After high school I figured there was no way for me to attend college without going to the military… At 17 years old I wasn’t ready to commit 5 years of my life, I didn’t even know where I wanted to be in my life in 5 years!
After completing 3 degrees and entering the job market in December of 2011 with $57,000 in student loans (most of which were acquired in graduate school). I started to feel this sense of unease as the end of the 6 month grace period was approaching and I was still unable to find employment.
Fast forward:
August 2017, I’ve purchased a home and more recently a 2016 VW Jetta to replace my island beater. As I stated in my prior blog post titled GERONIMO, I was hesitant to purchase this vehicle.
But let’s be honest… having a car that was 15 years old just wasn’t cutting it anymore. As I was looking at my options on whether I wanted to repair my vehicle or purchase a new… I started taking a hard look at my finances. I immediately felt this sense of dread just thinking about it, partly because I knew that I had gotten away from preparing meals and so on.
It’s amazing sometimes how the Universe, God… or whatever else you might call it has a way of bringing things into your life. I can’t remember how I heard of Anna Newell Jones’ recently published book, but I went to Amazon and purchased the book.
I know purchasing a book about Debt-Free living while in debt and makes a ton of sense! After reading a few posts on her blog AndThenWeSaved.com, I didn’t feel like I had to purchase her book, but I felt that it could work for me. (Partly because I have been experimenting with fasting for health benefits)
At first, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to commit to a spending fast… I was paying my debt off and also investing money, the bulk of my student loans are at 6.8% APR, which is many cases is more money than I would make while investing. I decided that to commit to embarking on a spending fast. The funny thing about that… day two of the fast and my can opener breaks as I’m meal prepping a huge pot of soup! I simply had to laugh and YES! purchased a new one.
Honestly and other misadventures
My number priority in preparing for the spending fast was to be completely honest with myself about my spending habits. Has anyone has ever done a budget? I am not a person to model when it some to staying on budget, they are a pain in the ass! I never expected to see myself spending $750 a month of food (averaged over 4 months), for ONE person, yes just me! (Not including my cats, they eat a lot too).
Most of my spending was not prepping meals to bring to work or just simply being lazy and going out to eat multiple nights a week. Quite frankly, if I meal prep I can easily get that figure to the $250 range and still eat very good. Long story short, the reverse budget was a game changer for me because it exposed some habits that I had developed over the last year and a half. And as any other good 12-step program, the “first step is admitting you have a problem,” and on babystepstowardgreatness.com we are all about making even the smallest changes to become a better version of ourselves.
Savings?
Implementing a meal prep habit again and freeing up $500 makes a HUGE difference, how much of one!? 44 months more of payments at $700, if I stay on the same track that is how much… not to mention how much I lose by not investing that money into the market. Looking at it from that perspective the choice was clear that something had to change and that something was ME!
By going on the spending fast I am minimizing my current living expenses for the long-term gain. How extreme will I go on it, I’m not sure… All I know is that I definitely plan to see Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
I am still working on my timeline, but I am committing to one year on the spending fast. When I say that I want to live a “debt-free” life, I mean owing only money on my mortgage and my car, because both interests rates are lower than my student loan APR and moreover I can earn more money by investing in the long run than paying off the house!
There will be more to come later this week such as wants vs needs, creating a debt-hit list and many more topics! What are topics you would like to see as we take baby steps towards greatness?