It’s pretty safe to assume that just about everyone wants to be debt free. Drowning in debt seems to be all too normal. I mean, aren’t most of us bound to have school loans, credit card or mortgage debt until we die? At least that’s what we’ve been taught. Being in debt can bring frustration, depression, marital conflict, theft, poverty and homelessness.
So why isn’t financial education a cornerstone in our curriculum in schools? We should all be taught the importance of being smart with money throughout our lives instead of finding out the hard and painful way.
“The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.”- Proverbs 22:7
I am so thankful to have come across a man who strongly believes that ANYONE can get out of debt….Dave Ramsey. I don’t remember when I heard of Mr. Ramsey but I know that I didn’t put his practice into play until a couple years later. Fast forward to the winter of 2016, where I was postpartum and due to resume school loan payments. I had put my payments in deferment since I was out of work for 3 months and was not getting paid due to working as a contractor.
The representative told me what my new payments were going to be, what I accumulated in interest, and my new principal balance amount…It was almost back to my original loan amount! Wait a minute…(insert puzzled, frustrated, and killer mentality faces here).
I spent 5 years paying almost $500/month to Sallie/Navient and she had the audacity to only apply those payments to interest and basically a couple dollars to the principal amount??? Yes people, that is how interest-only payments work! I apparently (like some of you reading this) did not know that years ago when I applied. Thats $500/month x 5 years= $30,000!!! I was sad, depressed, enraged, and basically felt hopeless. What do I do now?
I didn’t curse out the rep, or threaten to find Sallie herself and “do away with her”, but I cried, prayed, then I researched ways to get out of debt quickly. I had enough and was ready to do something about it. That is how I came across Dave Ramsey again and his Total Money Makeover.
Through this method, and God, my husband and I were able to pay off almost $75,000 in debt in 7 months! I still can’t believe it at times. What seemed nearly impossible became possible in under a year! Honestly, if we were able to do it, you can too! I would love to share our path to becoming debt free and help you get out of debt, or at least motivated enough to start.
Want to learn more? Stay tuned for more info to come! I hope that my story and experiences will serve as a testimony to you reading this, that you too can get out of debt! Remember with God, all things are possible!
“It always seems impossible until it’s done”-Nelson Mandela
