An Abbett House Update
This is a long time overdue. In March, we hit the official one year mark. We have officially been married for one year. We survived! We did it. This is a huge accomplishment. It's a big accomplishment for marriage of course, but it was also a huge accomplishment in our goal and our plan to get out of debt! When we started our debt free journey, we had just under $200K of debt to defeat! Starting out, after we returned home from out wedding, staring at the debt-pay off chart on our refrigerator, it seriously looked like Mt. Everest. I didn't know if we would ever be able to do it. It really wasn't until right around the one year mark that I started to get REALLY excited....
Drumroll...
As of March 2017, we paid off $93,631
When I saw that number I was floored! Even though we filled in the chart each month, I hadn't really been paying attention to how much we had paid off overall until then, so it was actually a huge relief! We were half way!
Since then, the momentum has picked up even more! We have been cutting things out that we don't actually think we need and committed to getting rid of this debt as fast as we humanly can. As of mid-May 2017, we have paid off $102,057.
The momentum continues to build! If you are feeling stuck or like you are sacrificing a lot to get out of debt right now. You are not alone. That is exactly where I was a few months ago. I encourage you to look how far you have come. Watch the snowball build. It is actually quite amazing. You will see it go from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars by the time you are on your last few debts (depending on your budget). We just wanted to take a few minutes and celebrate all that we have accomplished in the past year, but we also wanted to encourage you on your journey down the road of financial success...
So here are just a few ways that you can stay the course when it feels like you are driving through Texas for days and days and days!
- Give yourself mini-goals!
- When you are in the earlier stages of your debt snowball, the smaller debts are your mini-goals! Pay off the $500 credit card next (goal 1), Pay off the $927 credit card next (goal 2). But when you get further along, you are waiting longer and longer to get those wins, so you need to find a way to reward yourself for making progress as you move along towards paying off each of your bigger debts. You can choose a specific amount or a specific time to achieve those goals and then you choose a specific reward for yourselves. The reward needs to be within reason, but it doesn't hurt to have a little reward here or there along the way!
- Make sure you have some fun money in your budget
- It doesn't have to be much, but make sure you give yourself a little fun money or blow money in your budget. Your budget is going to be pretty restrictive while you are working on your goals, and you need to make sure you are meeting your personal needs as well as taking care of your debt and your emergency fund!
- Make a chart!
- Make a chart with your progress & keep it in a place where you can see it every day! This is going to give you a little boost when you see how far you've come and the amount you have left to pay off starts to get smaller and smaller!
Do you have other ways that help you to keep you from going crazy and stay the course during your Debt Payoff or Emergency Fund Savings goals?! Leave them in the comments OR leave us some love on our Instagram or Facebook Pages! We would love to hear from you!