YES!!!!!

The wife and I sent off the payoff check for our car today and that makes us Consumer Debt free. 53K paid off in 22 months. It is a great feeling to not have to make credit card payments, HELOC payment, or 2 car payments. So how did we celebrate: we took our Costco/Wal-Mart envelopes and did our grocery shopping and stayed within our budget. We'll celebrate by going to listen to Dave Ramsey in Charleston in August and do a mini-vacation then.

Just a fun day for us and thought I would share as I know there were a couple of people who were hurting with debt on here. Keep at it and don't let your intensity down. It can be done and even if Murphy tries to move in, don't give up. We had a water heater, some auto repairs, a couple of unexpected financial events that hit the money we were trying to put towards debt, and our second daughter along the way. But today makes it all worth it!!!

 

CONGRATULATIONS!

i think there are a couple of other folks here using the program.

that's really, really great.

was there ever a point that you thought it wasn't going to work?

 

respect.

 

LarryD, there was one event that really discouraged us and put us in a funk for a couple of weeks. We had enough money saved up to payoff my truck and had an unexpected "event" (for lack of a better word) that essentially took all of it. So, we had to re-start the whole saving process for our truck. Man, that really messed us up. It took me about two weeks to even start listening to Dave Ramsey again. But, I just woke up one day and said screw it, we saved it up once and we can do it again. 4 months later, we had saved it up. It made me mad actually and it made me work a little harder at work and clamp down on spending and we were so fired up when we sent in the payoff to GMAC. Made saving up for the car almost a breeze.

Now, we are focusing on saving up an Emergency Fund and then we will start investing, college saving, paying off the house, and giving like never before.

 

Congrats! We paid off our car loans about 4 years ago and it's a great feeling. It's tempting to get a new car but I freaking hate a car payment. Now all we have is the mortgage which isn't so bad. Best of luck investing and saving for college. Great time to start , eh? :

 

VA, we are so excited about starting now for both investing and college saving. We've done both before but now we can really intensely focus on both for the first time.

I do think we have plans to add a vehicle in the next couple of years (the dreaded mini-van as our family expands) but we will save up the cash and get a deal this time. I'm done with car payments.

 

Good idea to pay cash for the car, if you can. Never understood financing a depreciable asset but it's hard NOT to do that for most people. It's like getting screwed twice in a bad way.

I've started a couple of 529s recently and contribute a little each month. Hopefully in 16 years there will stil be some money left. Remember to NOT sacrifice retirement savings for college savings though. It's hard to NOT do because we want what's best for our kids, many times at our own expense. They'll hopefully be able to get a loan for school, but we won't be able to get a loan for retirement.

 

Yeah, I think our plans are to do ESAs and max them out for each kid each year and that's about it. All of the money they have been getting as gifts has gone into the 529s we opened up for them so we have separated their gift money from our savings for them (they are 2 and 5 months so they don't need the money anyways). Figured that maxing an ESA out each year (which is 2K) along with growth for 18 years and the gifts they get in their 529s should provide enough for them to both go to a in-state public school of some sort. If they want out-of-state or private, they better hope the grandparents are paying the difference because we won't.

And yeah, totally agree about investing. Once our Emergency Fund is saved up, we are going to start doing 15% of our income. Start with the 401K match, then max out Roths, and then go back to 401K to get up to 15%. Figured that's a good balance of pre-tax savings and post-tax tax-free growth plus the 401K match.

Sad thing is that I should have known better than to get in this debt in the first place. Seriously, the thing that changed us was a budget. We started actually watching where our money was going and it was dining out and trips to Lowe's/Target/Costco. I swear that I felt like we got a freaking raise when we did a budget. Two CCs that we had just been stringing along were paid off the day after doing a budget as I realized I didn't need to string them along. I had money sitting in the bank for them but I just hadn't told that money how to act until I did a budget.

Better to realize that at 27 than 57 I guess though. Really cool to be sitting at 29 and no consumer debt. Ready to start going after our house as that would be great to be sitting at 35 with no debt. I would have 30 years of what should be my highest income years and I am paying myself instead of a mortgage.

 

Congrats wolfpac! Glad to see your hard work and determination pay-off for you. I heard that the wifie wants to go shopping now and get her a couple outfits...just saying. Maybe you can start paying my way now for basketball since you will have this extra money sitting around now.

Once again, Congrats to you and Pigger and i'm happy for the both of you and i'm glad to see you two work hard and get all the debt and car payments behind you!!!!!!!

 

They better not depend on the uncle...