My husband and I have been married for 19 months. In that time, we paid off my student loan to become debt free, saved up 6 months of living expenses, finished funding my husband’s seminary degree, and now we’re saving for a 20% down payment. We’d love to save 100%, but we’re starting with a smaller goal. I don’t know when we’ll end up buying our home, but we’ll keep saving and saving until then. You are truly an inspiration!

Thank you for your post. We drive old vehicles too. I’m so proud of you and your husband. We just sat down and created our first budget. We have been wasting a lot of money. We do take our lunches to work. My husband’s income decreased tremendously this summer. He has a new job now. He is making twice the money he used to make. We are preparing to build up an emergency fund of $1K as recommended by Ramsey. Then we are planning to do the Debt Snowball. I’m so excited. I pray that we can do all of this, Lord willing.

Some people must not realize that doctors and lawyers as a whole are not good with money. They tend to spend more than they make. What you and your husband and doing is rare. Keep up the good work!

In Christ,
Karen

Congratulations. I love your blog so much because you changed my whole outlook on money. When you see your self as a steward of it then you are more careful with it.

I’m doing well budgeting and saving however I feel like I’m hampered by kindness. I know that sounds mad but my family are used to giving large christmas presents and I feel I have to do the same in return. I feel mean only giving them token presents this year. I have told them all how much I’m spending and they haven’t changed their amounts. Its times like these when budgeting is hard. I have tried to make a few presents as well for the personal touch.

In light of this, I can understand how difficult it must have been for you especially in light of your husband’s salary. I think sometimes when you do earn that little more you then have to battle with people preconceptions all the time of what you can and can’t afford. What do you do for Christmas presents for your nieces and nephews? And for your own children?

Its times like these that makes it hard to live with.

Good luck and keep going

Katie

This is the first time that I have visited your blog and am impressed by your goals. I used to think that my hubby and I were the only crazy ones out there, but it is nice to to know that we are in good company. We bought our 1st home 4.5 years ago with 20% down and paid it off in full just a few months ago. It was a wonderful feeling and even more so now that my husband getting laid off Friday! It such a relief knowing that we are not in any debt for house, car, school, or credit cards. Neither one of us have exceptionally high incomes, but we are very careful in what we spend. I can’t remember having eaten at a restaurant without a B1G1 coupon, we never order anything but water to drink, we take advantage of all kinds of free activities for entertainment, coupon, give gifts within are means, take advantage of freebies and even used only a space heater in our master bedroom instead of turning on the main heat to heat a whole house for just two people. Boy it used to be so cold that my husband would say he had to go to Antarctica if I asked him to get me a glass of water from the kitchen. Ok so maybe the heat thing was a little extreme, but it was so worth it now that we have no debt, I am a SAHM and we are still not freaking out b/c my hubby has been laid off. Kudos to all those that save, set goals, don’t compare themselves to the Joneses, and do what is right for them and their families.

I didn’t get to previously post this, but wanted to share that at the end of August I paid off one of my school loans. It was a variable rate loan for 30,000 and my goal was to pay it off in five years. I am excited that I was able to make my five year goal. Using coupons, the poor economy and the possibility of layoffs at my work and encouragement on your blog all pushed me to make my goal a reality. I ended up paying $10,000 in interest and can only imagine what it would have been had I not met my five year goal. My husband and I celebrated with a small & frugal vacation to Myrtle Beach. I still have a low fixed rate student loan left and had hoped to pay it off in another year. However, my car started to have major transmission problems and was getting too costly/dangerous to fix. I ended up having to buy a new to me 2009 Honda Civic. I was disappointed that I did not have time to get a downpayment together and took out a loan, but my plan is to pay it off in half the time or three years. Everyone has told me the Civic was a good choice, so I am hoping to see that in the coming years. I wish I did not have to take out loans for school, but that was my only choice. So now, I am diligently working to pay off my other loan and car in less time. I am happy with my progress though as nearly none of my friends have put a dent in their school loans yet. I am excited about starting to add more to our savings for a downpayment for a home also. Thanks for your encouragement!

We were just sitting on the couch( which has a hole in it) last week talking about how much we wanted to fix our kitchen and our backyard NOW instead of waiting the two or three years we need to. We just reminded each other that our goal of being debt free is important and that by this time next year we will be so close. We won’t have our house paid off for maybe 7 years. But that is 23 years shorter than the mortgage is for. If our old neighborhood had not actually been dangerous and ahem, infested- we would have rented for two more years and it would have been a lot easier financially. But we would have gone crazy.

Hopefully I will be able to bring my out of pocket down in the next couple of months, because I have a great stockpile of stuff because of couponing.

Thanks so much,
Milissa

I hate to break it to you you are NOT the only one doing these.

Good job though on being able to save money which means your husband is still employed and you are still able to live frugal like you have been since day 1 of being married.That is really why you are close to buying a house.

I’ve been thinking about this post in the last day and it really makes me want to do better. We have followed Dave Ramsey for about 5 years now but we still aren’t on target. Sometimes I let being a SAHM with 2 kids and one on the way give me a free pass to spend. We do have money but we’re not using it the way we should. As a result we’re in a situation where we desperately need a (slightly) larger house and not even enough cash saved for a down payment. I am going to go through and read what you’ve been doing with your financial goals and hope that it will kick us in gear. We need a new plan!