Paying off our Home, Part 1

If you’ve followed our financial journey in the past, you know a few important things about me and my husband Will:

• We enrolled in Financial Peace University when we were engaged and it CHANGED OUR MARRIAGE.

• We followed Dave’s Ramsey’s 7 Baby Steps to a T!

• We lived on a tight budget for 5 years, then paid off our first house at ages 25 & 26.

I’m a numbers girl, and since you are probably wondering “how the heck did they pay off their house that young?” Imma tell you how:

$160,000 : Home Value

$60,000 : Our Down Payment

$110,000 : Balance of our loan

We lived on Will’s salary as a youth pastor, which was tiiight.  Everything I made in Nancy Ray Photography, we set aside and put onto the house. Usually it was a pretty large lump sum at the end of the year. This is how we paid it off in 2.5 years. Notice we were not making the big bucks… we were just living on one income and making it work!

$35,000 : Year One

$45,000 : Year Two

$30,000 : Year Three (half my income)

=

$110,000 Paid Off in 2.5 Years!

After we paid off our house, we flew to Nashville and screamed “We’re debt freeee!” on the Dave Ramsey show. It was amazing and I’ll never forget that sweet experience.

I KNEW THAT I KNEW we would NEVER go into debt again.

But God has a way of humbling me, and so I humbly and honestly tell you that we have another mortgage we are paying off as fast as we can…

Come back tomorrow to read about how we got to this point, and to learn about our new financial goals!