Our Top Reasons for Becoming Debt Free Now

It occurred to me that I didn't go into complete detail on why we want to get out of debt in my post, Debt Free by May 2018. I shared our process of going through our budget and finding areas that we could decrease spending and increase debt repayment but I didn't really give the why. My husband and I owe just over $45,000 worth of debt. Our debt is comprised of mainly student loans and a loan from our recent time share purchase. We have been making additional payments to each of our of student loans for the last 2 years but finally decided earlier this month that we would make a plan and aggressively attack our debts. Based on the debt avalanche method which I talked about in this post, we should be out of debt in 35 months, that's just under 3 years. Today I'll share why we decided to become debt free and why now?

First and foremost it's our belief that we should be lenders not borrowers. Plain and simple we want to make ourselves available to assist those in need. To give when the opportunity is presented to us whether this is to our local church, charity, a friend in need, a crowdfunding campaign for a special project or just being a blessing to someone else. It pains us to see a need and not be able to meet it or have to wait to give because we're busy paying debt. We want to have the ability to give when we feel like it and timely. This belief comes from scripture since we are Christians and believe the bible is true and applicable to our lives today. Being in debt does not allow us to lend or give the way we would like to but instead makes us a slave to the lender, see Proverbs 22:7.

Next would be our belief that we should owe no man anything but love and at this time we owe quite a few people. Again another belief that's rooted in scripture, see Romans 13:8. Debt carries a certain weight to it. I know that when I owe someone, that what I receive in the form of income is not completely mine. I have to pay each of my creditors what is due to them prior to paying myself. I love this scripture because it really supports that fact that we shouldn't take on debt. Meaning if you can't afford it then maybe you shouldn't go into debt for it. I wish I would have caught on to this principle much earlier but I get it now. I should only have to owe people love not money.

The next 4 reasons are somewhat tied together, we want to get out of debt in order to prepare for parenthood, home ownership, emergency planning and our personal projects. It's our belief that the next 15-20 years will be some of the busiest and yet rewarding seasons of our lives. We'll be raising little ones, advancing further in our careers and passions and setting roots down. It's our hope that we'll be building a legacy for our family and that will require us being debt free. We may not be debt free when we start our family but we'll definitely be debt free shortly before or after our little one arrives. Our hope is that we can take our funds and invest in our family's future and not spend time paying off unnecessary debt with tons of interest. We may not have a house by the time we're debt free but if we apply our same payment method to our savings that we did to our debt then in the same time we could have more than enough to make a hefty down payment on a home or possibly buy a house with cash. I know you probably think we're crazy but I think it's possible.

I felt this was important to share since I will be providing you with updates on our journey to becoming debt free. I plan to share the good, the bad and the ugly but you have to know why we are doing this. Now what you know our top reasons we encourage you to support us and cheer us on. We're in this for the long haul and for those of you who are visual like me it's a recap our of top reasons in list form.

Our Top Reasons for Becoming Debt Free Now

• We want to be Lenders and Givers
• We don't want to owe any man anything but Love
• We want to be able to save for our children
• We want to be able to save for a house
• We want to be able to save for emergencies
• We want to be able to save for important personal projects 

I'd like to hear from you, if you have committed to becoming debt free then what's your why? If you haven't then what's stopping you? Leave me a comment down below and as always thanks for reading!

A Totally True Story of How I Found $58.21 lying around my Apartment

One of my goals is to be completely debt free. I want to pay off all my student loans as soon as humanly possible and by any means necessary. Recently I was challenged to think out of the box for new ways to make additional money to pay off my debt. To be clear it's not that any of these ways of generating income are new but they are new to me. As I listened intently to the advice I thought about the options available to me. First I considered getting a part-time job but immediately remembered how packed my schedule is with my current workload and my church commitments. I'm not sure where I would find an additional 20 hours a week to work another job, let alone the strength to keep up with that. Next I had the bright idea to host a garage sale but that was quickly dismissed since my husband and I live in an apartment and we don't have a garage or a front yard for that matter. Finally it dawned on me after 15 minutes of pondering that I live in the digital era and instead of selling items in person I can always sell online. Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner ladies and gentlemen. It may take a while but I do catch on eventually.

Looking around I spotted my overcrowded bookcase that was dying to be purged. So I set out to eliminate my clutter while contributing to my debt destruction fund. I recently downloaded an app called BookScout that allows you to search for books by the ISBN number or the Author, Title, etc. and it retrieves the current list price from several online sites including Amazon and Barnes and Noble. This app allowed me to scan my entire bookshelf (mostly the books I was willing to part with) and determine the going rate for these soon to be recycled treasures.

I'll admit BookScout did overestimate my projected earnings but after listing 6 books on Amazon my projected profits are $58.21. Not too shabby if I do say so myself. It only took a couple hours to sort the books and post online. The longest part was researching how to create an Amazon Seller's Account and writing this blog post. Some books were not worth selling online as I would spend more money shipping the item than earning a profit from the sale. For those books I am going to experiment with selling on Facebook via the garage sale groups. I recently watched a YouTube video from Tai and Talaat of the His and Her Money Show sharing how they made over $300 selling items in these types Facebook groups. Side Note: Tai and Talaat are an awesome husband and wife team that attack debt with a smile. I'm loving all their YouTube videos and podcasts encouraging everyone to declare that it's #hustleseason and get rid of that debt.

If you are in debt I encourage you to make a plan and take action to create additional income to help get out of debt faster. $50 may not seem like a lot of money but an extra $50 payment on my Student Loans can go a long way. I won't get into the specifics but google "Student Loan Calculator" and plug in your numbers and take a long hard look at how long it will take you to pay off our debt if you continue to pay the minimum payment. The amount of interest you'll pay over time is ridiculous. It's really sad that most people don't even realize majority of their monthly payment for their student loan is primarily going to the interest and not the principal. Anyway that's a blog post for another day. I hope you guys enjoyed the post. Please leave me a comment with some ways you make extra money. Also I'm curious if anyone else is in debt destruction mode as well. Leave me a comment below and thanks for reading!