WEEE'RRRRRE DEEEBBBBTTT FFRRRRREEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

For those of you who don't know, Justin and I have become big fans of Dave Ramsey. Who is that? Only the second best thing to ever happen to us. Dave Ramsey is an advocate for financial fitness. My dad bought tickets for Justin, Katie and I to go to one of Dave's Total Money Makeover Live events in SLC last April. We went - and it was LIFE CHANGING.

Dave has a few taglines. One is "we tell you the same thing your grandpa would, except we keep our teeth in." He's formulated a series of baby steps that, if you follow them with GAZELLE INTENSITY, you will quit throwing out your money and can instead be building wealth/college funds/retirement. These steps are based on common sense rules like "don't spend money if you don't have it" and prioritizing appropriately between needs and wants. There are rainy days, and you need an emergency fund for when that happens. No, Christmas or new tires do NOT count for emergencies. Stuff like that.

Well, between the two of us we estimate that we had about $10,000 in debt (mostly student loans/the rest of my wedding ring). Since neither of us was making any money until September, it wasn't until then that we could really throw money at this thing. We've been taking every bit of available money to do it. We have a card table for a dining room table, we don't have a tv, we only have one car, we just inherited my parents' old computer so we wouldn't have to buy one, we're sleeping on a double bed inherited from my old bedroom set so we wouldn't have to buy a new mattress/bedroom furniture. We did purchase a couch (and paid cash for it, thank you very much) so we have something to sit on, but we've been trying to "live like no one else so later we can LIVE like no one else."

So we've been hucking tons of money at this debt. When Justin's car was in a wreck, the money we got from it went towards the debt, our tax returns = debt, etc... Hope you get the idea. We've been getting excited because we both get paid at the end of this week, and we knew we'd be able to finish the last $630 dollars on the $5,500 student loan and then we'd be DONE!!

Received the following letter in the mail from Justin's student loan people:

Why we are contacting you
We are pleased to inform you that the remaining balance of your student loan has been forgiven. This is our way of thanking you for taking care of your loan obligation in a diligent manner.
What this means to you
Within 2 to 3 weeks we will send a document confirming the paid in full status of the loan.

What?!?!?!? Did we really just read that right? WHAT A BLESSING! What a wonderful, wonderful letter to open! We feel like we've been working hard for the right thing and praying that we'd be able to push push push, and then this happens! Prayer works! Miracles happen!

So for all of you who know the Dave Ramsey radio show (talk radio, in GA it's 640WGST on AM radio), Fridays are always Debt Free Fridays, which are the days when people who've been working the baby steps get to call in and scream as loud and proud as possible, "we're debt free!!!". Everybody listen up, because on Friday May 7th (we have Relay for Life this Fri-Sat and can't call), the Michael/Andrea Houghtaling and Justin/Erin Badger family are going to be doing the first ever 2-generation phone call to scream "WE'RE DEBT FREE!"

And then we're going to dinner at Carrabba's :)

You can do it too! You're going to LOVE it! Go to http://www.daveramsey.com/ for more details.

PS - Dave's coming to Atlanta in October and Justin, myself, Dad, Mom, and Claire are all gonna be there!!