two.
We poured ourselves a glass of wine after Bennett was in bed one night and wrote out all of our debts and the current balance of each on a huge sheet of paper.
We put our heads down for the upcoming months.
Any extra money that we got, we threw it at debt. We did AirBnB for a while to make an extra $1000 a month. I was looking for every way imaginable to save money (hint: a huge tool for me was actually meal planning!).
Then just when we finally felt we had found our groove, and we were on track to pay everything off in under three years… the fires hit.
The Fires
I don’t know if you remember hearing on the news about the fires in Santa Barbara in December of 2017? Well, it was a huge deal. Over 280,000 acres were burned in Ventura and Santa Barbara County.
It was scary as hell.
Then the mudslides happened in Montecito.
Between the two of those tragedies that hit our sweet county, affecting people we know and love directly…
…our business (and most every business in the area) suffered greatly.
You see, it wasn’t just the fires or the mudslides themselves, or even the month long closure of the 101 (the Pacific Highway that runs from Los Angeles all the way up to Washington state).
It was the impact on the economy that crushed us all. And that lasted far longer than a month.
It took half of a year for us to get back on our feet.
*Tiny side note here* Only two months before the fires started, we {perhaps} foolishly purchased our first home. At the time of purchase it was within our means, but only two short months later we were starting to feel very afraid. The majority of Santa Barbara fled town to escape the fires and the poor quality of air, leaving our clinic with only a trickle of business coming in.
It was a heck of a scary time for us.
Call to Dave
After depleting our entire business savings, and having to actually reach for more credit (and a whole lot of prayers), Nick decided it was time to call the man himself, Dave Ramsey.
After letting the phone ring over and over for an hour, we finally got through! Then we got to wait for another hour to actually talk to Dave.
My heart was pounding like crazy the whole time Nick was talking to him.
I was certain that he was going to tell us we were stupid for buying a house before we were out of debt, I mean, didn’t I read his book!?
But the opposite happened.
He was so impressed by my husband and his business. *go babe go*.
With much encouragement, and a few “you’re going to be okay”, we had a clear vision of what we needed to do to turn this ship around…
Within a few months, after implementing some of the business changes Dave suggested to Nick, our team was smaller, but our business was back to thriving…bigger than it had been in quite some time, actually!
Dave Cars
We were back on track, but Nick wasn’t about to mess around ever again and leave us naked and afraid in the woods. So instead of starting the debt snowball back up, we stopped that completely and started socking away as much money as possible for Nick’s “war chest”.
We finally decided it was time to get rid of our van that we were paying way too much for each month. So we got out of the silly lease we were in, and I bought a 2001 Honda Accord that I saw on the side of the street for a whopping $1900 in cash.
For the first time ever, we had no car payments at all in the world (my husbands car was already fully paid for).
Can I just tell you how amazing that feels?
I only ended up driving that car a few months before we found out we were pregnant with our third child, and there was no way we were fitting three carseats across in that back seat.
After saving for a handful of months, we decided it was time to make the purchase for us both to move up in car size. With the money we had saved, and the sweet generosity of my in-laws (they found our choices in cars questionable, and knew we weren’t going to budge on our choice to have no car loans), we purchased two new (to us) vehicles that could seat a soccer team in each.
With no added debt.
Where we are now…
So here we are, earnestly 7 years deep in this journey. I would absolutely be lying to you if I said it’s been easy to stay motivated and focused.
It hasn’t. It’s been hard as hell.
We honestly feel like we’ve never had a chance to “enjoy” our money since being together. Yes, we’ve gone one some trips, and yes, I still make a point to budget for some fun in our life…
..but no matter how you slice it, 7 years of living on a small portion of your income is a freaking slog.
To date, we have paid off $315,000 while also being able to put down $69,000 for a down payment on our home. So we technically would have a lot less debt today if we hadn’t bought our house…
…but we don’t regret it. We love our home so much it’s crazy.
So as of right now, we have just about $160,000 left to go. And while that still feels so far away, I feel like I can finally see the light at the end of this long ass tunnel.
And I know that when we get there, it will be the sweetest accomplishment imaginagle. And you can bet your booty we will be flying to Nashville to do a “debt free scream” on Dave Ramsey’s radio show.
Money talk can be such a vulnerable topic. A topic that makes people squirm a little in their seat. Either you’re uncomfortable because someone is talking about how much money they have…and that makes you uncomfortable. Or someone is talking about how little money they have, and that can leave a person not exactly sure what to say.
So I’ll tell you why I’m even writing this, and putting all our money laundry out to dry…
Throughout the last 3 years, in the biggest push of our debt payoff, I have listened regularly to Dave Ramsey’s podcast. And each day on his podcast he has someone do a “debt free scream” where they get to have a moment to share with the world their journey to get out of debt, how much they paid off, and exactly how they did it.
These “screams” have kept me motivated and hungry.
There has not been one single “debt free scream” that I have listened to that I don’t end up tearing up, or at the very minimum, feeling overwhelming pride for these complete strangers.
Getting out of debt is no damn joke. It’s hard, and it’s boring, and it’s honestly no freaking fun. It takes a lot of diligence, and constantly reminding yourself why you’re actually doing this in the first place.
So maybe one of two things will happen if I put my story out there…
One, in the process of sharing our story and our journey, I will get some much needed external accountability, and frankly, even some support along the way…
and..
I hope even more so, that it will encourage you, the one who has dreamed of getting out of debt but doesn’t know how it would be possible.
Because if at the end of the day we get can ourselves out of almost half a million dollars in non-mortgage debt…
… I really do believe you can too.
If you are serious about getting out of debt, I would highly recommend starting with Dave Ramsey’s book, “The Total Money Makeover” and even more so, joining a local chapter of Financial Peace University. Community and accountability can work magic when trying to reach life changing goals.
Are you on a debt-free journey? Is it something you feel called to jump into? Let’s not go at this alone, friend.
