Debt-Free Is The Only Way To Be

My dad did his best to provide for my brother Blake and me after my parents divorced, but he was an overworked and underpaid high school history teacher who barely made enough money to keep us fed and clothed. Our mother helped where she could, but she was an overworked and underpaid car salesperson who often struggled to live on the razor-thin commissions she earned while trying to prove herself in a “man’s business.”

After my dad remarried, he quit teaching in order to go to graduate school, which meant that we had to live on my stepmother’s income as a server/hostess at Country Kitchen. When the time came to fill out my financial aid application for the University of Missouri, our family’s reported income was, to my recollection, around $13,000.

We were poor. 

I worked a few odd jobs here and there while I was still living at home, but I spent all of my paychecks on gas or beer. I did nothing to improve my family’s financial situation. When my parents told me, just before I graduated from high school, that they would be unable to help pay for my college education, it infuriated me—but it also served me right.

So, I borrowed thousands in student loans and racked up a fair amount of credit card debt over the next few years. I fell in love with my future wife and paid for her engagement ring with a JC Penny’s credit card. Bethany was also the child of a divorced teacher who struggled to make ends meet, so she, too, was deeply in debt when we got married. 

By the time we earned our college degrees, we owed tens of thousands of dollars in student loans and credit card debt. Soon, like a lot of people new to the work force, we bought a car and took on another monthly payment. Then we bought a house with a large monthly mortgage payment. Then we had a kid. Then we bought a brand-new truck. A year later, we traded that truck in and bought another, more expensive, brand-new truck.

We didn’t know it, but we were more broke than our parents. We were drowning in debt.

Then Bethany heard about Dave Ramsey, the financial guru who specializes in helping people get out of debt. Dave said if we were willing to live like no one else by aggressively paying off our debts one after the other, living off of beans and rice, and following a strict cash-only budget, then we would later be able to live like no one else; debt-free.

We followed Dave’s “Financial Peace” program with what he calls “gazelle intensity.” We followed a strict budget, and if we didn’t have actual cash left in the envelope marked “Dining Out Money”, then we didn’t dine out. If we ran out of “Entertainment” cash, then we didn’t even leave the house. 

We got rid of our newer car and truck (and their monthly payments) and paid cash for affordable replacements. Soon, we paid off our credit cards and cut them up. With the extra money, we paid back our student loans, years ahead of schedule, saving us thousands of dollars in interest.

We became debt-free except for our mortgage, which Dave considers the only acceptable form of debt due to the benefits of owning versus renting a home. With no other debts left to repay, we began to aggressively pay down the balance owed on our house. When Bethany’s father passed away unexpectedly, we paid-off the remainder of our mortgage with her share of his estate. 

We were 100% debt-free. And because we had learned how to be financially responsible, we were able to invest in savings and retirement accounts. We were able to afford two international adoptions without borrowing a penny. We were able to start college funds for all three of our kids. We were able to give to charities, too. And we did it all while earning middle-class incomes. In fact, I was a stay-at-home parent and a part-time substitute teacher for many of those years, so we actually accomplished our financial goals while relying mostly on Bethany’s income alone. 

We outgrew our little house in the woods a few years ago, so we bought a slightly bigger house in the woods. Because the old place was paid-off when we sold it, we only had to borrow a fraction of our current home’s assessed value. We hope to have it paid-off within a few years, making us completely debt-free again.

Years ago, we made the decision to live like no one else so that later we could live like no one else. Since then, we have travelled to Mexico three times, China twice, and the Dominican Republic and Ireland once—all without having a credit card. Yes, it is possible.

We’ve owned two RVs and have camped in the Rockies, the Tetons, the Smokies, and the Ozarks. We also own a small fleet of vehicles, each paid for with cash, including my latest acquisition, a 2010 Chevrolet Camaro SS that I bought last week.

Thanks to Dave Ramsey’s program and Bethany’s affinity for financial planning, we are not poor anymore. But we are not rich either. Most of our money is tied up in retirement and college savings accounts. We haven’t bought a car newer than three years old in almost two decades. We still live off of envelope money, and we still eat off of the plates we used in college.

Debt-free living brings with it financial peace and a world of possibilities. It’s true that money can’t buy happiness, but if a person has the discipline to wait until they have enough cash saved up, it can buy a low-mileage, eleven-year-old Camaro with 425 horsepower, a six-speed manual transmission, and no loan payments—which makes me very happy indeed.