Debt Free (sort of)

Hold your horses. Don't celebrate too much, too fast. The "sort of" in the title is kind of a big deal. We are still currently the not so proud owners of over $100,000 in student loan debt... we're a long way from calling into Dave Ramsey's radio show.

So how then, are we debt free at all? We are credit card debt free, and I have to admit, it feels pretty nice. Sam and I will be the first to admit that we are really, really bad at money. I'm fairly sure that I grew up in the worst home ever in terms of modeling money well. I had no idea that people actually saved for things... in my world, we went out to look at fishing boats, or fancy cars, or expensive jewelry and if we liked it, we bought it. Done deal. The fact that we had no money in the bank was never a consideration (I mean, I didn't know we didn't, but still)... that's what credit cards are for. I have a lot of really, really bad habits and ways of thinking about money to unlearn as an adult.

Sam did not grow up in such a family... I don't know what his excuse is (kidding, sort of). His family modeled thrift and savings really well. And this carried over in a lot of ways to Sam. But essentially, Sam and I look at money very differently. The little stuff, the five dollars here, ten dollars there stuff is pretty easy for me to say no to. That stuff trips Sam up all the time. If I let him, he'd spend five hundred dollars on food every month and never think twice about it. Big purchases give Sam the heeby jeebies though... furniture, vacations, vet bills. He's not a fan. I on the other hand am totally fine with the big purchases. Those things have value to me, where as a Big Mac and fries just don't. So yea, we're different. We knew this going into marriage and we've sought as much wise counsel as we can in our early years. We've done Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University and we've met with and talked through things with some really wise people.

However, despite all of our good intentions, we still fail... a lot. The truth of the matter is that while Sam was in school, I was making a meager salary. We were paying my student loan bills with Sam's student loan. Talk about a return on your investments: let's trade 6% interest rates for 8% interest rates. And then we moved, I quit my job, and started infertility treatments. We lived the last few months in Augusta on an uber budget and we felt adequately prepared for treatment. However, we learned quickly that the quoted cost and the actual cost is NEVER the same thing. We blew through our allotted funds in the blink of an eye. $6,000... just gone. And then I had no job, Sam had no income besides the reduced student loan we chose, and well, it was Christmas. I'm a giver... and well, even me on a budget tends to leak onto the credit cards. I was out of work for nine months... nine months without income can do some damage even when you live at home with your parents. So yea, I'm sad to say that we had accrued a nice little pile of debt.

If you've been wondering why the IVF/Adoption Fund hasn't been growing super impressively, this is why. Other than my mom's gracious gifts, we've been stalled out in terms of IVF. We decided to pay off all of our credit card debt before moving funds into our savings account. It has been TORTURE, I tell you. The minimum payment has been something barely noticeable like forty dollars, and yet we've been paying more than a thousand dollars each month. And as always, when you've made a promise to yourself, the world seems to want to tempt you and ruin your plan. The original goal was to pay off cards in August, but life happened along with fun things like eight hundred dollars on emergency vet bills in one month. I've seen my IVF hopes move further and further away. But the day has arrived. We've paid off the cards and made our first significant transfer into the savings account. BEST NEWS EVER!

The sad news is that Sam's first gargantuan student loan payment is due in just a few short weeks, but in the mean time, we're going to capitalize off of our no credit card or student loan payment time of freedom and shove as much as humanly possible at IVF. If you ask us to go to dinner, the answer is "no, with love"; our eyes are on the prize. We currently believe, as long as life doesn't throw a major wrench in the plan, that we can pay for IVF and all or almost all or our medications 100% based on our savings. And we're excited!