Life was getting busy, and I was no longer listening to Dave’s radio show. We survived the disaster, so the remaining debt didn’t feel like it hurt anymore. We didn’t feel the urgency to pay off everything since we were able to make all the payments and the situation around health struggles, pregnancy, and job loss that we just went through was extreme, the perfect storm, what were the odds of it happening again. The interest rates on our remaining cards were high, so we moved them to a debt consolidation company that helped negotiate lower interest rates. This gave us a lower payment and made life all the easier.
Our jobs were going well, and we were both getting pay raises. I was starting to work around a lot of people who had college degrees and felt like college was the way to go. I started taking classes at the local community college down the street from where we lived. Since the school offered student loans it seemed like that was just what you did, and I didn’t have to start paying on them until after I graduated. This was great, because a degree would mean more money. I only attended for a couple of years and never finished anything. Just added on some more student loans.
After a year and a half of apartment living, we felt ready to buy another home. We had zero down financing, same as the first house. Shortly after moving in, we had more pregnancy struggles but this time we at least had short-term disability insurance. A couple of years after moving in we welcomed home our daughter. So now we had two kids in daycare. We paid $210 a week for childcare. I hated sending my kids to daycare, but we felt it was our only option since we never set ourselves up correctly for me to be a stay-at-home mom. During this time, we still had the remaining credit card and student loans from before. We paid off the debt consolidation credit cards with a personal loan. Then we opened new credit cards. I was good at making sure all the bills got paid, but we were just digging a bigger whole. We did pay off our car, but the credit cards were a problem that just kept growing.
We felt that we needed to move again, but our house was upside down. This was in 2009 after the housing market crashed. We actually had to come to the closing with a check to pay off the difference. But thanks to zero down loans we were able to buy another home right away. Things continued to go well. Our kids were growing, and they were a load of fun. Our debt was growing too. We realized that the chance of us being able to pay off all of our outstanding debt was slim. We thought back to Dave Ramsey but didn’t think that we made enough money to tackle this monster of a mess. So, we filed for bankruptcy. It was a long painful process, that we agreed never to repeat. We had 73k in credit cards and personal loans and 2k in medical debts that were included. After it was all over, we just had our home and a 7k student loan. Both of our cars were paid and together they were only worth about 10k.
Interestingly enough, after bankruptcy they require you to take a debt education course. You get to choose which one you want from a list, and we chose Dave Ramsey. We already knew his plan and we really liked the advice he had to give. We listened to the virtual course and completed the requirement of our bankruptcy. We liked Dave’s advice but thought it wasn’t necessarily the only way, so we took bits and pieces of what he taught and made improvements to how we were living but we did not join the Dave Ramsey fan club.
The next year my husband had an accident at work and needed surgery and lots of rehab. Since it was a workman’s comp case, they paid for everything. After it was settled out of court, we got a small settlement check which we decided to pay off my student loans. We had not acquired any new debt since the bankruptcy and felt that we were heading in the right direction. After we were debt free except our house, we decided that I would stay home with our children and homeschool them. They had just turned 6 & 3. We sold one of our cars to keep expenses down and had to budget carefully but we made it work. I loved every minute of staying home with my kids and wouldn’t trade that year for anything. The debt free feeling was amazing.