It’s one thing to start the journey to debt freedom as an individual, but tackling your debt as a couple means working as a team. Like most things in marriage, showing up debt as a united front is the key to making the journey smooth.
Sometimes this can be hard, and other times it’s a unanimous decision, and either way, we love sitting down with smart money couples to talk about how they manage marriage, family, and finances.
On today’s episode of The His & Her Money Show, we’re joined by Caleb and Rachel Mathias from Lancaster, Pennsylvania to talk about their debt-free journey, and how they destroyed $45,000 of debt in just 16 months!
This is an amazing feat, but coming so fresh into their marriage, it wasn’t always an easy one. But once they got off the ground, Caleb and Rachel were focused and determined to reach their goals, and now they’re living completely debt-free!
Caleb and Rachel started their marriage off with approximately $45,000 of debt between them – mostly student loans, car loans, and consumer credit card debt. It was nothing they couldn’t handle. But they both had great-paying jobs and weren’t living extravagantly, so…why were they dipping into their savings to pay the bills?
That was the turning point where they decided to take a good look at their finances, find out where their money was really going, and get serious about eliminating their debt and paving the road towards financial freedom.
Once you start to see the numbers change, everything will change.
Luckily, Caleb and Rachel already had friends from church with the budgeting itch, and together they started to take their debt-free journey seriously. It didn’t come without sacrifices, though. The cracked down hard on a budget and cut their costs down to as little as possible, and Caleb – a middle school technology education teacher – took jobs during the summer for extra income.
They’re even still living in the small apartment Rachel had before they got married! It’s all worth it, though – now they know exactly where their money is, where it’s going, and what they can do with it!
What You Will Learn
- Making goals and sticking to them
- Creating and maintaining roles in a marriage
- How finances can put a strain on your marriage, and how to avoid it
- Avoiding outside influence that could be detrimental to your debt-free journey
- The importance of budgeting to reach your financial goals
Resources Mentioned
- The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey
- Alexander, Who Used To Be Rich Last Sunday by Judith Viorst
Thanks For Listening!
Thanks for tuning into the His & Her Money Show. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for The His & Her Money Show on iTunes! Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show and we do read each and every one of them.
Today’s show was sponsored by Teach Me How To Budget. If you are ready to gain freedom in your finances once and for all then enroll in our brand new personal finance course Teach Me How To Budget.
