The Suburbs Meets Country

Ok, a brief intro as to who we all are and then right into it...

I am a mom of eight awesome children ages 15 years down to 18 months, five boys and three girls.  People wonder what it is like to have a large family - the truth is sometimes I am pulling my hair out, but other times like a couple days ago, they had me laughing so hard I was crying, so I really do love them dearly and the more kids we have the more the variety of experiences we have in our home...

I am married to Renaissance Man who literally is that - he can do just about everything.  I can count on one hand the times we've hired someone to come in to fix something - it just never happens, RM can do it all.  And don't laugh, he can paint (I have paintings of his in our home, in the basement, mind you...), he can do stained glass, play guitar, speak German and French, and all things artistic so he definitely has his artsy side.  As well, he's an engineer, so he's all scientific-like and always pulling out a science lesson or helping with the math, so he's got the left brain thing going on, too.  The name Renaissance Man just seemed to fit.  When we met, he had a porsche, a sailboat, and a steady job.  Now we drive a 12 passenger van, the sailboat's been gone for years and he's got his own business, but it's a way better life.  He's the perfect man for me....18 years and counting.

We've all recently (in the last 4 years) moved from a suburban city to a 47 acre farm where we have cows, horses, chickens, a dog, cats, birds and up until a couple of weeks ago, pigs and turkeys (need I say more, our freezer is full).  I love our new country life and all its challenges as do the kids and especially my husband who sometimes amazes me with how much he enjoys it despite the hard work that it brings. 

When we lived in the city, we were heavily into mortgage debt.  We had listened to Dave Ramsey, the famous author of The Total Money Makeover, who had daily radio shows about getting out of debt.  One of the ways he suggested was to sell stuff you had in order to pay it off.  We had done this.  We needed something bigger to sell. We decided we would build something to sell - a house!  The long story short is that is what we did.  It did sell and it reduced our mortgage significantly as well as helped us to buy the farm where we are now living.

We patted ourselves on the back for lowering it as much as we did.  We had also done quite a few things over the past four years that we thought was a good attempt at frugal living - less restaurants, buying food things in bulk, learning to shop in thrift stores, buying groceries on sale, looking at the flyers, etc.  We thought we were doing pretty good.  But why were we always feeling like there was nothing left when RM would get paid?  He worked and worked so hard, often physically as well as mentally, many hours a day - for what?  It seemed so pointless when it was always spoken for and when there was nothing left to do, not just necessary things on the house, but fun things with the kids or vacations or renovations. 

Then one day my friend told me about Barry Cameron coming to give a talk at her church.  He became well-known in the U.S. for first getting himself out of debt, then his church (he pastors a large church in Texas), and now he's planting churches all over the U.S. debt-free.  I told my friend I wanted to go.  I told RM  I wanted to go and that I thought it would be really helpful to see him live, to receive new inspiration to get debt-free.  At first RM hesitated because of the long drive, but then he agreed, so we went.

Nothing Barry said that day was particularly new.  I think it was more that the Holy Spirit was both working in us and we were both sick and tired of being sick and tired.  We had a chance to talk with Barry briefly after his talk and he described his own trial with debt, how he made a plan to get out of debt in 7 years, but how God blessed it and he got out in two.  Lord, how we wanted that!

It was only a day or two later that he and I really sat down and talked about how that would look.  Suddenly it occurred to me, I was willing to be really hard core so I said that to RM and he asked, "How hard core?"  I started to list off things I loved to do, from having a coffee date out with him, to annual overnights for our anniversary, to resaturants, to even the occasional glass of wine we enjoyed together - I was willing to give it ALL up, until the mortage was paid off - that was it!  Immediately I felt freedom, anticipation, joy as I suddenly couldn't wait to take on this challenge.  RM decided he was willing to be just as hard core. 

We approached the kids, sharing our thoughts, our dreams, our regrets even.  We had failed them as parents in some ways, made bad decisions earlier on in our marriage that was now affecting them, (the two main regrets, by the way, were buying too much house early on and leasing a car which we've never done since) but as we repented and asked God for forgiveness, they also got caught up in our enthusiasm and decided they, too, could be on board.  Thus our journey to debt-free living truly began in earnest once again.   We'd been "gazelle" intense, as Ramsey puts it, when we built the house, but we had now ramped it up to "cheetah" intense.  We were going in for the kill.

We evaluated every expense in our budget from phone to insurance and made all sorts of changes saving us 1000s of dollars a year.  Then, onto the vows.  Our financial vows were pretty simple and I'll share them, but please don't feel sorry for us!  We are excited about this challenge and we know this is only for a season.  We are not imposing these on you or anyone else.  These are vows we've made and the kids are fully understanding what we're up to.  They also know, once we're out of debt, paid off mortgage, everything, then these vows will be re-evaluated and then the cash will be there if and when we want to do things, we'll be able to!  Are you ready for this?

1.  No more restaurants - none, not even a coffee at a drive-thru. 
2.  No more new clothes unless we got them on sale at a thrift store (we just happen to have one down the street that has $1 sales on clothes every few months!). 
3.  No more haircuts - Mom's doing 'em (I'd been doing the boys' hair already and the girls' hair is long)
4.  No more field trips that cost money and even if they're free, we'll  have to evaluate the gas as it is pricey! 
5.  Definitely no more overnights or hotels.  Sigh, this one was hard for me.
6.  I will not pay full price for any grocery item - everything has to be on sale 100%.
7.  No credit cards.  I haven't ever had one, but if I need one, I can use RM's.  No more.

There may be more, but those are the main ones where we were leaking money.  Anyone else care to join us in these nutty vows?!

Our timeline is a faith timeline.  We could conceivably do this in our own strength in three years, but we're asking God for a miracle and that once again, he gets all the glory, not us.  It is up to us to do our part, so that's what we're doing.