No Longer Tied

“This changed my marriage and my life,” my future brother-in-law said, as he handed me and my fiancé, Joel, a book: The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. We had been engaged for just a few weeks and we were all so excited! Joel does not enjoy reading, so he smiled at me and I knew exactly what that meant. I would do the reading and pass the word along...so that’s what we did. A few chapters in, and I was eager to begin! That was in 2015.

I didn’t have any debt. You see, growing up, I heard my parents talk about Dave Ramsey. My momma even started us on the envelope system when we got our first jobs: 1 for insurance, 1 for tithe, 1 for the phone bill, etc. I was raised that credit cards were “bad”. But it never became personal or had a “why” until I did my own research. I only saw it as “this is what I was taught so this is what I do”.

Joel was raised very similarly, however, he had student loans and that’s what we knew we needed to tackle. So we started making plans and a budget for our marriage. 

Once we were married, we had a plan. We took time every month to rework our budget, making use of each dollar the best we could. For example, Joel ate a meat and cheese sandwich for lunch every day, unless there were leftovers from the night before. I would eat a random assortment of things I could find. We ate a lot of rice and pasta, meals that would go far without stretching our pockets. Some weeks we would only have about $30 to spend on groceries but we knew it would be worth it and we kept going. After almost 9 months of hard work and trusting the Lord, we had paid off his student loans of $29,000. We were debt-free! 

We then saved for a down payment on a little house and bought it. We had it paid off, again, in 9 months. This past year, in 2021, we sold that home and paid our down payment for another one. 

Joel and I can tell you that we never knew how we would be impacted by that book but looking back we can tell you that GOD IS FAITHFUL. He has taught us so much about our finances and returning to Him what he has given to us. The thing that we love most about being debt-free is that when our finances are no longer tied to our earthly things, we are freely able to do what God has called us to and that is a gift we would love for everyone to receive.