In my last installment, I explained how we converted our monthly expenses to a cash system. Now we’re to the really juicy part of our story – deciding to pay off all our credit cards in 2010!
We have a significant amount of debt that we accumulated in a relatively short time period. We traveled a lot when we first got married and had a lot of fun, ate out all the time, and didn’t pay too much attention to what we were spending. Looking back on that now, I don’t regret it because we had such a wonderful time, but I am just shocked at how willingly we spent more than we made! We certainly were not faithful stewards of what we were given – we were throwing it away without thought.
We have grown significantly in our financial maturity in the past year. It was about one year ago that I started budgeting and couponing, but as I explained here we were still overspending like crazy. Then a few months ago God really impressed upon me the need for us to set a goal and stick to it, to get rid of our debt.
When I approached Andy with this idea, he thought I was crazy. Looking at the numbers, it simply does not work without some divine intervention! But I had faith and slowly he came on board with the idea. And you know what? God has already shown us that He’s helping us through this. I’ll go into more detail about that in a later post, but let’s say we’ve definitely been unexpectedly blessed so far!
So now we have the framework of our plan – living like no one else so we can live like no one else. We are using the envelope system for our cash, we have stopped using credit cards, and have committed to pay off all our credit card debt in 2010.
Next, I’ll go into more detail about the trials we have faced with this new way of life, and later I’ll explain how God has shown He’s there for us and how He has blessed us already!
