Parts of this post originally ran as a guest post on another blog. After reading my survey, I realized many of you haven’t read it.
Imagine two young in love newlyweds. Now imagine those newlyweds moving 5 hours from any family. Next assume those two newlyweds have entry level jobs as a teacher and survey assistant. Now you know where I was in fall of 2002: the year hubby and I started the dive into major debt.
Our first mistake: what I liked to call my “pretty Jetta”. We bought a brand new car literally one month after I started my teaching job. We had tons of money now right?
Our second mistake: I got a new car, why shouldn’t hubby have a new motorcycle? Yes, we had two car payments and a motorcycle payment. Between that and our condo rent, we started living paycheck to paycheck.
In the fall of 2003, I was accepted to graduate school, and hubby started going to get a second associates degree. Sure, our jobs paid for some of the tuition, but what about the rest of the tuition, books, gas, and meals eaten on the go? Welcome Citibank into the picture.
Now I am not sure how someone can go from no credit card debt to five figures of debt in a about year, but we somehow managed it. Not only did we manage it, somehow during all this we got approved for a mortgage on our first home in the spring of 2004. School expenses, house remodeling, credit card bills and traveling to visit family once a month. You can see where this is going…
By the summer of 2005 when we both graduated, we were $XX,XXX in debt! I am sorry. I just can’t stand to fill in those X’s. It is too embarrassing still for me. The worst part of all was that Citibank kept raising our interest rates, although we were paying on time and more than the minimum. This went on for over a year, and instead of shrinking, our debt kept growing.
We felt hopeless. We had to do something.
That was when someone introduced me to the Grocery Game. I started saving quarters and dimes using coupons. Then my savings grew. Before I knew it, I had a stockpile, and we were no longer living paycheck to paycheck.
We still had the Citi problem, so we transferred our HUGE debt to a low fixed rate personal loan with no collateral (I know Dave Ramsey would cringe, but it has really worked for us). Then we started to pay. We would save on groceries and pay the loan. Saving, Paying, Saving, Paying.
I quit the Grocery Game over 2 years ago, and I now do my own coupon matchups to save money. But the principles of couponing and the message of being frugal I learned stayed with me. I will be the first to admit, we still make money mistakes. We have gone on vacations we shouldn’t have, and we have blown money on silly things we shouldn’t have. And I have another new vehicle. If we had really buckled down, we would probably be debt free by now, but my message to you is that there is hope for those of you in this situation!
In the last three years, we have reduced our non-mortgage debt by about seventy five percent! Within a year and maybe sooner, we will no longer owe a balance on the personal loan. Next we will be working on paying off our house and my car. I have learned so much about how to be a better wife, steward, and teacher along this path. God works in mysterious ways, doesn’t he?
Do you have a Thrifty idea? Did you save a ton of money this week? Do you have a Thrifty deal you want to share?
If so, please leave a comment or link up below!
If possible, please leave a link back to Coupon Teacher so that we can all share ideas.
This is linked to Life as Mom, Stockpiling Moms, and Madame Deals.
