OUR DEBT FREE JOURNEY MONTH 12

This article may include partner links. If you click, visit or buy from these links, we will receive a fee or products from the companies mentioned in this post. Please read our disclosure policy for more details.

It’s our first debt-free update of 2018; we skipped months 10 in December and 11 in January since we paused, felt burnt out but also celebrated our 25^th wedding anniversary by traveling, and in January was just sick a lot.

We're now back and re-energized to get going this 2018.

WOW. It’s been a year since we started this journey. It’s been quite a ride. Looking back on our whirlwind year, the plusses definitely outweighed the minuses.

The past year we realized:

We were broke and we needed to STOP what we were doing to not be ‘BROKER’ 🙂
Get a plan going to dig out of our financial mess
We’re not alone in the journey
There are lots of ways to financial freedom and there’s no one tailored way
We just have to GET ON WITH IT

As you can see, we've been paying down our debts and making sure we make a dent in our overall progress.

I managed to get a side gig which paid $700 last month and that helped bring down our credit card debts to just $11,795. We budget a total of $2,565 towards our total debts and the extra income we make gets allocated to our credit card payments.

We also managed to keep our food and entertainment expenses in check by streaming movies instead of visiting the theater and eating leftovers as often as possible 🙂

We're pretty happy with what we've done and plan on doing better in the coming months.

One of my goals is to read at least 2 books a month, but last month I fell short (again); I managed to read one, but it was a good one; Unshakeable: Your Financial Freedom Playbook, by Tony Robbins.

This was a great read especially after I read The Bogleheads Guide to Investing and compared to this one, Unshakeable’ s practical and matter-of-fact tone is easier to digest for ordinary folks like myself.

It basically lays out the minefields to avoid on your way to financial freedom and also unmasking the dirty secrets of 401K plans, that is, excessive fees that cut into long-term earnings.

It also does a good job of normalizing market corrections as very common occurrences, that unfortunately, mainstream media sensationalizes to sow mania and fear. By providing a contrarian way of looking at these ‘corrections’ as normal, it encourages the readers to look at these financial blips as great ‘opportunities’ to get ahead.

I highly recommend this book for folks like myself who are starting out learning the financial 'game' , and also highly encourage those who currently have retirement plans and don't know how much they're being charged by the plan holders, to read up and get a second opinion on how to reduce fees on these plans to maximize future returns on their investments, while there's still time.

It was a very trying year but also a fruitful one. We managed to pay down a whopping $13,473 of total debts. We feel we've gone a long way but acknowledge that the journey ahead of us will still be full of ups and downs, luckily, we are united in our purpose as a family to be debt free whatever and however long it takes.

All we have to do is improve on our budget and keep on being consistent.

We're amazed at what we've accomplished so far as little baby steps and hope to continue marching in the right direction until we get to our destination... that of being 'DEBT FREEEE'.

Do you have a similar debt situation that you’re trying to overcome? Any strategies you want to share? Please send us feedback below and if you like to join our journey, please subscribe via the form below.

Thank you All for sticking with us and encouraging us this past year, and until the next post.

Peace and Blessing to you All.