Part 3 of a 3-Part Series
My husband and I decided to pay off all of our debt, including our mortgage, as quickly as possible.
We understood it was a huge endeavor and estimated that it would take us about eight years to do, but we knew the feelings of freedom and achievement once we met our goal would be well worth the dedication, sacrifice, and hard work in the end.
As the saying goes, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”
We still have a long way to go before we are completely debt free, but in this three-part series, I am taking you through exactly what we did to pay off over $65,000 from August 2013 through June 2014.
Click here for Part 1 and Part 2 if you missed them.
Once we created our Debt Snowball and started living by a budget, we cut costs where we could and sold things left and right. We also made sacrifices in other ways.
5. Increased Our Income
I have to give Mike a lot of credit here, too, because he’s the one who works so hard to earn our household income.
He gets up at 4:30am to catch the bus to downtown Portland and then runs or bikes his way to the office to arrive by 6am. And he usually works until 4pm or 5pm on a typical day before taking the long bus ride home in rush hour traffic. There are times when his boss needs someone to work on the weekends or to stay late in the evening, and if we don’t have something already planned, Mike is the first to volunteer.
When his employer needed extra help in an out of state office during a particularly busy season, Mike asked me if he should volunteer. The assignment was for 45 days with the possibility of overtime. If selected, we knew this would be a sacrifice for our young family, but we also thought of it as an opportunity to meet our financial goals even faster.
The volunteer opportunity presented itself on April 1st, and Mike submitted his name. We found out on April 3rd that he was selected and would be flying out on April 7th. It happened so quickly that we didn’t have much time to prepare ourselves, but we believed that it was meant to be.
Our daughter had just turned four-months-old and was changing every day. While he was gone, the kids and I spoke with Mike on FaceTime in the evenings when he was available.
He dedicated himself to working every day of his trip to earn as much overtime as possible, and he was compensated for meals. When his paychecks started coming in, we knew the sacrifices were worth it – he had almost doubled his take-home pay!
He returned home May 21st and finished his workweek. He worked 47 days straight!
We received the last of his overtime paychecks in June and paid as much as we could toward the HELOC.
In eleven months, we reduced our debt by $65,214.94! That’s an average of $5,928.63 per month, which is roughly 20% more than Mike’s normal monthly take-home pay!
We had reduced our total debt by more than 20% and our non-mortgage debt by more than 72%! (I told you I like crunching numbers. ☺)
Just a year and a half after starting our Debt Snowball, we’ve paid off over $76,000 in debt!
As a bit of a site note, we didn’t spend a whole lot of time refinancing. This can be a viable way of paying down debt, but it depends on interest rates and a number of other factors. If you do want to consider this, check out SoFi – they have a nice transparent low-fee low-cost model that’s worth looking at.
This is Our Story. Your Debt Free Story is Possible, too.
That is how we paid off $65,000 of debt in less than a year.
But I don’t tell you all of this to brag about our success.
While it might seem like the stars have aligned for us to pay off our debt quickly, our progress has slowed since June, and the road hasn’t always been easy. We have sacrificed, said no to fun opportunities, and delayed buying some “wants” because they haven’t been in the budget. We haven’t done everything perfectly, but we are determined to stay the course and pay off all of our debt by the time we turn forty.
I tell you all of this to inspire you that getting out of debt, and doing so quickly, is possible. It takes dedication, sacrifice, and hard work.
It means keeping your priorities in order and constantly reminding yourself WHY you are working so hard toward your goal.
Living free from debt is our goal because we believe that doing so will help us achieve our dreams.
Dreams are possible, but we have to make them our reality.
Our Other Popular Articles
If you want to read more about getting out of debt, please read our other popular articles:
Get Started Paying Off Debt Even When You’re Behind On Your Bills
Learn About How Ron and Thu Paid Off $137,000
Yes, You Can Dump $200,000 In Debt in 7 Years
Use Paribus And Save Money
What About You?
Participate in the conversation. What is one of your dreams that is so big it seems impossible? What can you do today to take one small step toward achieving that dream? Share in the comments below.
Another inspiring post. I can’t wait to hear what you guys manage in the next year.
Thank you, Kristi! I’ll be posting monthly updates on our progress so stay tuned. 🙂
Way to be an inspiration. My husband and I paid off $22,000 in 22 months and are now debt-free – via Financial Peace University. I now coordinate the classes at my church and became a financial coach through Dave’s Financial Coach Master Series. I look forward to reading more that you wish to share about your financial experiences since I too began a frugal family blog just this month. It’s fun to see someone’s passions align with mine!
Thank you, Laura! Congratulations on your achievements! I’ll be checking out your blog, as well! 🙂
Very dramatic! Hard to imagine that much money moving around so fast! And hard to imagine working 47 days straight, poor guy! You guys are working very hard!
We committed and we got intense. We knew we had a huge mountain to climb and a running start would be the best strategy for success. Mike is amazing! He has done a lot and sacrificed a lot for our goal, but he knows it will be worth it in the end. 🙂 Thanks for reading!
We struggle with our debt as a family. We’ve gotten out of debt (aside from my mountain of student loans) a couple of times only to fall back in again when one thing or another hits us hard. We are currently in good places and are trying to work on our debt. But, it takes more dedication than I want to have after years of living paycheck to paycheck. We are doing it for the most part… forcing ourselves to live “paycheck to paycheck” some more while we put huge chunks on our credit cards. Sometimes I just want to go crazy shopping though! Great post and thanks for stepping through your process. Congratulations!
Thank you, Jenni! Good luck to you and your family! You can do it!
Wow. I swear I was going to say wow before I looked down at the other comments and saw that’s what other people said too. I’m going to have to dig into this more tonight and go back through your old posts. I feel like I’m careful with my money, but $27k in school loans 15 years after graduating, and a mountain of credit card debt from a previous marriage and a foreclosed home leaves me feeling like I’m trying unbury myself one teaspoon at a time.
Hi, Kelli! Thanks for your comment!
I totally understand where you are coming from. A pile of debt can be completely overwhelming. I didn’t believe it was possible to pay it off so quickly until I started hearing stories of families similar to ours who had paid off their own mountain of debt.
That is why I started this blog — so that hopefully our story will inspire others to take control of their money and pay off their debt. It can be done, but it takes commitment, hard work, and sacrifice. I’ll be rooting for you! Let me know if I can help! 🙂
WOW! This is amazing. Great post, I think it inspires a lot of people who feel like debt can be a crushing defeat. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks, Rachel! That is my hope! 🙂
Wow, congratulations on paying off your student loans and making so much progress on your debt! It was a lot of discipline that you and your family went through in spending carefully while also looking where to get more money and putting it towards debt and not just splurging it!
Thank you so much! If we hadn’t had the debt to begin with, we could have found a lot of things to do with the $65,000. 🙂
wow! this is awesome! and a goal for me as well! i’m excited to read your previous posts.
Thank you, Kelsey! Good luck to you on your debt free journey!
Very well done! We paid off $65,000 last year as well. This will be the year we pay off the rest of our consumer debt and build our emergency fund. So excited to get there!
Thank you, Kristin! Congratulations to you for paying off your debt!