Debt Free?

I have several friends who have gone through the Financial Peace University courses offered by Dave Ramsey. I have heard him on many talk radio shows, including his own.

Everything he says makes sense. When people, who have taken his course, say that it has changed their lives, it makes sense.

So Eric and I are sitting here with a little over $18,000 in debt. Total. Minus the house.

For attending a private university for three years, and taking my sweet time to get through college in general, that does not seem that bad. I pay almost $290 in student loan payments every month. Not bad at all. It still allows us some freedom to do what we would like to do.

We get Papa Murphy's Take-n-Bake pizza (fricken delicious). We rent movies. We subscribe to Netflix and XBox Gold or whatever it is that allows us to watch Netflix. We go out to eat with friends. We buy pop at gas stations when James has kept us up all night. We make sacrifices where we need to, but oftentimes, we don't need to. 

And then I think, why am I continuing to just pay down the debt one measly payment at a time? Don't get me wrong, I overpay on every loan we have. I overpay on our mortgage every month and I most definitely overpay on my student loans. But do I overpay enough? Is there more I could be doing? It's not bad shelling out $290 a month, but could I be shelling out more?

So I scoured the internet. Pinterest afforded me (haha) the most bang for my buck (double haha). It was there that I found blog after blog of couples that have become debt free. And they did it in 12 months, 18 months, 24 months.

Could we do that? What would I do with an extra $300 a month? Even moreso, what would I do with that money that I pay in our mortgage?

Eric and I have been talking about adding a bathroom. We have been talking about adding our deck. So we're going to do that, because we can afford it. We don't take out home loans, we don't borrow against our equity. That is something that early in our marriage we decided we would never do, simply for the fact that it's just not worth it to us. Besides that, in a close second, it's because we love to see what we can do on our own. Be it stretching our dollar, or doing the manual labor ourselves.

So last night, we sat down and had a long talk about our finances. We've never done that before. We also don't believe in sitting down with anyone and paying them to tell us about our finances. I love learning things on my own, and again, Eric and I love doing the manual labor ourselves.

So we scoured and scoured and scoured through our finances. For two hours.

In the past three days, we have spent a total of $27 on things we don't need. Seriously? How is that possible? Pop at the gas station, some dash mount thing for our GPS. Things we don't need.

Then we talked about how many times we just go up to the counter of ANY store that we're in, and just swipe the card without knowing what we're spending. I've been thinking about this debt-free thing for awhile, so when I went to Target the other day, I paid attention at the register. I knew I was buying diapers, wipes, formula and facewash. Nothing too extravagant. I went through the typical motions I normally go through - swipe the card before she's done swiping the barcodes of my product, go through the question/answer on the keypad, and then wait for my receipt. Not once did she mention how much my total was, because it was on the screen. But I never paid attention to the screen. I just went through the motions. I spent $92 at Target, without batting and eye.

Granted, it was on things that we needed for James, and that we needed for us. But nonetheless, it was $92 that I wouldn't have known I spent unless I really paid attention. I had an inkling, but nothing like that.

But I digress -

In cutting our finances, we figured out there really isn't any place we can cut our finances, except DirecTV. Noooooo! We can't last without our Fox News.

But I took the plunge and called DirecTV. Damn them, they offered us an even better deal. A no contract deal. But we're saving $35 a month. $35 we can put toward paying off more debt.

We've decided we'll cut out things we don't need. I will stop going to the pop machine at work to buy WATER (really? I need to buy water?) I went through my closet - sure, I have some really cute clothes. But do I wear them anymore? Onto ebay they went. Complete with nearly "professional" photos. If they don't sell on ebay, there are a few consignment stores that I know they will find a good home at.

So I will let you know where we're at in a week. This should be a very interesting journey!