Debt Free

Something else that we've been doing for the past 10 months is follow Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University.  It's a 13 week course we took last summer that tells you how to get your finances together.  There is nothing revolutionary, it's just good money advice.  Well, we had a monumental event around here last night.  We made our last student loan payment!  When we started last July, we had just over 36 thousand in student loan debt.  This was combined from my undergrad, my masters degree, Dh's undergrad and his masters degree also.  So since last summer, we were able to pay the WHOLE thing off.  Can you believe it?!
I love talking about FPU because it's just so exciting.  Dave walks you through the 'baby steps' of how to get out of debt.  The first is to have a 1000 emergency fund.  The second is to pay off all your debts, smallest to largest.  The third is a fully funded emergency fund of 3-6 months of expenses.  There's a lot more to it of course, but really, I'm just so thrilled that God has blessed us with our finances and we FINALLY paid off our debt! 
What drives me nuts is that we didn't do it sooner.  If we had started this a few years ago, there is a possibility I could've stayed home with the girls.  But God's timing is perfect and I'm just going to rest in that.  If you're sitting here thinking 'that's great for her, but I'll never get out of this debt', you're wrong.  You can!  Dave is on the radio in most areas, just go to http://www.daveramsey.com/ and look for his station.  And I am NOT being paid to write this, I just believe strongly in his principles and want to share them.
So now, we get to build our emergency fund, plan for retirement, plan for the girls college, pay off the house...and give our money to valuable causes...and enjoy the paychecks we bring home every month, instead of having them already be spent on debt.

And in other news, Penelope will be 2 months tomorrow!  Dr's appointment in the morning.  I can't wait for her stats.  I'm positive she is big like her sister (and her mom and dad, who am I kidding).  But  hoping she's healthy and looking good.  Happy Tuesday everyone!