From the time my son was three, I’ve been a big Dave Ramsey fan. When my youngest children were young (two under two), I quit my job to stay home with our three kids. We decided to get gazelle intense with our debt. Since my husband was working part-time and attending graduate school, that meant I had to work from home. Work I did. I worked a lot, and I compromised my health.
While we reduced our debt a lot, we never got debt free.
Then we had a cross-country move.
We also had significant medical bills this last year when one of our children had a medical crisis, the treatments of which were not all covered by insurance.
Our income, while more than it was years ago when I was gazelle intense, has never really grown much.
My husband and I were talking about finances recently, and I mentioned that I’d like to get gazelle intense again.
But, my husband, not so much.
He sees our children growing up, and he doesn’t want to work, work, work trying to pay off debt. Instead, he wants to spend more time with the kids, take vacations with them, and just enjoy them before they fly the nest. As fast as time is going, that will be all too soon.
Turns out, my husband is not alone in this sentiment.
Recently, I stumbled upon a Daily Worth article where the author’s husband felt exactly as mine did. He didn’t want to spend all of his time working and penny pinching, not enjoying life, in the hopes that he would one day be debt free. The author writes of her husband, “He didn’t want to wait another five years to take our first family vacation. He didn’t want to give up a decade of our lives in order to live my extreme version of the American dream. He wanted a house in a better neighborhood that was actually big enough for our family. He wanted to spend some of the money he had worked so hard for. He was done.”
So, too, is my husband.
That doesn’t mean we’re going to go crazy spending. What it does mean is that we will save money to take a vacation with our kids. (The only vacations we’ve ever had were when we took the kids along when my husband attended conferences. I took the kids to see fun things while my husband worked—not exactly a family vacation.)
We’ll finally start putting money in the kids’ college funds, and we’ll also start funding our Roth IRAs. (We didn’t want to do these two things until we became debt free.)
My husband is expecting a substantial raise soon, and we will use some of that money to pay down debts, but we’ll also use some of that money to enjoy now. After all, you’re never guaranteed tomorrow. . .or retirement.
If you’re in debt, is your goal still to be 100% debt free, or are you choosing to live and enjoy your life now while paying down debt?
Melissa is a writer and virtual assistant. She earned her Master’s from Southern Illinois University, and her Bachelor’s in English from the University of Michigan. When she’s not working, you can find her homeschooling her kids, reading a good book, or cooking. She resides in New York, where she loves the natural beauty of the area.
I just went through kind of the same thing. Our mortgage was setup so that we would have it paid off before our kids start college, which is in 2027. I was really proud of that goal, but the problem is that the payment left us very little cash flow. Eventually I started to realize that having the opportunity to enjoy things now needs to be factored in, and we ended up refinancing. Same as you, we’re not going hog wild. In fact we’ll probably end up making the same monthly payment we were before during some months. But having that option to do things to experience things now or take care of things without worry as they come up is important and fulfilling.
Money Beagle–yes, as your kids start to grow, you realize the time that you have with them all together under your roof is fleeting. Making memories and sharing experiences together is so important!
I also think that it is very hard when we are in debt. I think that when we are practical and handle our finances well, like we do budgeting we’ll definitely be able to get out of debt. Thanks for sharing this article.