One of the Reasons We Live “Debt Free”

I must tell you that I am a huge fan of Dave Ramsey. If you haven’t heard of him, just click on the link to navigate to his website. He is a personal finance guru who has successfully grown his company without one penny of debt from a card table in his living room to a dynamic company of 300+ people. It’s really no secret, if you know me that I would love to work for Dave. His enthusiastic, fiery, no-nonsense personality sprinkled with a dash of tender heartedness when the need arises is a real winner. I can’t really remember exactly when I started listening to him (I think it must have been in 2005), but his message of living on less than you make immediately resounded with me. I was hooked and have been a regular listener ever since.

Proverts 22:7 (ESV)

The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender.

_{The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.}

One of the thrusts of Dave’s message is based on Proverbs 22:7 (shown above). When you borrow from someone, you become enslaved to them. I recognized that every month I was being held captive to paying the truck payment and the credit card bills. Thankfully, Michelle and I had not dug ourselves too deeply into debt. We determined that, going forward, we would live free from the entanglements of debt. Each month was a purposeful movement towards reducing debt and living on our plan to live within our means. Finally, in early 2006 I was convinced that I should sell my truck to enable us to be completely debt free. It was a wonderful feeling to not have the debt weighing us down!

Let me toss in one fact here before I continue. The only debt that Dave will not yell at you for having is a home mortgage that is on a 15 year fixed rate with the payment being no more than ¼ (approximately) of your take-home pay. So when I say “debt free,” I am referring to no debt beyond a mortgage of this type.

Since that moment in 2006, we have been committed to making decisions that keep us debt free. Over the past year, we have experienced several challenges to our resolve to maintain a debt-free lifestyle. Upon relocating to another state for employment, we consciously chose to rent a residence in a city half an hour away from my new job. We made this sacrifice in order to continue to make our house payment at our previous residence and make the rent payment while living within our means. It was not easy living and working in two different cities!

The second test of our willpower came once we sold our residence out of state. Would we be willing to follow Dave’s guidelines for a mortgage? It was actually quite agonizing because we just couldn’t find a home that we liked in the area we wanted and in the price range that we could afford. There were several times that I wanted to scrap the whole idea and buy a house that, looking back, would never have been a blessing. Thankfully, wisdom prevailed and we chose to put down a good down-payment and only take out a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage. Our home is a “fixer-upper”, but I can honestly say that I could not be more pleased with our decision. We are so thrilled with the home in which we live!

Once again, if you know Dave, you know that one of his mantras is “Live like no one else so later you can live like no one else”. Michelle and I have made, and plan to continue to make, that decision every day. Today, I am happy to report that we have been able to experience one of those small moments of joy that comes with that decision. Pictured above is our new gas fireplace insert. We love it! We look forward to getting many years of use out of it. Can’t you just see the flat screen TV mounted above it?!? However, if we had not been living on a budget and working our plan, we would not be in a place to purchase this luxury. A portion of our thanks has to go to Dave Ramsey for inspiring us to live like no one else so that now we are getting a small taste of living like no one else. Thanks Dave!

What could you do if you were “debt free”? What’s stopping you?