It should come to no surprise on here that we have been big proponents of following Dave Ramsey's Baby Steps. Dave Ramsey was someone we were introduced to pretty early on in our marriage. When we read his book we felt like it made a lot of sense and while we never followed it perfectly, we used it as a great outline for where we wanted to be! I remember when we first started it we had just bought a big expensive car and pretty quickly realized that wasn't the smartest decision we could have made with where we were in life.
The hardest one for most people I think is getting started and getting out of debt. Thankfully we never got ourselves into credit card debt and just had a car loan and student loan debt. We were young newlyweds with a desire to start a family and have me stay home with the kids. We were not rich by any means! We were determined to work our behinds off to get out of this debt. Peter worked 30 hours a week while taking on a (more than) full school load. I worked as much overtime as I could and we cut down our spending even quite literally eating beans and rice for months! While everyone else our age was in college and playing, we were working our behinds off towards this goal! We proved we could get ourselves out of debt quickly and honestly it was kind of fun to watch it go down!
I think one of the smartest decisions we made when we decided we wanted to be a one income family was to only live on Peter's income. Again, we were not rich by any means on his income but we tried to live below our means. We were able to take my income and pretend it didn't even exist and used it towards debt, savings, and adoption expenses!
There were lots of steps of faith along the way, and tons of financial set backs but we kept our eyes on the goal. After a few years we got to celebrate with our Debt Free Scream! Then we immediately jumped into saving. I remember when we went and saw Dave live that he said men were most relieved when they were debt free and women were most relieved when they had the security of a savings account! This was definitely true for me! I needed to know that if Peter lost his job or something big happened that we had something saved to get by for awhile.
The next steps just kind of run together but have taken some time because of the growing family. Saving for retirement (and 5 is saving for college funds) does take a large chunk of the budget at this phase but it is also fun to watch that number grow. And then the big one - paying off the mortgage. Originally our ultimate hope was to have the house paid off by the time kids went off to college. But God paved an incredible way for us to meet this goal far faster than we could have even fathomed! We are so excited that we are reaching Step 7 and kind of the end of the baby step journey!
We have learned so many lessons along the way and made a ton of financial mistakes. It has taken a lot of hard work and a focused attitude to try and make the most of our money. We made sacrifices early on in our marriage focused on knowing that it would put us where we wanted to be later on. This was not a fast or get rich quick game. Our journey to this place has taken us almost to the day - 14 years! We have been teammates towards this goal. We are also amazed that throughout every hard circumstance we have always had "enough". We truly believe that God is faithful when you focus on making wise financial decisions to help and guide along the way. We have had some very tight times and financial stress but we've never not had enough to squeak by! We also had a desire to have a large family and for me to stay home, something that some people even told us would be impossible. Again, it just takes focus and sacrifice to get where you want to be. It hasn't been easy or necessarily fun, we missed out on some trips, typically haven't had the latest or greatest of anything, have had to slowly renovate the house as we've had cash to do so, we've driven some pretty old rundown cars until we could afford nicer ones but I can say on this side of it, every sacrifice has been so worth it and more! Honestly, if we can work these steps anyone who wanted to, could!
Now that we are approaching the other side of this baby step journey we both just feel relief! We accomplished something really big and it no longer feels like there is a big financial burden on our life. We are not rich but we know what the term "financial peace" actually feels like. The hard work paid off! We are 35 and can focus on the areas we now want to. So what does life in Baby Step 7 look like? Right off the bat we are maxing out retirement contributions. This is an area of particular interest for me so I am researching and studying and learning as much as I can about investing. I have no desire to completely control our investments but I do want to have a good understanding of what we will be doing going forward. We are continuing to grow our savings and also prioritizing when and how we want to tackle home improvement projects. We've started discussing longer term goals of legacy building. Do we want investment properties or a 2nd home somewhere we love. I would love to own a vacation home that even our kids and their families could enjoy someday! We hope with Peter having a fully remote job now that we can travel for longer chunks of time and have lots of fun! And last but certainly not least we are able to give and be more generous to causes that we love!
We are still very goal driven so while we don't have immediate needs to be concerned about anymore we still want to build our lives towards the future we desire. for college isn't too far off on the horizon so that is an area of focus and also helping Peter reach retirement at as young of an age as possible so we can go have fun and enjoy what we've built is a huge goal of ours. The biggest thing I want to say is that it really is possible to accomplish your goals and live the life you want to live. We weren't anything special and we started out with an extremely low income. We also had kids really fast. I promise that if this is something you want to accomplish, you can if you're willing to make some sacrifices, work hard, and stay focused. The relief you will feel as you pay down debt, save for a rainy day and then begin to build your family legacy is so worth it!
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