Our Debt Free Journey | Part 2 | Balance

Welcome back friends! Today I want to share an update on our debt free journey towards financial freedom and highlight one very strong lesson I’ve learned throughout this journey: the importance of balance. If you haven’t checked out our first post (and video) yet, please do. You can find it here.

So, Where Are We at After Our First Month Committing to a Debt Free Journey?

• We are just a few months away from paying off our first small loan, a car payment! Just about $1,200 left, after we prioritized using an unexpected bonus towards paying off this loan and decreased it by $1,000. Wohoo!
• We haven’t moved over to a cash budget quite yet, mostly due to time constraints and just being overall crazy busy. But we have been intentional with decreasing unnecessary costs and only using one credit card for our expenses. We hope to move to the cash free budget by March.
• Soon we will move to paying off the school loan, which is about $7,000. Currently we are putting $200 a month towards this loan, but soon we will be putting $500-$600 towards it, with a goal of paying it off within the next year.
• After that…. we will work on the biggest loan of all, our mortgage! Stay tuned for more details on how we will approach this.

Balance: a condition in which different elements are equal or in the correct proportions.

Why is Balance So Important?

We are only guaranteed today. The debt free journey can sometimes focus on the future and how you WILL experience freedom in some future moment, which is awesome. Of course I want to do what I can TODAY to prepare for that future of freedom; HOWEVER, today matters to.

The debt free journey has many benefits for the present. It helps you be more intentional with your resources, practice gratitude for what you have, helps decrease fear and anxiety about finances, and gives confidence. BUT, if we focus so much on being debt free, that we don’t use our existing resources for opportunities that may present themselves in the moment, we can miss out on some really meaningful chances to build relationships, explore passions, and even go where God may be calling us.

Here’s an example: recently my family was celebrating my dad’s 60th birthday. The problem? It was all the in sunny, Southern California, and Chris and I live in Upstate NY. I chose to use a few hundred dollars and purchase a round trip plane flight so I could attend that celebration and enjoy time with my family. I could have focused that money on paying off our car loan, which we are almost done with!! But I made a different choice instead.

You see, my dad will never turn 60 again, there will never be another opportunity to celebrate that birthday with him and my family, but there will be another couple hundred dollars that will come in that I can use to pay off debt. This is why balance matters.

Avoid Letting the Debt Free Journey Become All Consuming

As humans, we often get carried away. We are quickly obsessed, addicted, and all consumed by new passions, hobbies, and exciting things that come our way. It can be really easy to be this way when approaching the debt free journey. Don’t let that happen! Keep a good thing, good, and it will fill you up. If you let it consume you, it will quickly make other areas of your life stressful, and you will be drained. You will also be more likely to give it up entirely as you watch your life get out of balance.

Adopt the debt free journey as one aspect of your life, instead of all of it, and you will likely find much more joy in the process than if it becomes an obsession.

I hope you enjoyed learning a bit of my take on approaching the debt free journey. I want this space to be an encouragement to others walking a similar path and help you keep this aspect of your life in perspective. Where are YOU at in your financial journey? Comment below and let us know! We are excited to walk alongside you.

That’s all for now friends.

All my best,

Jenn