WE'RE DEBT FREE!!!

The Most Important Debt Free Story

Galatians 6:14 "May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world."

Before I type anything else, it is our (Leigh and I) hope that this blog post gives honor to our Savior, Jesus Christ. The Lord has blessed us richly in allowing both Leigh and I to be raised in Christian homes where we had believing parents. Through the reality of their faith, and by the grace of God, we both came to know Christ as our Lord and Savior. This is the kind of inheritance that is of real value, because money will fade, but salvation with the gift of eternal life can never fade!

I Peter 1:3-5 "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time."

The most important debt free story we can tell is being free from the sin debt that we owed to God. The Bible says in Romans 3:23 "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" and in Romans 6:23 "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." This sin debt was something that we had no hope of ever working to pay off. It wouldn't matter how good we were or how hard we worked, we owed too much and could never free ourselves from the debt of our sin. But the good news of the Gospel is that God sent his Son, Jesus, to pay that sin debt for us! The beautiful thing is, God makes this offer to each and every person...no matter how deep their debt of sin is, He is willing to cover it. This is by far, the most important debt free story I can think of. We hope our "financial" debt free story encourages or even inspires you...but it pales in comparison to being free from the debt of sin. If you aren't "debt free" in that respect, you can change all of that today!

 

Our Debt Free Scream

On November 26th, Leigh and I accomplished a major milestone that we have been working extremely hard to reach...we paid off our mortgage and we are 100% DEBT FREE! In case you didn't know...and I don't know how you could know us and not know this...we are BIG Dave Ramsey fans. Anyway, one of our bucket list items once we were finally 100% debt free was to go to Financial Peace Plaza to meet Dave and to do our debt free scream. We get fired up hearing all of the other families come on Dave's show, tell their story, and scream that they are debt free. It gave us the motivation to stay the course and focus on knocking out our debt as soon as possible. So, on Tuesday of this week, we went to Financial Peace Plaza to check off the bucket list item. If you haven't seen the video of our debt free scream, take a few minutes and check it out HERE, but then come back and read the rest of this blog post.
 
I'll be honest...we were a little apprehensive about going on the show to tell our story because we didn't want people to think we were bragging or being prideful about our situation. Of course we were and are excited about this accomplishment, and we also want to tell everyone about it because we want them to be encouraged that they can do it too! But, sometimes how a message is sent isn't how a message is received, and as an HR guy that is constantly crafting communication, I'm sensitive to that. We were also apprehensive about going on the show because we knew we were going to have to mention our income. Leigh and I know we have been blessed to make a good income, and that is something we don't talk about much. Certainly, we feel we've earned that income through hard work (Leigh continues to work from home while raising the girls even though we can make it off of a single income, and I have had a "side job" in one form or another for almost 10 years), but we also realize God is ultimately in control of our circumstances; so regardless of our efforts, without God's provision, we wouldn't have the financial freedom we now have.

Why is being debt free so important?

Dave really says it best. If you don't have any debt, you can become very wealthy over time. If you become very wealthy, you have the ability to "live and give like no one else." After all, if you struggle to pay your monthly obligations, how much resources do you have to bless others with? If believers don't have enough money to do anything other than pay bills, how will they support their church? Support missions and ministries? Give to those in need? The short answer is they probably can't, and they probably won't. However, if we are able to meet our financial obligations and have excess, we can give cheerfully. The Bible talks about being a cheerful giver in 2 Corinthians 9 (go read those few verses if you get a chance) and there are many other passages in scripture that talk about being generous and giving to those in need, etc.

Now don't get me wrong...I like stuff too. I don't think there is anything wrong with having nice things and enjoying the fruits of our hard work and sacrifice. We will certainly do fun things like go on nice vacations, buy nice things, enjoy the resources that God has given us. But, we also understand that everything we have is God's, and we need to be good stewards of His money. Accordingly, we want to use some of the resources God has given us as tools to bless others and further the Kingdom. God has already given Leigh the heart of giving to others...she has been generous in this respect since the day I met her. Over time, God has worked on my heart in this area as well, because I was not always keen on the idea of giving away "my money."

You can do this too!

We aren't special, and if you listen to the Dave Ramsey show, you'll hear people everyday who make a whole lot more money than we do, and a whole lot less than we do, become debt free. Just like the parable of the talents in Matthew 25, I have seen the Lord continue to bless us as we continued to seek to be good stewards of the resources he has provided us. I don't know God's plans for each and every believer, but I am convinced that God blesses faithfulness and diligence. If you prove yourself faithful to manage God's money, He might just give you more to manage. I really encourage everyone who reads this to go through Financial Peace University. It could be one of the most valuable investments you've ever made.

Putting things in perspective

Money is not the key to happiness. Money is temporary, and it will fade. You cannot take it with you when your time on this earth is over. Does that mean we should be flippant with it? Of course not...but we should keep in mind that it does not have eternal value and thus shouldn't consume all of our focus.

Matthew 6:19-20 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

God Bless!
- Matt & Leigh

P.S. I wrote some extra stuff below which isn't really all that important, but if you just like to read stuff then be my guest.

Some other stuff

How did we do it? Well, we ended up waiting a little longer than most after we got married to buy a house. We were married for about 3.5 years before buying because we wanted to save up a 20% down payment. That already put us 20% or 1/5 of the way to paying off the house. For the first 4 years of our mortgage, we did refinance it down to a 15 year and we might have made a few extra principle payments, but we only knocked off about $5,000 of the balance each year. Once we did FPU and realized that if we threw every penny at the house we could pay it off extremely fast, we were focused. Everything I made from Boot Camp went to paying off the house. If Leigh worked extra hours, it went toward the house. Bonus at work, we spent it on fun stuff...ppppsshhhh...yeah right! Nope, the bonus went toward the house as well. And of course, budgeting every month so that we didn't spend more than we had to. It took focus because when we knew we had a few extra thousand we could use to buy something else, we had to remember what was more important. So, after 2 years of living below our means, we can say it was TOTALLY worth it!

Meeting Dave and visiting Financial Peace Plaza was one of the most fun experiences we could have imagined. First of all, the entire staff there at FPP was incredible! It was like visiting a giant Chick-fil-a...customer service was impeccable and everyone was incredibly friendly, helpful and genuine. You can tell the people that work there know that their work matters and they love what they do. I also thought it was amazing that Dave took the time to come out into the lobby and visit with people in between radio breaks. I mean, Dave is a multi-millionaire many times over, is the CEO of a large and growing multi-faceted business, and he takes the time to come out and visit with whoever happens to come into his studio.

Dave Ramsey is being used powerfully by God to not only spread Biblical financial wisdom that truly changes people's lives...but he is being used powerfully by God to spread the Gospel! I could go on and on talking about Dave, but I think you get the picture...BIG FAN!

I mentioned some stuff about income above. Speaking of income...I am convinced that most people's financial difficulty isn't related to how much money they make, it's how much they spend. I think that most Americans have plenty of resources and if they just work hard and make wise financial decisions, they'll put themselves in a position to experience a good standard of living and retire with dignity. Before I landed my first HR job, I worked at a finance company and I saw people who made upwards of $400k/year who were in debt up to their eyeballs. They had so much debt, they couldn't qualify for a bank loan, and that is why they were reaching out to a finance company to borrow even more. These people made 3x what we made on our best year, and all it led to was more debt. On the flip side, there are people who call into Dave's show who have a household income of less than $50k, and they are debt free. Certainly, more income makes it easier to get out of debt if you are properly focused...but the reverse is true too...it can put you deeper into debt. So for those who say "if I made X-dollars I could get out of debt too", my argument would be, why can't you do that on what you make now? Is it more likely that those people would just have more "stuff" and just as much, if not more debt? Certainly there are exceptions, and we have friends who make well over $250k/year as well as friends who make less than $30k/year. Financial wisdom applies no matter how much you make.



I want to thank my parents, Randy and Jane. They made the trip to Financial Peace Plaza with us to celebrate our Debt Free milestone...and we are so glad they came. We not only enjoyed celebrating with them, but they were an immense help with Kelsey and Kacy. We would have been very stressed and overwhelmed without their help. Also, my Dad gave me sound financial wisdom growing up which helped me stay away from credit card debt and student loans. I am so thankful for my parents for teaching and training me, and for being awesome even when I wasn't always the most obedient child growing up :)

To all of the other participants who have gone through an FPU class that we coordinated...you guys are next! Whenever you are debt free, we want to go back to Financial Peace Plaza with you to celebrate!

The Journey isn't over!