1. That's such a great thing you will be truly blessed when you are debt free
2. YOU ARE CRAZY along with a dumbfounded look, like they can't even imagine what being debt free would feel like.
We have also heard lots of stories of people making other sacrifices to help them get debt free, or families setting up goals to be come debt free. We also got a call today from a friend and their family is doing the SAME THING! 2 year plan to live with the parents and be debt free! The blessings that will come of this will be amazing, being able to use our time to serve God and build relationships with a more focused effort.
I have a lot to learn about my faith and i think this is the perfect journey that i need in order to get my spirit set straight. We are selling many of our things giving up our worldly possessions our culture status of owning a home. Its a hard concept for others to grasp, its even hard for me at times. This time of year is the time of year I love our house the most, everything is green, the backyard is beautiful, everyone is extra friendly because we have all been locked up for the past 6 months, the kids love playing with the neighbors, the weather is perfect hammock weather...its so hard to think about giving this up, but what we are giving it up for is more time to serve God and building relationships more time as a family, more time to spend with friends, creating hobbies we enjoy as a family, watching our kids grow and being present in their lives instead keeping up with the Jones'.
As a society we have a problem with contentment, we are always reaching for the next 'status': dating, married, kids, kids to be out of the house, bigger house, etc. it happens to all of us and we get sucked in. One of my favorite pages to follow on Facebook is becoming minimalist most of his points fit right along with my feelings and things i am thinking through as we journey through this. This is from the post linked above:
As a result, the average credit card holder now carries 4 different credit cards in his or her pocket. Shopping malls outnumber high schools 2 to 1. 70% of Americans visit a shopping mall each week. Televisions outnumber persons in American homes. Home sizes have doubled in the past 50 years. And consumer debt has risen to 35% of household income.
Will Rogers said it like this, “Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like.”
just some things to ponder :)There is a lot of energy spent on keeping up a home, keeping up with debt, keeping up with stuff. We are excited to see what kind of energy is freed up from making this change.
With my thoughts of today off my mind here are a few questions we have been asked:
Where will you work?
Same place! We are not leaving our current jobs, we will just be commuting. The commute will be about 40 mins.
Will it be hard?
Of course! There are lots of emotions that go into this decision. We are going against cultural norm and giving up the majority of our things, we are giving up our home and our comfort, what we have known for the last 7 years, the only home Morgan has known, we have wonderful memories of this home. We are going from 1800 sq ft to about 800 sq ft. 4 bed rooms to 2 bedrooms. One question we asked ourselves often was 'when isn't life crazy, when isn't life hard, we all have different paths God takes us down and no matter what it always seems a little crazy to other people. To us it was kind of a now or never type of thing, now or before life gets to out of hand. We don't want life to always be out of hand, we don't want life to always be crazy. We have 2 BEAUTIFUL children and if we don't make this change now we will miss them being little. We want to follow on Gods path and be able to follow him where he calls us, we know very well how life goes when we are not following him and we have chosen to make this decision to free us up from many things.
Will you buy another house? Time will tell, if God leads us. After we make our last payment we will be able to make better decisions, a lot can happen in 2 years so its in the cards, but we also are taking into consideration what God wants us to do with our time, keep up a house or serve him. Time and listening to God will help us answer that question.
What kind of debt do you have? STUDENT LOANS!! We are sitting about average for what most people have in student loans maybe a little less, no credit card debt a vehicle loan and personal loan (thanks Murphy for the last 2!) We are in NO way in trouble with any creditors.We make all our payments on time and have no trouble with them, we just know that Murphy continues to strike when you are sitting with no savings, and we just can't continue to live in 'payment management mode' as i like to call it (managing payments and figuring out if you can afford anything else by adding another payment in). One thing i have learned in talking to people about our situation is that when you say debt to some people they think...you are in trouble with creditors, to us debt just means debt we have student loans and personal loans that need to be paid off, no creditors.
How will Morgan respond? She thinks its cool that her and Jacob will share a room and that Grandma Sharon is building her a BIG room to sleep in :) she will love being able to see them a lot and i think she will love having more un-distracted time with us.
Have you listed your house?
Our house has sold! We are just waiting on the appraisal and inspection to be approved! When that comes through we will be out of the house by the end of June!
PS sorry for the lack of pictures i have lost the cord to the camera!
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