What we did when getting out of debt started to SUCK!!!

Debt sucks and sometimes getting out of debt SUCKS even more!! James and I have days, weeks, and even months when we feel so overwhelmed with living a frugal lifestyle; we get SICK and TIRED of penny pinching, sacrificing, and budgeting! We have little temper tantrums and squawk little bratty beliefs: “I deserve to buy a new outfit….’I work so hard, I deserve to play golf….’our lives our boring because we can’t go out with our friends…’life is too short to worry about money… it’s just money, you can’t take it with you..”

Anyway, when times get tough and we realize that we are about to LOSE our cool, we try to return to the reason we started our financial fitness journey in the first place. Although we know that getting out of debt sometimes SUCKS, we remember that DEBT always SUCKS!!!!

Beautiful sunset in Maine

To combat our bratty attitudes and feeling of defeat, we planned an exciting evening. We packed the ingredients for home made subs, a $7 bottle of wine, 2 citronella candles, 2 lawn chairs, one pen, and one piece of paper! We went to our favorite spot and ate dinner, drank wine, and brainstormed everything we plan to and will do in our life because we: sacrifice, penny pinch, and budget.

James chopps a mean veggie!

We sectioned our goals and plans into categories: fitness, charity, vacation, career, home, fun and family.

Who says you can't have fun on a budget??

I will share some of our REALLY exciting plans:

Here's a little draft- nothing fancy, but 100% FREE :)

Fitness:

Run a ½ marathon

Complete a 1 mile swim race

Charity:

Donate 100% of one salary for an entire year

Buy a car for a deserving stranger

Vacation:

Vancouver

Australia

Medical Mission Trip

Career:

Earn our PhD

Dean of a Nursing Program

Home:

Buy a small house on the water

Build a really sweet “man room”

Fun:

Meet Oprah

Visit Rigley Park in Chicago

Family:

Adopt one child & birth one baby

Practice frequent random acts of generosity


Our debt-o-meter is up to $29,500!! James has ONE student loan left with a balance of $1,800!! As soon as his final student loan is paid in full, we will be FREE from another “man!” Our final climb is my student loans: $11,500. When I think about our future and how much we will be able to give and do once we kick our debt out the window, I am recharge and reengage: “Hey $13,300 of debt…WE ARE COMING TO TAKE YOU DOWN!!”