Getting out of debt is part of prepping for your family's future for a few reasons:
-Debt costs you more over the long term. That $400 computer could cost you $1000 after you pay it off with interest.
-Debt causes anxiety in many people. Wondering how you are going to pay your debts and bills. If you can't pay the debts, then you worry if you will lose your home or car. What if collectors come to constantly harrass you and your family?
3) Being a slave to the lender. Proverbs 22:7, "the rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender..." We are not built to be slaves. We are to be free! Yet we seem to put ourselves into a postion where we give our freedom away with the swipe of a card.
4) Not being able to provide more for your family in the future. Pay for your children's college, go on vacations, etc. Having no debt would free up a lot of money for future endeavors.
I previously posted about some of my credit card debt experience. I recently decided that I needed to wade deeper. I needed to learn more and not be in the dark about finances.
Since moving to NC, I have had time (in my new part time employment life) to reflect on my monetary situation. I decided to make some changes in the way I spend my time. I spend a solid month watching netflix! I must say, I got hooked on a few shows, I'm human. Then I got bored with that (it usually takes a month for my love of netflix to fade away). In that time, I did get my school situation settled, my car and license switched to NC, and get established at work as somewhat valuable so I would be in the best position possible to get full time when it opened up. So I was not totally lazy with my time.
This last month, my journey to financial obsession (that might be a little too dramatic of a phrase, but I'm going to roll with it) started with knitting. I had a lot of yarn from times that I have knit in the past. My favorite gift to give for baby showers are knitted baby blankets. I generally have a couple made up for times when I am invited to a shower. It came in handy the last couple of months in FL because 2 coworkers got pregnant very close together. So I was able to get those to them without too much stress. But that depleted my supply. So I started making another one...but like all of my craft projects, I grew bored.
So I went YouTubing for other craft ideas. I came up with a great one that I decided to make everyone for Christmas. Because it is not Christmas yet, I can't reveal what it is until afterward (so watch for a post in the future!).
While getting bored with that, I YouTubed how to crochet and learned that in a night (I originally taught myself to knit and crochet while in Japan before YouTube when we learned from books! But my crocheting was terrible so I only continued knitting from that point).
Then I somehow ran across how to make a bible study journal (which I must have lived a sheltered life because I never heard of one before). Then that linked me to making a housekeeping plan. And that led to the envelope system! And that linked me to debt obsession!
Anyway...since that line of YouTubing, I have watched vlog after vlog (video blogs) about people on this journey to debt freedom. It got the wheels turning on what life would look like post-debt. Would it be possible to not pay student loans earlier than 30 years from now!?
As I posted before, I had $10,000 in credit card debt because of a semester of college paid on it. I worked really hard and paid it off 4 years later. I opened to flood gates to my credit cards once again to help with some funeral expenses but was paid back for that. However, I continued to use it and racked up $4,500 in credit card debt by the time I moved to NC. The credit card was interest free until this November. I have used some savings and finally paid off the credit card last week to avoid interest charges.
So I am back to being credit card debt free and I don't have a car loan on my 10+ year old car. But I have HUGE student loans! My only debt!
Reading books from the library and watching vlogs has inspired me to try to cashflow my 3 years of school and try to continue to pay off student loans. This is going to be difficult with the size of my loans, but difficult isn't impossible! So I will post my progress, strategies, tips, etc in the future.
For now, I leave you with some resources I have found helpful and motivating:
Book: "Total Money Makeover" by Dave Ramsey
Book: "The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke" by Suze Orman
Vlog: debtisdum (YouTube)
Vlog: LiveLikeNoOneElse (YouTube)
