How We Cancelled Debt and Built our House in 5 Years

We had college degrees and a heap of debt when we got married. We were living on love in our one-bedroom apartment in the city. We had taken no financial courses or seminars and were trying to live by God's principles. We understood that it was important to save, give, reap and sow. Here is the story of how we went from debt to homeowners.

In July 2001, we were married. Maurice had already rented our apartment and I had started my first nursing job. With one income we survived for almost nine months when Maurice finally landed a great job in his field. Our first lesson was that we were ONE. I didn't plan on being the breadwinner, but my husband had saved enough prior to our wedding so that our financial life would not depend solely on me while he searched for the right opportunity.

KEY POINTS:

* Save lots of money before you get married (for AFTER the wedding and honeymoon). Do not go broke or in major debt for this one-time event. Focus more on the marriage than the wedding festivities!

* Our money was OUR money from the start. One of the first things that we did was to open a joint checking and savings account.

* We agreed not to go over a certain spending limit in our checking. We were free to spend on whatever we wanted within that limit.

* No credit cards. We paid for everything cash or debit card from our bank.

After that first year, we made it a point to live low. We would not purchase a new tv or cable. We did not have fancy cars (at all!). We began to tackle our college debt and pay off the cars we had already purchased. We had to assess our current eating habits too. We decided that one thing that we would do for ourselves was to eat out since we were saving money in other ways. Our second lesson was learning to do life without comparing ourselves to others. We had to strive for MINIMALISM.

KEY POINTS:

* Buy at the thrift stores. We knew how to be abased and we knew how to abound. The higher end stores were off-limits to us for a long while. I also did a lot of sewing. We mended socks and borrowed clothing for special occasions.

* Stretch meals. We often saved our leftovers from restaurants and made them a different way to avoid boredom with food. We also used coupons and discounts when we could. We did not order out much at all.

* We said NO to many things like trips, retreats, church events (it would require extra gas), conferences or anything that was not required. You have to learn to discern between what is good and what is best.

* Keeping all of our dental and doctor appointments helped us to maximize our insurance and stay healthy. Getting sick is one of the fastest ways to lose money!

Those five years flew by and our goal was to have a house by then. I was expecting to purchase a nice used home and to have already started having children. That was not God's plan. We lost our first child. Read about that HERE. We were devastated, but got pregnant again just 3 short months later. It was time to move.

Maurice felt that the Lord was leading us to build a home. I was very surprised. I didn't think we could afford it. We still had college debt, but it was rapidly shrinking on our plan. We began to research, pray about it and look around.

KEY POINTS:

* Do not jump at every financial opportunity. We almost missed our blessing because other home offers were tempting. Patience is key. Only your house is your house.

* Trust each other to hear from the Lord regarding big financial purchases, especially wives. My job was to fast and pray for my husband to not move until the Lord said so and we both had peace.

* Be careful not to compare your money status to those around you. We had friends who had all the things but were drowning in debt all around us. They bought the truck, were taking trips and taking pics at all the fancy restaurants. We had to stay in our focused lane.

Your commitment to your marriage will show up in your money

* Your commitment to your marriage will show up in your money. God was first for us. We gave to our church and to the poor together. We saved our money together. We were honest about purchases together. Without our mutual goal of homeownership, we would have strayed from our commitment.

* We decided not to buy each other gifts for a while. We agreed that our home would be our gift to each other. After all, who can top that?

In a serious of nothing-but-God events, we found the perfect location with the first home on the lot! We were given the option to have our home custom-built in a design that we could choose ourselves (which is rare). Once the decision was made, we actually had the funds to begin work right away.

Foregoing all those other nice things and living a minimalistic lifestyle was finally paying off! NO ONE we knew had EVER built a home from scratch like this. We negotiated our mortgage based on the income that we were making at the time. Knowing that we were trying to squash debt, we decided on payment plan that was a bit of a squeeze. Our ultimate goal was to be homeOWNERS (not homepayers) for the next 30 years.

* Mark out exactly when your mortgage payments will be complete. You need to see it on a calendar. Goals are goals no matter how far away.

* Do not accrue more unnecessary debt. I wanted to go back to school for another degree. We could not afford it, so I prayed about it and got tuition reimbursement from my employer. If the blessing is yours, the Lord will make it known.

*Negotiate. If you do not do your research, you can end up hurting yourself. We talked with several banks until we got the terms that we were at peace with.

The only people that I knew that actually paid off their home were my grandparents who were genius entrepreneurs. However, we couldn't even credit that wisdom to what was happening with us. We saw God guiding every step.

Our first home was built quickly and we got more house for our money than even the builders expected. They literally could not build what we agreed on without making our home more spacious on their dime! Nothing but GOD. Our new home had almost 2k square feet, three bedrooms, a storage room, 2.5 baths, an attached two-car garage, a front and back porch and a basement within 5 years of our marriage. In about 3 years after that we paid off ALL of our college debt.

We know that everyone does not have a story like this. Life happens, but when you seek first the Kingdom of God, all these things will be added unto you. We praise the Lord for our home, but it is just a thing. We wanted to use it for the glory of God and we feel that this is the reason that we were blessed in this way.

Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift. 2 Corinthians 9:15

We want to hear your story and answer your questions too! Please leave us a comment and we will respond as soon as possible.

*** Congrats to the couple who won our Valentine's Day giveaway!! It was just in time for their anniversary. Yay!!

Selfcare IS Caring for your Marriage

In our first few years of marriage, I was all in! I was fully ready to sacrifice for my husband. From bending over backwards to make him healthy meals to being available in the evening for marital intimacy. Nothing was too much, too hard or too physically taxing. My view of that Proverbs 31 woman was perfection and I was happy to do all and be all for him. After all, loving him was easy because he truly loved me as Christ loved the church in my mind. Nothing could be better.

Until I burnt out.

Ask yourself:
When did I last take a nap?
Am I having too many negative thoughts?
Do I have a healthy relationship with God myself apart from my spouse?
Is my body needing attention that I have been ignoring?
Am I actually hurting emotionally?
When did I last have a really fun time?
Are there habits that are controlling me instead of me controlling them?
What pain am I experiencing?

There is such thing as wife burnout. When we burden ourselves with even more than God Himself has commanded, we put ourselves at risk for harm of all kinds. The devil loves this part. It is the sneaky way to break a marriage. By putting undo pressure on ourselves, we slowly corrode the marriage itself. Genius, yet devious.

To be honest, I have never been the best at caring for myself the way that I should. Taking vitamins, exercising and drinking enough water are a struggle for me. One thing that I do well is healthy eating. For some reason, that outward habit is easier. People can see that. They know. But self-care in other departments can be disguised by your "care" for others.

Your self-care is a reflection of your marriage.

How you care for you reflects the health of your relationship and the health of the church as a whole, if your marriage is built on Christ. As a woman who has been married for many years now, let me share with you a few ways to maintain care of yourself as well as your marriage.

1. Plan ahead and make your appointments first. Some of our regular readers know about our cancer story (if not start HERE), and I was so fortunate to have already planned my own physical and dental appointments for that year. Otherwise, it would have never happened with the difficult situation that we were facing.

2.  Hold each other accountable for your self-care. We have a thing where we ask each other about certain habits we are trying to form or break. For me, it is drinking water. I have an app that I use that is great at reminders, but I still ignore it. My husband knows this, so he also asks me about what I drank each day. It helps more than the app which was his idea in the first place!

3. Don't forget that marriage is about you too! Do not discount that fact that you are significant. Your physical, emotional and spiritual health is a must to make your marriage thrive! There is no shame or harm in talking to someone about your self-care whether that is a friend or a licensed counselor. There is no WE without ME.

How can we be praying for you in this way? Please reach out to us or someone closer who can help you to get back on track and add more value to your marriage by caring for yourself.

Building marriages with Date Night In Box!

We were so excited to be gifted our first date box from Date Night In!! Ours was a date night in faith box too! It is so fabulous when people recognize the beauty of marriage and encouraging that union and that is exactly what this box did for us!

*This blogpost contains information from our affiliate sponsor and prize eligibility*

The box topic was FOUNDATION. It came with straws, candy lego blocks, jelly bellies, sticky popsicle sticks and instructions. We had three projects to complete together. We also had an amazing pre-prepared playlist to listen to as we worked together. Our favorite song was Winter Wonderland by Earth, Wind and Fire!

Project #1 - Build a candle-holder from the popsicle sticks provided and place the candle in it.

Project #2 - Build a foundation or structure to support the box that the date came in.

Project #3 - Build a tower to support one jellybelly on top and then place it on top.

This was no easy feat for us! First of all it was madly tempting to eat all the candy before we could get pictures of our constructed work. Secondly, it was just plain difficult. Our patience was tried, but we had so much fun putting it all together.

Each popsicle had a foundational truth about our marriage. We had to describe what we are building our marriage on. That part actually came easiest to us. You can see some of our words in the pictures. We did not end up using all of the sticks, but we finally had a working structure and put our candle inside.

The next two projects had to get our box at least two inches off the table. Maurice used our "bricks" for height while I constructed a platform from the jellybellies and toothpicks. "Somebody ate all the rest of the at this point, lol.

We stacked our box on top of the bricks once our foundation was complete. That phase was done. It reminds me of how marriage is a constant build. You think you are done, but there is always another test, trial, process or mountain to climb!

The very last part was to use the straws to construct a stand for the last jellybelly and to place it on top. We thought that this would be the very hardest part of our build, but it took less than 5 minutes. We used the tape provided in our box to put three straws together (guess what they represented to us?) and then our jellybelly happily sat on top!! Voila!

The foundation of any marriage is important! What you use to build with, then, is paramount (pun totally intended!). Ours is built on Christ and we elevate Him each other and all else!

YOU can get these date boxes from Date Night In Box here! With Valentine's Day right around the corner, it is a good time to order yours now! You can select a regular date night in box or a date night in faith box as we did!

Better yet, you can WIN a #DateNightInBox from us!! We will pick a winner in time for Valentine's Day from all those who 1) Subscribe and 2) Leave a comment sharing with us what YOUR relationship is built on!