Drumroll please.......

Ladies and Gentlemen, the moment you have long been waiting for!

We...

Are...

Now...


DEBT FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, maybe you haven't been anticipating this moment for something like 5 years, but we sure have! We like to think of ourselves as pretty savvy with our dollars, and definitely not nonchalant debt-accruers, nevertheless we had accumulated a fair amount of debt. Really, it's kinda miraculous that we've paid off as much as we did in the time that we have.

I had one small school loan from my study abroad, we bought a car, doc bill after doc bill (especially for Alisa's birth after an insurance debaucle,) my ring, Jeff's Best Buy account, and various little things. When you put all of it together, it was probably near $20,000! It made me sick when we first sat down and calculated that number. I heard the average American carries $20,000 in debt and I thought that was crazy! But, think $5000 for a car, $5000 for 2 births, $3000 for school... it adds up quick! We even emptied our savings account twice, feeling this cammandment to be out of debt most important. Over the course of our marriage (only 4 years now) we have managed to pay everything off, even though I was in grad school, Jeff went through the academy, he's STILL going to school full time, I haven't worked much, AND buying a timeshare, we still managed to get it paid before our original intended payoff date. It feels amazing! We will never ever go there again!

I know this miraculous circumstance came to us as a result of discipline, prayer and absolutely paying our tithing. I'm so grateful the Lord has helped us, and most grateful that my husband has supported this endeavor, even enough to cut down his eating out by about 90% when we got married! We sure like eating out, but not as much as having all of our balances read $0. (Except our house of course... that's next on our agenda!)