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18 Comments

  1. I realize that this post is old. I came across it while looking at tour house birthday post. I’m a modified BS7. I still use my credit cards and pay them off in full every month. Life is SO much less stressful with no debt. I ended up in the emergency room February 2018 and finding out that I had cancer. Not worrying about being able to pay my bills was a huge relief and made it so that I could just focus on getting healthy. I’m super private about it with people that I know, I think that it is amazing that you are so open about it. Congrats on being debt free!

  2. I’m really glad you’ve been so candid about your financial situation. I’m not a Dave Ramsey disciple but I really enjoy his radio show.

    To be honest, I was a bit surprised when you started telling your financial story. I’ve been reading your blog(s) since you were on Weddingbee and I always assumed you had family money or a trust fund to be able to afford a wedding and a house right out of college. It took years of full-time work for my husband and me to pay for our wedding and another year of hard work and sacrifice to save for our down payment for our house. All the while I’m reading about your husband’s career changes that we could have never afforded. I’m glad things worked out for you but they easily could have gone another way, which you clearly know given your husband’s recent layoff.

    Good luck to you and I hope you are able to continue on this wealth building journey.

    1. Thanks, Brianne! Definitely no family money here! My parents were gracious enough to pay for our wedding, and I had some money from stocks my grandfather had bought all of his grandchildren that helped with our first home’s downpayment. Beyond that, we were very strategic anytime Corey changed jobs, and his career changes have always led to an increase in salary – we definitely couldn’t have managed it otherwise! 🙂 We definitely made many mistakes along the way, but we’re so excited to have those behind us and ready to start moving forward!

  3. Thank you for sharing this post! It has definitely inspired me to try to save more this year!

    1. So glad it’s helpful, Eileen!

  4. So glad you shared this, Amanda! And I’m so happy for you guys!

    You know Jason and I made a similar downsizing move this past summer/fall, and though we weren’t able to pay off all our debt (my student loans are mountainous), we are in a much better place financially now, and that has allowed me to stay home with baby #2 for at least a year. It is so freeing! Our moving process took so much longer (four long-ass pregnant months), mainly due to us making some mistakes when we originally listed our house. But I will take every single ounce of stress the move caused because it brought us to where we were meant to be.

    1. Yes! You guys were definitely an inspiration for us – it was so good to know we weren’t the only ones making this kind of move. I’m so glad it’s been helpful for you.

  5. I loved this story!! Congrats on all you guys have accomplished, You should seriously be so proud!

    We felt pretty crazy when we just purchased our new home after only living in our old one 3 years, but after running the numbers over and over – it just made sense and felt right (not to mention, we needed more room for the little one on the way). Even though it was a HUGE LEAP of faith buying a 2nd house while living off only my income (like…wahhhht?!) and turning ours into our rental, we were able to reach one of our financial goals of owning an investment property. Trusting God is so hard when it comes to finances, but it’s the only way. 🙂

    1. Thanks, Chelsea! I’m so excited y’all were able to make that leap – I can’t wait until we’re able to do that too!

  6. Hi! Long term lurker here! I had to comment and tell you congratulations. We worked our behinds off the last 5 years or so to pay off our house so we could be completely debt free. We’ve been debt free for a little over a year and had two kids while paying every last penny to the mortgage which made it even more exciting to get rid of it. It is so freeing and you have so many more opportunities to help others both financially and through your story! Keep sharing, you never know who you can inspire or encourage to go debt free.

    And we just got our first credit card ever as a family (we’ve been married almost 11 years). It almost felt wrong. Ha.

    1. Thanks so much, Natalie!! It feels so great so far – can’t wait until we pay off our mortgage too. That’s a huge accomplishment!!

  7. Great post! I appreciate your vulnerability in sharing your story. And congrats for getting out of debt! I especially liked the part of selling items – I need to de-clutter and sell some furniture and clothes!

    1. Thanks so much, Tam! It’s so addicting to start selling stuff!

  8. As someone who is well-versed in the credit industry, I will say that it’s a good idea to put down the cards until you control the debt and can be assured you won’t get back in the cycle – but you don’t want to ignore them forever. They can be a great way to spend and get cash back and earn even more extra cash on stuff you’re already spending on (like gas and groceries). It’s just a matter of never paying only the minimum. Don’t cancel your cards, either – you can put them away and even physically cut them up, but ending your credit history is really bad for your score! Especially if you’ve paid the debt on them! I actually am a personal finance journalist, so I just wanted to share what I know! Congrats on paying down all the debt though – that’s an INCREDIBLE accomplishment!

    1. Thanks so much for the input, Jamie! You’re absolutely right – if you want to keep a good credit score it’s important to keep cards open and use them on occasion! We’re planning to go with the full-on Dave Ramsey approach which is to end our relationship with debt (aside from mortgages, but eventually that as well) forever – which means we aren’t terribly worried about credit scores anymore. It’s definitely a more radical (and maybe even controversial!) approach, but it’s one we feel good about! 🙂

  9. I love your transparency Amanda, I read your whole post and I love the tips you provided. . As hard as it is not to keep up with Joneses I know that it will be so worth it in the end. This is the one I struggle with the most.

    1. Thanks so much for your kind words, Amy! It’s definitely so hard – we struggle too!