I just made the final payments to our credit cards tonight to announce my family and I are now debt free!

I'll share my testimony by giving you guys our backgrounds, pre debt spending habits, when we chose to conquer debt and which books/resources we chose to use.

Both my wife and I are in our mid to post 20's. I'm 28 and she's 25. We live in Kodiak, Alaska whaaaa... Alaska? Yeap, Alaska! For those who don't know the cost of living in Kodiak is extremely high. I would probably rate it as high as living in Hawaii or in New York, New York. Examples: 1 gallon of unleaded gas as of right now is $4.09 and the cost of 1 pound of Roma Tomatoes is at $3.99.

Okay now back to our backgrounds. We got married in early 2009 and I took the initiative that we both were on the same page on how we managed our finances i.e. no spending money unless we both agreed on it. She had no debt to bring into the marriage pre-wedding but I did. I had a little under $11,000 to bring into our marriage pre-wedding. Our wedding cost us about $800 out of our pocket and the rest was covered by our family. So that brought us to about a little under $12,000. Our spending habits for the first year wasn't healthy at all so we chose to buy a few books on Amazon.com and see what we could get out of them. Out of the few books we bought one book stood out the most and it was 'America's Cheapest Family' written by the Echonomides. We call that book our Bible for finances! Other resources we kept handy was going to crown.org, yahoo finances, msn finances, thestreetceo.com just to name a few.

It took a while getting use but once the ball got rolling we were able to pay off all of our debt in one year! Our truck loan's remaining balance of $3,800, my remaining student loan of $3,200, our credit card debt of $5,000ish and that was with a new born baby boy in the picture!

So here's to us being DEBT FREE! CHEERS!

Praise Jesus, what a marvelous thing! I am very happy for you both.

white stone

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Janice

Praise the Lord! Now you are free to invest yourselves more into God's Kingdom. I thank God for a good wife who knows how to handle money. Our house is paid off and with the state of the USA economy we are living very frugal. God takes care of us and we are not going hungry. I don't see how people are surviving with all of their toys (material possessions). To hear many "brag", I know they must be drowning in debt. Not fun.

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James

Praise the Lord, brother. When one part of the body rejoices, the whole body does.

I'm fighting the same battle, but the Lord is faithful and keeps showing up with finances at the right time. On a single income trying to pay off wedding debt and my wife's tuition. Expenses are more than my income, but somehow we're still getting by.

Managed to pray in $1700 last month. The Lord is so faithful. Wasn't without tears and worries, but sometimes to see Him show up it takes sacrifice.

Our mentality can't be "Lord, give me money and I'll be generous", but rather "Lord, I'll give what you ask even in my lack, and know You'll take care of the rest"

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Dustin Savage

Amen! Isn't God good!

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James

Praise the Lord brother!

Romans 13:8
Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.


Proverbs 22:7
The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.



You are no longer a servant to the lenders, I rejoice with you brother.

Thank you for sharing this praise report.

Oh praise the LORD! Your cost of living, without interest, is now probably way below the national average. God be with you to keep you that way. It is much easier to rest in the LORD without all that debt hanging over your heads.

Hang in there brother...I know how it feels to struggle under debt...continue to trust in God and be faithful...hopefully it will happen to u the same way (or knowing God, probably differently) it happened to me, in that one day it hit me that I was very nearly debt-free...just crept up on me...really awesome feeling...hang on brother.

Shawn

If you haven't tore up your credit card, I highly recommend that you do. A few years back I was debt free. What a freedom, it was like a load of sin rolled off my back. I still had my visa card in my pocket. Some weeks had passed and I was still feeling good about my debt freeness that I thought, "I need to buy this item and I'll have this card paid off by the end of the month". That one transaction started the ball rolling again, I was using it for "small" and "innocent" purchases and I was making small payments on my bill. Each time I looked at the bill, I thought, "$2,500, that is not too bad, I can pay that off in two months". It got higher and higher I was well over 7 grand and now I felt the same burden that I had before. I never learnt nothing.

It's no different than an alcoholic. He says, "one drink won't hurt". The one drink never hurts, it's the second, the third, the forth etc..

To the over eater, "I'll just have two cookies and I'll stop". In less than 5 minutes the whole package of cookies are now in his gut.

Whenever we take it upon ourselves to trust ourselves that we can stop at anytime we feel like it, we have left the realm of trusting Jesus and put it upon self. I know this to be true.

When ever I am dieting or trying to lose weight and I feel good about it. The flesh starts to reason with your mind and says, "hey, your losing a lot of weight, why don't you treat yourself to a buffet". It's a temptation.

We think that temptation is all about sexual lusts and such, not so. Anything that tries to draw our trust away from our Lord Jesus is a temptation.

The best thing to do is to cut that thing up and declare to our Lord that we are not capable of trusting ourselves but we commit all things to Him. I am my greatest deceiver.