My Financial Life

My financial life right now is boooring.

And that’s a good thing.

When I started this site I was $90,000 in debt, and considering bankruptcy.  I’d just started on the Dave Ramsey plan and was looking for every possible way to scrape up any extra money  I could.

Now, the debt is nearly gone.

• I’m looking at the last $8000 on my mortgage.  I have enough in savings to pay it off today, without draining my savings completely dry.
• My IRA gets maxed out every year, and this year, my wife’s will be, too.
• We save or invest about 30% of our income.
• My credit score according to CreditKarma.com is 826.

Our credit card is almost paid off every month.  There’s occasionally some overlap between our auto-payment and our charges.  And sometimes the budgeted auto-payment doesn’t match the reality of our spending and I don’t notice for a week or two.  Except for the end of last year, but that’s a post for another day.

The short version is: We’re doing well, and we’re nearing the end of our financial problems.

Our scheduled mortgage over-payments will have it completely paid off in October.  Then we are debt-free and can hopefully manage to live the rest of our lives without paying interest on money that isn’t earning us more than we are paying.   For example, I’m willing to take out a mortgage to buy another rental property, but I’m going to wait to do that until our current mortgage is paid and we have a substantial down payment ready.

No debt.

I’m not kidding when I say it’s been a long 6 years of fighting our debt.  Counting a car loan we got and paid early, we’ve paid more than $110,000 of debt in six years.

I’ve run side businesses, aggressively negotiated raises, and left companies(voluntarily and otherwise) for better pay & benefits.

I’ve watched friends and family take vacations around the world.

I’ve turned my kids down for so many things that I would love to buy them, but couldn’t because being financially secure is a much higher priority than spoiling children.  Try explaining that to a 6 year old.

And now, the debt-ridden part of our financial journey is almost over.   Finally.

So what’s next?

I have no idea.  I’d like to travel more.  Linda and the girls want us to move to a hobby farm and get horses.  We want more rental properties.

Whatever “next” is, it will be done from a position of strength that won’t destroy our financial world or put out futures at risk.