by Claire
The end of April will mark a full 4 months that we have been following our spending and putting limits on ourselves. We took some time to look back over those 4 months and are pretty pleased with the results. January was ugly–no two ways about it. We knew it was going to be but to look back and see that we paid “insufficient fund fees” is not only alarming…in many ways it is like looking at people we do not know. Now we are ending April in a much better place. As some of you read in a comment I made recently, we rent out the house my husband owned before we married. Before March 2012, we were in hot water if that rent check did not come in. Now, not only do we have breathing room that eliminates the panic around the first of the month—but we also learned that USAA offers “Rent Replacement” coverage on the homeowners’ policy if the renters skip town. Adding this to the policy was such a minimal amount (less than $90 a year) we figured it was worth it given our current financial situation. Our renters have been great but you never know what might happen. In addition to not desperately needing that rent check, we have an emergency fund that will just about cover the monthly mortgage (and that is our goal–to reach $1600 in the emergency savings so that we have that payment if needed). Additionally, we have erased a couple of petty debts and were able to consolidate obscene interest rate debt into a lower rate loan.
Now, before you think I’m throwing my shoulder out patting myself on the back–please know that I am painfully aware of just how far we have to go. I anticipate speedbumps along the way and pray that we have the fortitude to dust ourselves off and start again. I haven’t faced too many moments of discouragement because the adjustments to our lifestyle are yielding tangible results. While we are sometimes forced to deny ourselves in ways we have not denied ourselves before—with momentary discomfort—the rewards of finding breathing room and seeing a savings account grow are definitely worth it.
There is a long road ahead but comparing how we are living life now with how we were living life then is a good exercise. I do not ever want to have to worry about there being enough money in my checking account. I’ve lived life too long like that and the energy and time the worry of that has taken from me is already too, too much. Financial freedom is critical for our overall well-being. I can’t get over how long it took me to get that! I guess many people never do…and I’m thankful for seeing that reality while I still have time to do something about it.
Born and raised in Texas. I’ve at least driven through every state in the US courtesy of a roadtrip loving Dad.
I’m single with two children and a good parenting relationship with their father.
I am a “life is just half full of funny” kinda gal. Humor is my saving grace and I am thankful for it every single day. I have a strong Catholic faith and am thankful for that foundation.
I read a lot for a living but still enjoy a good book. I love biographies but in recent years have found the need for fun fictional books–sadly, for a long time I just didn’t enjoy fiction!
I love live theatre of any kind–from local productions to Broadway.
I love to scrapbook and pride myself in my kids’ albums.
I love being a mom but also love my career. I’m blessed to have found a balance allowing me to be at everything my kids need and want me to be at–while also having a career.
Favorite Quotes: Well behaved women rarely make history.
Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out. -James Bryant Conant
Hey celebrating even small victories can be necessary to keep the momentum going when you have a long road ahead. It keeps discouragement at bay and you can continue to focus on your goals and the reasons you set them in the first place! So by all means pat yourself on the back, then do like you did and set your sites on the next challenge to conquer. Keep up the good work.
After two years we are a few months ( August) away from being consumer debt free and it took those small victories to keep going until there really is light at the end of the tunnel.
Hi Claire,
I just found out about bloggingawayadebt.com and appreciate your efforts in motivating us with our debt. We are on our joureny too to get out of debt. However, I currently don’t know how much you are in debt. Is there a link from a previous post that describes your debt situation?
Welcome Ash–my debt info should appear on the right side of the screen. It is an ugly figure beginning with the digit “9.” 🙁 Maybe if you do a search of prior posts you can find one entitled “and the new blogger is…” to see one of my very first posts back on March 1 of this year. Glad you found the blog and hope you stick around! It is always good to find support on this journey.
Thanks for the info Claire, yes I was able to search for your initial article and see the breakdown on the right side of the page.
One more question, does your Original Debt include your home mortgage?
No—housing is not included in the debt you see.
Whoa – you were getting hit with insufficient funds fees?? YIKES!!! You HAVE come a ways since then!
Breathing room is very, very nice to have! I was thinking about that this morning – unlike 10 years ago I have enough breathing room that I don’t have to worry about shuffling money around to pay the bills at the end of each month. I’m sure you will get there 🙂
Staying motivated can sometimes require some creativity. In the early stages, you’re right, just seing balances going in the right direction every month may be enough to keep you on track. At the beginning there are so many easy targets for improvement it’s a bit overwhelming. After a while you may find that the monthly updates become routine and stops motivating you to slog it out. When you are just in month 14 of 36 and doing essentially the same things repeatedly for the forseable future you can easily lose your motivation.
Here is some of the list we put together to pick from when there is an opportunity to recognize some milestone achievment: picnics, hikes, museum and gallery visits (free days or with coupons), family sleepover parties with all of us piled onto the LR floor for charades, movies and popcorn. Volunteering as a group at a soup kitchen (nothing seeing the faces of the truly poor to make you thankful all you have to do is pay off prior over-consumption). If you are comfortable with posting the details make a wall chart with progress bars, or pie charts for the kids to color in as you close in on a target (either a debt paid off, or savings accumulated).
We are working toward early retirement, but it’s still several years away. We haven’t had consumer debt for many years and most weeks we send any extra funds to our mortgage or retirement accounts. It’s been this way so long I kind of do the Friday transfer on autopilot now and don’t get same little thrill I used to. We did crack open a bottle of wine at dinner the night our mortgage dropped below $200K, a new DVD the week it dropped below $175k, and invited family for a BBQ at $150K. Between our regular payments and all the extra payments we’re knocking about $25k/yr off so there should be an milestone occasion every year at this rate, and that still seems to keep us focused. At this point I don’t think the kids even realize we’re still living on the same ultra frugal budget we started years ago – now it’s just normal to them. Maybe it’s just me that needs the motivation since I track the balances on a weekly basis and know precisely how much longer it will take. They’re all just living their lives. Until I give my DH a state of the union update he kind of loses track of what’s being accomplished. Maybe the fact that they’ve all accepted our current spending levels as a big non event means we hit the right level of fun vs sacrifice to sustain this for the long haul.
I don’t care how much time you have left – you do deserve a pat on the back! You’ve come a long way in a short time, congratulations! Keep focused and hopefully by your one year getting-out-of-debt anniversary you will have an even bigger chunk of your debt paid off!
Good luck!
p.s. I LOVE USAA – we get all of our insurances through them.
Thanks for the heads up about the rental home insurance with USAA. House is up for sale, but if we end up need to rent it out this will be great information to have.