We Did It!

Five months and seventeen days after writing a check to Vanderbilt to pay off my student loan a year early, we are now on Baby Step #4.

(If you're not a Dave Ramsey fan/listener/watcher/even enemy, you might not know what the heck I'm talking about. Here's something that might lend a little insight.)

Our version involves setting aside $1,000 from my August paycheck for our initial Emergency Fund (Baby Step #1), using a good chunk of what was left over from the loan I took out for my first year of grad school plus a matured CD and Aug/Sept/Oct paychecks to pay off $11,500 in student loans, which was our only debt (Baby Step #2), and we have just finished saving our "fully-funded Emergency Fund" of six (and a half, technically, because Cliff thought a little extra couldn't hurt) months worth of expenses equaling $13,000 (Baby Step #3). We did that by setting aside everything from my paychecks besides what we set aside for taxes (my self-employment) and Cliff's "investing" portion that we started preparing for when he gets to start his 401K next month.

And man, it feels great! And still... strange.

When we look around, we realize we're doing things differently. And different is great in so many ways, and difficult in others. I think, for us, this is character building. Delayed gratification... devising a plan and following it... building patience. Because... really... if we wanted - that loan payment could still be looming ahead with the knowledge that our interest rate "won't be that bad" and "emergencies never happen" so why have an Emergency Fund? Instead, we could have nearly $25,000 to go buy a house (considering that's a larger down payment than most people shell out these days) or a brand new car or something else that might make us feel good for a little while but will probably bring us more stress and financial unrest in the end.

We're trading a lot of what many today see as the requisite features of being young or being married (or being young AND married) for something a little more. A little more safe. A little more peaceful. A little more challenging. And dare I say, wise? I don't know.

But it works for us. Is working for us. And is changing the lives of so many people close to us... my mom, Cliff's parents, Cliff's siblings, Cliff's best friend and his parents, our friends from our Sunday School class, and the list goes on. It's exciting and rewarding - in so many ways.