As you’ve read by the title, we’re officially debt free!!! After paying off the majority of our debt last year, we paused our aggressive debt payoff in order to accomplish some specific goals.
While our debt payoff was paused we:
- Rapidly saved money so we could buy our first home.
- Bulked up our emergency fund.
- Increased our investment contributions to our retirement accounts.
- Stashed away money so I could leave my full-time job.
We decided to do what was best for our family, but we felt that it was finally time to knock out our remaining debt and move on with our lives.
What’s Next?
We’ve had the money to pay off DJ’s last student loan saved since last fall, so our lives aren’t radically changed by becoming debt free. DJ’s monthly payment was only $67 (which won’t add much to our budget) but it will make my spreadsheet prettier!
We won’t be aggressively paying down our mortgage because we don’t plan on this being our “forever home”. 🤷🏽♀️
We already contribute 20%+ to our retirement accounts but we may increase that as our incomes continue to grow. We’d really like to get to the point where we can completely max out our retirement accounts each year.
We hope to travel more in the years to come and increase our savings rate to ensure we’re financially independent in ~13 years, once DJ retires from the Air Force.
Here is our debt breakdown:
Over the course of about 2.5 – 3ish years, we cleared $130,912 worth of debt:
- I sold my Kia Rio – $14,515
- We sold the RV that we lived in for 9 months – $50,244
- Paid off all of our credit cards – $22,699
- Paid off our student loans – $43,453
Much of our progress paying off debt was done on DJ’s income alone. We made a lot of sacrifices over time, but it was all worth it in the end because it got us to this point.
We hope that if you’ve been following us, you’ve been able to find some inspiration in our progress. The fact that we were able to become debt free means that it is possible for everyone.
Stay encouraged and keep working towards your goals friends! (Make sure you check out our videos below)
— Dannie
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[…] truly breaking a cycle of financial insecurity that has been prominent in both of our families. Becoming debt free was a big achievement as well, but to continue building on top of that has been really exciting. […]