Age 38 – 40
Here is the last installment of my series detailing our financial journey. Parts one and two can be found here and here, respectively.
We put our house on the market on a Thursday, had an open house the following Saturday, 4 offers by Monday evening, accepted an offer on Tuesday, and on Wednesday morning we were on a plane to Washington D.C. for 10 days. It was a whirlwind for sure!
Our house sold very quickly and for over the asking price. Now, we had to find a new place to live, which was beyond stressful. We were very picky and wanted to buy our forever home the second time around. We didn’t want to buy a house that didn’t fit our needs and that we would have to leave in a few years.
We had several MUST HAVES and many WOULD LIKES on our new home wish list.
MUST HAVES
One story
Quiet street
2 Bathrooms
Decent sized Yard
Fireplace
Soaking bathtub in the Master
Attached Garage
Space for computer in the common area
WOULD LIKES
Christmas Tree window
Open Concept Living
Pool
Updated Electrical and Plumbing
Pantry
Bookshelf in the kitchen for cookbooks
Eat-in kitchen
Surprisingly, after months of searching, we finally found the perfect home for us. It ticked every box in every category we had, and then some! But it came at a price.
In the purchase of our second home, again we did not buy above our means, but it was expensive. Now we had to pay our new and increased mortgage and pay increased bills to go along with our shiny new house. All this was on top of the $13,000 worth of credit card debt we had racked up during our kitchen remodel for the old house. Even with all these new bills, we never changed our lifestyle. We continued to buy whatever we wanted and put it on the credit card.
During this time, our credit card ballooned to $21,600. We just kept charging and burying our heads in the sand.
Although we were in heavy debt, we weren’t exactly living paycheck to paycheck during this time. We do (and did) have some money in the bank and we are contributing to our retirement. We don’t have nearly as large as an emergency fund as we would like, but we have about 2 months’ worth of expenses in the bank if something were to happen. Additionally, we are diligently adding to our retirement. As a teacher, I have a mandatory 10% of my paycheck taken out for retirement and I contribute another 6% above that to a 403b (however, starting next month, I plan to up my percentage an additional 5% so I will be putting 11% into my 403b on top of the 10% put into my CALSTRS account). The Husband is contributing 13% a month to his retirement and he has a 3% match from his employer. On top of that, his employer gives 6% profit sharing every year. Next year we are hoping to max out The Husband’s retirement and then will work to max out mine. We are not quite there yet as we have credit card debt we need to get rid of.
You know most of our current stats. We are trying to get out of debt. In the past, we relied on 401Ks or pensions we cashed out to pay off debt. Now, we are digging ourselves out of debt one spoonful at a time. Currently we have about $18,000 of consumer debt, of which, $16,000 is on our credit card.
Over the past year, that’s a decrease of over $5000. It’s not as much as we’d like, but it’s progress. And it’s progress that we’ve made by paying down our debt and budgeting and by working hard.
That’s it. That’s where we are and where we’ve been financially. Hopefully we are heading to debt freedom!
This was a great post to write because it has been so reflective. It made me revisit our mistakes and celebrate our successes. It made me take stock of where we are and helped me to focus on where we want to go.
This is our financial journey. It doesn’t end here, we have a long way to go, but it has been an interesting trip down memory lane.
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