The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.
Proverbs 22:7
Debt is not easy, yet America loves it. You don’t need another article that shares more statistics. You can find that elsewhere. For my wife and myself, the majority of our debt is my student loans. Even so, in our current financial situation (income vs. expenses), it’d take 3 years to pay of just our credit card, medical, and car loan debt. The student loans would take another 15-20 years to pay off.
So we are doing something radical. A few months ago Nikki encouraged me to look into jobs in St. Louis as she looked at a number of rental properties in the area. Five weeks ago, after much prayer and consideration, we accepted a job in downtown St. Louis and secured a townhouse in Maryville, Illinois. We achieved two goals: raise our income and lower our expenses. With the changes, we are looking to pay off our credit card debt, medical debt, and car loan in 8 months. The student loans could be payed off in 5-6 years time.
Dave Ramsey— a great financial guru— says that we need to make the choice to live like no one else so that one day we may live like no one else. Do everything you can to eliminate your debt. Have fun later when you have money in savings and no debt to pay. Obviously there is a fine balance. We have things we want to do over the next few months and even the next few years, but our primary goal is to get rid of debt and do everything we can to not take on more debt.
This is a faith thing. For years we haven’t been able to be as generous as we have wanted, we haven’t been able to save as much money as we have wanted, and we haven’t been able to make as much of a dent in our debt as we have wanted. So we are taking a leap of faith. Nikki grew up— and has always lived in— the Chicago area. Me, I grew up in St. Louis but have lived in the Chicago area for 11 years after moving up for college. Between family in the area and friends that have become like family, this has been a tough choice. But we are tired of the cost of living and the debt. Through hard prayer and wise council, we have made a choice that we believe is best for our family.
So last week we made the move to Maryville, Illinois and last Monday I started my new job at HLK. From our office windows, I can see the Arch and Busch Stadium. And for all of you back in Chicago wondering about the commute, it takes me 20-25 minutes to get here from and go home to Maryville.
I’ll be blogging more soon, I hope, as we begin to settle into our new place and new area.