Over the past year we have been pretty lax in our budget. It's just been one of those crazy times - we were moving, switching up jobs, learning to be parents, walking through loss, celebrating our growing family - it has been easy to push our financial goals to the back burner. After paying off $45k of debt in the first three years of marriage, we turned around in year four and bought a new house, a new vehicle to fit our growing family and also splurged on a few too many renovation projects. I would still say that we were "reasonable" in all of those purchase categories, but when you don't have money to spend I guess $1 might as well be $1000 because it's still not your money. With a new baby coming in just a few short weeks, we have decided that it's about time to buckle down and gain back the momentum we had going on our baby steps.
I'm definitely the nerd in our marriage as Dave Ramsey would say it, and pregnancy has given me a lot of open hours when no one else is awake, so I have spent a considerable amount of time planning out our baby steps. It's a different animal this time around, because we are now a one-income family with two babies as opposed to a two-income family with one baby. We definitely have our challenges cut out for us in the time ahead, but I was pretty shocked to find out that on a really strict budget we could potentially make it through the first five Baby Steps in under 18 months. It's going to take a lot of planning, several side jobs, and ALL OF THE SELF DISCIPLINE THE WORLD CAN OFFER, but it is doable...on paper anyway. I'm not dumb enough to assume that nothing will happen in the next 18 months that we aren't planning for, but still I'm excited to see how close we can get to that 18-month mark. I love a good challenge...and this will be the mother of all challenges.
We have currently completed Baby Step 1 - save a $1000 emergency reserve as well as Baby Step 2 - pay off all debt except for your house, and half of Baby Step 3 - save a 3-6 month emergency reserve; however, with the new vehicle and a couple house projects on credit cards we are sliding back to Baby Step 2. Our goal is to complete Baby Step 2 by May 2018! This time around I really want to focus on disciplining my spending. Anyone can pay off debt, but I think it takes a lot more work to learn how to live outside of that cycle.
I am going to attempt to write weekly updates on our journey through the Baby Steps. I know it's really encouraging for me to read about other people's progress, so I hope I can be encouraging to someone else as well. A life of financial freedom is possible, and we are excited to make it happen for our family! I would love to hear any suggestions, ideas, and success stories, so comment away! You can get blog updates by following me on Instagram or by following Three Fergs on Bloglovin . Thanks for reading!
XO
Maxie
