The Light at the End of the Tunnel

Sometimes it feels like it's never ever going to end and then one day you wake up and it's only 8 weeks away!  It's hard to believe that we've been working on paying off ALL of this debt for almost two years!

When we first started it felt like a massive mountain we were going to have to climb, something truly impossible, or maybe a desert we were going to have to cross, I could barely make out a city in the distance, maybe my mind was playing tricks on me, maybe it was just a mirage.  We were never going to get through $200,000 in debt!  That is basically a house!  Who could pay off a whole house' worth of debt in two years?   (Apparently, we can!) 

If you feel like you are stuck in Baby Step 2, here is some encouragement.  It does end.  There is an "almost end".  You will get to a point where you too are counting down the days!  And believe it or not, it will sneak up on you sooner than you know.  

I think the things that got us through the times that we felt like it was never going to end were:

1. Making sure we had some fun money, so life wasn't ALWAYS boring or so intense.
2. Keeping tracking sheets all over the house.  We have a debt free sheet that we fill in on the fridge and we have thermometers in our office that get filled in every time we pay down on debt or pay off a debt, so now everything is almost all the way filled in!  This could be ANYTHING -- it could be something you color in, it could be moving beans from one jar to another, it could be removing paper chains!  As long is it is something visual that gives you hope that progress IS happening!
3. I always think Chris Hogan sounds super cheesy when he says it, but have Dream Sessions - it didn't sound like us sitting down and saying, now let's dream about the future, but it sounded like us talking about the next steps.  Ok once we get our emergency fund, what does investing going to look like for us?  What are our investments going to look like in 30 years?  And that got us REALLY excited!  It gave us hope for the future, that we were actually doing something that was smart and worthwhile and that was going to help our family!

If you are at all skeptical about Dave Ramsey's methods, you should be!  Never take someone's word for it, you've got to try it for yourself.  His methods can sound a bit weird and extreme, but that's probably because you learned to handle money a totally different way.  That's totally ok.  I would suggest you try it out for 30-90 days and see if it works for you!  It has definitely worked for us and many other people around the country and even the world! 

As always if you ever need any help getting started, feel free to reach out to us, we would love to hear from you: abbettroad@gmail.com