Time Flies

Wow!  I didn't realize how long it had been since I posted.  Hopefully, I won't go so long between posts.



Tonight, I am planning to wrap up the walk down the Freedom Road, but I plan to start a new blog that will not have anything to do with finances, but first lets wrap up the Freedom Road.



After selling our house and paying off $25,000 in debt, we proved that we weren't mature enough to manage what we had left.



Instead of paying off all of our debt and renting for a couple of years, we chose to buy another house.  Of course, we didn't buy a house that was approximately the same value, we bought a house that was double the value.  At that time, we were able to pay the bills and still work on paying off the debt, but that would change 18 months after we bought the house.



My wife was working in the Real Estate industry when it tanked.  The broker she was working for laid off a couple of people and she was one of them.  This was actually a blessing.  She had not been happy for 4 months, so we looked at it as a blessing.  This was a major changing point in our lives.



We started hearing more from God, and more importantly we started listening.  Sonya felt led to pursue something that she had always wanted to do, but never followed through.  I fully support Sonya in this endeavor, but in order to pursue it, she is not working outside the home.  This has cut our pay in half.  For the last 12 months, we have been living on God's blessings. 



We will be selling our house and paying off all of our debt in the next 3 months.  So, we are now starting down an entirely different path, but will always be following the Freedom Road.



That is all from the Freedom Road, but check back in May when I will be announcing some very exciting news.



'Til we meet again...



Tim

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The Dark Time

There we were living the highlife. We had just bought our first home, the wife had a new convertible, and we were making good money.



Then one night while making the 2 hour commute, that I made three nights a week, I heard the strangest thing on talk radio.



I heard a guy say, "Remember, the only way to financial peace is to walk daily with the Prince of Peace Christ Jesus." I thought, "wow, who is this guy and why does he intrigue me so much?" I went to work that day and looked him up on the internet and was even more intrigued.



Over the next 4 months, I began to look forward to my commute, because it was the only time I got to listen to Dave Ramsey. As the months flew by, I realized that we were in a horrible position. Although we made good money, I was working a position that was going to end in September 2003, and we didn't have a clue what I was going to do after that.



Well, as always, God provided. I was able to continue that position for another year. In September 2003, I was able to get my wife to go to a Simulcast of one of Dave Ramsey's live events. She walked less than gung-ho, but we walked out of that seminar fired up.



We did our first budget in October 2003, and realized that we really were careless with money. We also realized that working 12 hours a night, 3 days a week, was killing me. I immediately began looking for a new job. I eventually got that new job one year later, but there were a lot of changes coming before then.



In May 2004, we decided that best thing would be to sell our house. Luckily, our house had almost doubled in the two years we owned it. This was a blessing, but also a curse.



We sold the house, but instead of paying off all of our debt, we paid off $25,000 and then put the rest down on a new, bigger, more expensive house. This has turned out to be one of the dumbest moves we have ever made.



That's it for now, but...



The next trip down the Freedom Road will be full of hills and valleys, the likes of which you have never experienced.



'Til we meet again, I am...



Tim, Your Tour Guide.

Dumb, dumb, dumb...

We were very dumb the first 12 years of our marriage. After getting neck deep in debt in the first couple of years, we got a personal loan from our Credit Union to pay off the credit cards. We thought we owed a lot, but in reality it was about $6000, and it took us 2 years to payoff.

We were able to stay away from credit cards during that 2 years, but as soon as that last payment was sent to the bank, we started charging again. We decided that my wife needed to complete her college degree and that she shouldn't have to work while she finished, so we took out the max in student loans for 2 semesters and started back down the credit card road.

In the next 2 years we managed to get ourselves in enough debt that it started affecting my work. This was how we found Consumer Credit Counseling Service (CCCS). I am not endorsing CCCS, because when you go to a credit counseling agency it is treated as a bankruptcy for the purposes of qualifying for a mortgage. No wonder we were turned down for a $50,000 mortgage after one year in the CCCS program.

It took us 5 years to pay off CCCS. During that 5 years we decided we were through with credit cards. During the 4th year of this payoff, we were blessed with our second child, and Sonya was accepted to law school.

Now imagine, we don't have any debt except for the $350 a month going to CCCS, and I was making 40K a year, so we should be able to pay for law school as we went right. WRONG!

We didn't have sense enough to cut our lifestyle, instead we took out the max student loans that were allowed every year for three years. Now we did big things with this money. We paid off CCCS, and went to Europe for 2 weeks.

Obviously, this was very stupid, but Sonya was going to be an attorney making six figures, so we would be able to afford the loan payments after graduation.

Well, we were shocked into reality when Sonya took her post graduation job making 35K. We had already agreed that I wasn't going to work and would go to school full-time, well that was all good until Usama Bin Laden decided to attack the US.

I was activated with my National Guard Unit in October 2001. Now, this was great because we had just doubled our income and we had already worked out living on 40K, so we should have been able to pay a lot on the student loans, but we didn't.

Instead, we went out and bought a $150,000 home, and we bought Sonya a convertible. Needless to say, we weren't thinking long-term, like that my activation was not going to last forever. Luckily, in May 2003, I discovered something that would eventually change our lives...

'Til we meet again, I am...

Tim, Your Tour Guide

Long Weekend

The love of my life and I celebrated our 14th anniversary over the weekend, so I have been recovering and haven't had anything to say, but that has changed. So, stay tuned for more of our story.

Credit is fun...NOT

The weekend I proposed to my beautiful wife, we decided that we NEEDED a wedding ring set, even though we had no money. So, off to the jewelry store in the mall to buy our wedding ring set.

Well, obviously, I didn't have the money or the "credit score" to finance the rings, so Sonya financed the rings in here name on a jewelry store credit card.

Now we are on a roll. We moved to Memphis and in order to do that, Sonya sold or gave away everything from her condo that wouldn't fit in her small car, so when we get to our new apartment, we didn't have any furniture. We slept on an air mattress and used bean bags. Instead of looking in the classifieds for used furniture we went to the nearest furniture store to buy furniture on, you guessed it, credit. Sonya and I had to compromise on the furniture...
She got to pick out the furniture, but I then got to buy a home stereo, because I had always wanted a home stereo and now I had the "opportunity."

So, in the span of 6 weeks, we went from 4 credit cards (I had 2 before we got married, and Sonya had 2) to about 10 or 11 with more to come. At one point our finances were so bad, that we would make a payment on our maxed out Discover card and then as soon as that payment was credited we would go out to eat on the Discover card.

Looking back, not only were we stupid with credit, but we didn't know how to do a budget. We would get paid on the first but go hog-wild shopping, and then wonder why on the 7th or 8th of the month we didn't have the money to pay our bills. If only we had known about Dave Ramsey back then.

In the next few weeks I will introduce you to the man who developed a plan that probably saved our marriage. That man is Dave Ramsey, but for know I leave you with this...

If you can't afford to pay cash for something, then you can't afford it, because; as Dave Ramsey says, "There's no such thing as EASY payments!"

'Til we meet again, I am...

Tim, your Tour Guide

Love...in a nutshell

Most 19 year olds would pay big money to be where I was when I was 19. I was single, thousands of miles away from home, with a decent job. Now you would think that I was living it up, dating, partying, and just having an all around good time. Well, I was having a good time, but not like most 19 year olds.

I had been in Pensacola, Florida, for less than 2 weeks, when I met "her." Who is "her?" "Her" was the most beautiful woman in the world, but she wouldn't give me the time of day, so I did what most 19 year old males do...I followed her around like a little lost puppy, until she spoke to me.

Once she spoke, I knew she was my angel. We talked most of the evening about our lives. She was just coming off a horrible relationship and I was single and probably a little home sick. Now she freely admits that I was just someone to hang out with that night, but I wouldn't go away. Who says persistence doesn't pay?

We spent the next evening (Saturday) together, but she couldn't hang out on Sunday, because she had to spend that day at her mom's. Sunday night we spent 4 hours on the phone and by the end of that phone call, we knew more about each other than we knew about ourselves.

The next week was a whirlwind, but the following Friday, 7 days after we met, I asked her to move to my next base with me, and she said yes. The next day, I asked her to marry me, she said yes and Monday we bought the rings. We set a wedding date for mid-February, we met in July.

In late August we moved to Memphis, and discovered that I was going to have to live on base, which meant she had to live by herself in an apartment in a strange city. Oh, and by the way, she didn't have a job yet. There we were in love, broke, and apart. Something had to change!

We decided right then and there that we would get married as soon as possible by the Justice of the Peace. We got married September 4th, 6 weeks after we met, and will celebrate 14 years together this Labor Day.

Thanks for taking this detour with me. 'Til we meet again, I am...

Tim, your Tour Guide

Road to Bondage

There I was, 17 years old, with a new credit card. I thought I was king of the world. I still don't know what I bought with that credit card, except for 5-10 CD's that were purchased during the first 2 weeks of college. These stand out because I only spent 2 weeks at Evangel University (Evangel College when I attended) before dropping out, but I got my credit card filled with music and paraphenalia.

By the time I left home for good when I joined the Navy, I had 3 credit cards and a car loan. This was all before I turned 19. When I left for the Navy, I was convinced that I would be able to afford the credit cards and the truck. Boy, was I wrong.

Little did I know that although I was getting paid while I was in Basic Training, I didn't actually get the money until after basic. So, all of my debts were getting farther and farther behind. When I completed basic, I had enough to catch up my debt, but while I was on leave visiting my parents, I was able to get a pay advance a week before payday. This was a huge mistake.

My next payday came after I had reported to Pensacola Naval Air Station. What I didn't realize was that the pay advance that I took was going to come from my next paycheck. Thus, my next paycheck was $94.00. That is for 2 weeks, yeah I was rakin' in the cash...Not.

I had no way to pay my credit cards or truck payment. Well, that $94 went to the credit cards, because I didn't really have to have money to live, did I? I lived on base, ate for free on base, so I thought I was okay, but then I found the love of my life (which is a long story in itself), and realized that I needed a life. So, I asked my dad to make the truck payments and he agreed, until I could get on my feet.

Well, he struggled as much as I did. So, there I was 19, in love, and broke. I thought it couldn't get any worse, little did I know that it was going to get a whole lot worse...

'Til we meet again. I am...

Tim, your Tour Guide

Who am I?

I am just a guy that is fed up with debt, but very intrigued by technology. I've always wanted to do a blog, but didn't know how, or what to write about, but that all changed this morning.

I found a blog that not only inspires me to continue battling my debt, but also to write my story, so I would like to thank Joel Maxwell for inspiring me to step out of my comfort zone.

Tim

The Beginning

I remember like it was yesterday. I was 17 years old and had just started my senior year of high school. I was sitting at my dad's desk, when the mail came, and it contained something that would almost ruin my life.

The envelope in the mail contained a secured credit card that my parents had encouraged me to get in order to "build my credit." Thus began my long horrible journey with debt.

As I look back, I realize that this was the key event that led me to the financial place my family and I are in.

And over the next few days, I will lead you through my journey from that day to my current place, and that place is in a very deep financial hole. So, if you think I'm going to tell a story about how that credit card helped me become a millionaire, you're wrong. It has made my financial life worse than it should have been.

So...join me over the next couple of days, as I tell of the journey through the desert of debt that my family and I are crossing.

Until we meet again, I am...

Tim, your Tour Guide.