Greetings from The Smith Family! We hope that 2019 is going well for you so far. This blog is quite overdue for an update on our progress with finances and everything else that has been going on with us. Read on to learn about just how much debt we’ve destroyed this past year and our revised plans for the future.
When Frugal Living Becomes The Status Quo
My rather infrequent, most-recent blog posts have discussed how we’re living on frugal autopilot these days. It’s really amazing how much progress we’ve made in a few short years. I love looking back at one of my first posts on this site (January of 2015), and reflecting back to when we drowning in $43,200 of credit card debt.
In all honesty, it was much easier to document our new adventures with frugality in the beginning. There were so many new challenges and writing about them helped to strengthen my resolve and motivate me to continue making the sacrifices necessary to achieve our goals.
Frugal living is our new norm. It’s easy and automatic. We only think about these new habits in a retrospective way. For example, Mr. Smith and I used to eat out several nights a week. It usually was relatively cheap meals, but it definitely contributed towards our debt. Our new rule for the past few years has been to only allow fast food once every two weeks. That is the only meal we don’t prepare at home. It’s become such second nature now, that we often go more than two weeks without hitting up the drive thru. We will decide to pick up some fast food and realize that it’s been three weeks since the last time, maybe even one month!
We continue to work hard in everything from keeping our heating bills low by collecting firewood to buying all of our clothing at consignment stores and cutting our own hair. I haven’t felt so compelled to detail these activities in blog posts recently, because it doesn’t feel novel anymore. It’s just a typical day around here.
Yes, it was very hard in the beginning to change our ways, but our efforts continue to pay off as our debt disappears and is replaced by relief and excitement about the future. I do hope to bring more helpful and informative posts to this site in 2019, to motivate others so they can achieve the same success.
Our Present Finances
Yay!! First of all, we met our goal to pay off the final credit card and the remaining balance of our consolidation loan well before the end of 2018. Amazing! We still use one card for expenses and pay it off every month, so I can’t exactly say that we have no credit card balance anymore. However, it is incredibly freeing to no longer carry the burden of thousands of dollars in high-interest debt.
After we killed our credit card debt, we moved on to increasing payments towards my student loans. We were actually able to completely pay off one of my law schools loans this year, with a principal balance of over $7,000.
One of our big goals for 2019? To pay off ALL of my student loans.
The student loans carry higher interest rates than our mortgages, so those suckers are next on the chopping block.
We’re currently two months ahead on the mortgage on our home. We continue to pay off the mortgage for our income property – and will hit halfway through the 30-year term this year!
We own my SUV, Mr. Smith’s pickup truck, and our family vehicle – the beloved bus. We haven’t made any car payments in over five years. The bus was paid for, in full, back in 2017.
With the switch in employers, I was not eligible for the new firm’s 401(k) for one year. I still have the one from my old firm and have now started making contributions to a second 401(k). The current amount of investments is over $35,000.
Let me tell you . . . the snowball effect, avalanche effect – whatever you want to call it – creates such an amazing momentum. One minute it feels like you’re so buried in debt that you could never dig yourself out. Slowly, you start to make some progress. Then, it’s like someone keeps giving you an even bigger shovel.
The key has been to focus on moving forward and not regress to bad habits of overspending.
I do also continue to bring in extra money through small side hustles. Using free time to earn extra money can be a huge help in paying off debt. Although I haven’t done as much hustling as in prior years, every little bit helps when you’re trying to improve your finances.
I did go a little overboard with bar tutoring, which placed some stress on our marriage this past summer, but it brought in over $3,500 in extra money.
We continue to play videos and click on things to earn Amazon cards through Swagbucks.
The ads on this website and occasional sponsored posts cover a little more than the operating costs of Creating My Kaleidoscope. Profits from the site were approximately $250.
Looking Back
Here are the links to see our progress reports from the past few years:
2015 Progress Report & Net Worth Update
Financial Review of 2016: Our Starting Point For A Better Year
2018 Financial Update: All The Numbers
Plans For The Future
Our short-term plans include another road trip with the family for a frugal vacation away from the snow. We’re also hoping to return to Maine this summer, a favorite destination that seemed a little too stressful the past few years with five very young children.
Our long-term plans were always designed to be flexible, apart from the goal to semi-retire at the age of 40 (2022) and take a cross-country road trip with our children. One of the looming issues we face in the next year or two is the prospect of moving to a new home. We expected it to be a little tight in our three-bedroom home when deciding to have a fourth child. The surprise of twins is definitely making us feel the squeeze of only 1,384 square feet of living space. Our success with finances this year will dictate our options for purchasing a new home. We are hoping to find something with more land, to serve as our forever homestead.
Our goal for this year is balance. We want to enjoy time with our family, including a few trips. At the same time, it feels like we have reached an important milestone in our journey from debt to financial semi-independence in finally paying off the credit cards and shifting our focus to the student loans. If we can push a little harder this year, stay focused, and maybe find a few new ways to earn and save money, then our long-terms goals will finally be in reach.
Our momentum keeps increasing. The past few years have felt like arduous leaps of faith in the direction of some fantastical dreams. But with each milestone, the path becomes more solid under our feet. We’re going to be able to do some amazing things with our family in the very near future.
If you had to pick one word to represent your goals for 2019, what would it be?
That is awesome you are experiencing the avalanche effect of paying off your credit card debt, and that you plan to wipe out your student loans this year! For us, this year will be about home improvement/maintenance (some new carpet, paint, trim) as we did nothing to update our living since moving in 9 years ago, and the carpet is really hit. And continuing to invest for the future.
Kalie @ Pretend to Be Poor recently posted…Finding Our Way Back to Frugal
Hi Kalie! Yes, it’s still difficult to fully appreciate how much progress we’ve made over the past few years.
Good luck with all of your home improvement plans. We have also let quite a few things go around the house while paying off debt. One of our big expenditures over the next month is going to be a new toilet. Ha – such a luxurious purchase, right?