The feeling of urgency!
I know, I know. We didn’t get ourselves into debt overnight, and we aren’t going to get out of it overnight either. But with each passing day, I am feeling an increased sense of urgency to “Get er done!”
I can’t help but think back to when we were buying the home in which we now live. We had a span of eleven full months from the time we made our initial offer to the time we took possession. It took us that long to get our old house market-ready and then get it sold. There was no way we wanted to (or could afford to) carry two mortgages. With a hefty non-refundable deposit on the home we were buying, we had a lot of money on the table. We had an intense sense of urgency and felt it more and more with each passing day. Thankfully we did get our house sold and took possession of our current home four months before our contracted deadline. At the time though, those eleven months felt like the longest eleven months of my life…until now!
We are now just shy of six months into our get-out-of-debt journey. While we don’t have an “official” timeline as we did with our house, I once again, feel the same sense of urgency. When it comes to getting out of debt, this feeling of urgency is no doubt actually a good thing. Without it, who knows how long we would remain in debt. My best guess is probably forever! I refuse to let that happen. We need to (and will!) get this debt out of our lives once and for all.
I know there will come a day, much like with those eleven months of real estate dealings, that we reflect back to this time too. Right now it feels like the journey is taking forever. At the time, those eleven months did too! Now I can look back and see the hurdles we crossed with all the ups and downs and be amazed! Was it easy? Nope! Was it worth it? You bet it was! July will mark our second anniversary in our home, and I still pinch myself that we made it happen. I long to feel the same about our current journey and in time I know I will.
How long ago did you decide to work towards getting out of debt? I’m not talking about simply wanting to get out of debt, but making a real commitment to do it! Do you feel a sense of urgency to see it through and get er done? If not, what are you waiting for?
We’ve been really hitting the gas since August. While we have the same sense of urgency, I feel like sometimes it might actually be detrimental. There are times when I know we should slow down and deal with what’s right in front of us, but I’m so impatient that I don’t want to! That said, we definitely feel the fire under our seats to get rid of this soon so we don’t have to choose anymore!
I think a lot of the urgency for paying off debt is about having choices. While we will always have choices with what we do with our money, I’ll happily eliminate the need to send it to debt. Money can be a great tool to do so many good things when one isn’t chained to debt!
We were not very sophisticated in our money knowledge when we were younger, and so had mortgages and car payments, but we didn’t charge up our credit cards. We did have student loans but paid them off. I would say we got smarter with our money in the late 90s/early 2000s,. We made a lot of mistakes along the way, but learned from them. I found Larry Burkett and Mary Hunt in the mid 90s and that really helped me know how to handle our money better. Fast forward to today and we only have a mortgage that we are working hard to pay off when my husband turns 60. We have paid cash for 2 out of our last 3 cars, and the third we paid off in 2 years. We got our kids through college and paid for our daughter’s wedding. We tithe, and God has always taken care of us, even the years we had big medical bills. One thing we didn’t know was how much of an emergency fund to have, for a long time we just kept $1000 b/c we didn’t know to save more. We have 6 mos of expenses saved now, though. We have a pretty good retirement savings now, but when the 401k’s came out in the 80s we didn’t realize how we needed to save in them. The internet has really helped with all of this, I am guessing you were like us and didn’t know what to do in your 20s either. We have tried to teach our children to do better, because our parents didn’t really teach us anything other than “Pay your credit card off every month, if you can’t do that, quit charging things”
Yes, we are much alike. Our parents (both sets) were always frugal, but I can’t say that we learned much about how to handle money. Not placing blame. Money just wasn’t something many parents thought their kids should know about. I was clueless for a long time as to what a 401k was. Thankfully we did wise up several years ago and have been contributing ever since. This is one area we don’t follow the Dave Ramsey plan. We have also continued our giving and have never gone hungry! We have experienced firsthand what the Bible teaches about giving back.
I felt that same way when I was slugging through paying off my debt. Suddenly, I just wanted to have every dime paid off. No matter how much I paid on the debt each month, it was never enough. At least in my brain. Now I feel the same way about building wealth, it can’t happen fast enough. It’s weird how our minds work.
I can’t wait to be on the wealth building side of the coin! Today is payday for us and I’ve been analyzing every bill as to where our money will make the biggest impact!
It was in January of this year when I was uploading my receipts from my Christmas visit with my daughter. The amount of debt made me physically ill. So I took a stand, and started to attack it as aggressively as I can. I am constantly looking for ways to cut my budget and so forth.
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Jan was when we started, too. Hasn’t always been easy, but deciding to embark on this journey has been so worth it!
Absolutely worth it!