Are you buried in debt feeling there’s no way out? Are your dreams being limited because of your finances? Teamwork makes the dream work.
You’re not alone.
There are millions of Americans in debt and struggling to find their way out. But honestly, you don’t have to be one of them. There is a way out.
Today we have an amazing guest post from one of our course members, Linsdey, who used flipping used items to pay off $75K in 18 months while homeschooling their kids (they have 7!)
Through teamwork and perseverance, they are on their way to living out their best life!
Dreaming Big
I like to dream. And when I do dream, I tend to dream big. I had ideas of what I wanted to do in life and wanted to try to figure out how to reach those goals. Over the last few years, my husband and I felt our dreams were being limited due to one big problem. We had a lot of debt.
While raising 7 kids, we were feeling the weight of our debt on our shoulders and we saw our dreams moving farther away rather than within reach.
My husband and I were not thriving, but just surviving. We were living paycheck to paycheck. We knew the answer to it all was getting free from debt, but the question was “how?”
Searching For the Answers
I think the biggest obstacle with paying off debt is just figuring out how to do it When you’ve done something for so long, it’s hard to imagine doing anything different.
But we knew we would never see the reality of our dreams if we didn’t get out of debt.
My husband and I started to research ways in which we could get out from under our debt and enjoy the life God had given us.
Thankfully, we found and read Dave Ramsey’s financial freedom books. This was a real turning point for us. I found Dave’s books provided an easy plan and solution to our debt and we made a decision to jump in to paying off our debt.
We were so impressed by his books that I even taught my kids the Dave Ramsey homeschool course. We wanted to be able to prepare them so that they wouldn’t make the same financial mistakes we had made. I didn’t want the first thing they did in life be to get a credit card and start racking up debt.
While reading Dave Ramsey’s books, things started to make sense. I did a ton of research and note taking. I watched a lot of Youtube videos and made a plan to start paying off our debt.
As our family grew, we wanted to be able to splurge on the “fun stuff” in life. But because of our debt we weren’t able to enjoy those experiences in life and this was not the way we wanted to live.
Together we decided we didn’t want to spend the rest of our lives struggling to reach our goals. We wanted to achieve them while we are still young enough to enjoy it.
Flipping Was A Major Contributor to Financial Success
When I first started with flipping and before we decided to pay off our debt, flipping was just our fun money. We would use it to occasionally eat out, fund our family vacations, and other expenses that would pop up.
But then something happened. We switched gears and got serious about our debt.
We hadn’t even realized that flipping could play a major part in our debt free journey. Instead of viewing our flipping money to fund our fun, we decided that we would throw everything toward our debt!
With that said, we haven’t had “fun money” in a year and a half! We re-directed our flipping money and every penny has gone to throw at our debt. It certainly has been a sacrifice, but that sacrifice feels amazing.
Short term pain equals long term gain
That’s become our family motto!
Thankfully, we are very fortunate that my husband’s income alone covers all of our living expenses and bills. When I first started with eBay, I started flipping used items from garage sales mainly focusing on small items.
In 2020, I expanded to an Amazon FBA business along with eBay. I work both angles of flipping full-time while homeschooling our children and being a foster mom. It has allowed me to use 100% of our flipping income to throw at our debt and to invest in our future.
And guess what? In doing this, we’ve managed to pay off five credit cards, four loans, and a bunch of medical bills that were in collections. To date, we’ve paid off $75,000 in debt. Not only that, we’ve improved our credit score by more than 300 points.
Staying Focused When Tragedy Hit
Once my husband and I got started with our debt payoff, we were hooked! We started seeing lots of small wins leading into big financial wins. We were making progress in our debt payoff and it gave us momentum to keep going.
We started to see our dreams getting closer to us rather than farther away. Over the years, we have continued to improve our situation year after year.
In 2016, I was in a severe car accident. I was t-boned at 55mph and my car flipped 3 times. I didn’t walk for a long while and I think that was the biggest setback to our financial plan.
Unfortunately, with the medical bills, our debt turned into a mountain from there. I really wasn’t sure how we would ever get out of it.
2020 Changed Everything
The turning point was my husband working from home with me for 6 months. It was during this time, it opened our eyes and made us realize how much we wanted our dreams to become a reality.
We came to the conclusion that my husband was working his life away and was not having the time to be an active part of the family. Every week, he was working 60-70 hours and it was exhausting.
For those six months of Covid working from home, he started to feel present in our daily lives.
We both decided we wanted to bring him home too. I didn’t want him to miss out on our kids growing up.
We want to both run the flipping business full time and to eventually own a few AirBNB houses. We homeschool and want to be able to travel and not be tied down by a “job”.
3 Tips That Helped Us Stay the Course
- Removed credit cards from our wallet
- We live below our means
- We always cook at home
Other than the business credit card I have for purchasing items for my business, all of our other credit cards have been removed from our wallets. We keep them stored away so that we can’t be tempted to use them. This has helped us tremendously.
We both decided that if we want something or need something, we save for it and pay cash. End of story. This is something we are trying to teach our older children as well, who are now saving money for their first cars.
We also have made a decision to live below our means. We don’t live paycheck to paycheck anymore. Cutting expenses from a bare minimum budget is not easy, but it is necessary. Getting in the habit of spending a lot less than we make has paid off on our journey to being debt free.
Cooking and eating at home is a big money saver. With a big family like ours, it is expensive to eat out. So we’ve made it a habit to stay at home and eat as a family. It’s saved us a lot of money and is healthier as well. It’s given us a lot more money in our budget to throw towards our debt.
Not Allowing Setbacks to Derail Our Dreams
I’ve heard the saying: Life is 10% of what happens to you, and 90% how you react to it. This is so true.
Honestly, we were in debt because “life happened”. Our biggest challenge during all of this was that while we were trying to get out of debt … life just kept happening.
We would have liked there to be no obstacles, but all during our journey to pay off our debt, we had setbacks. My husband got flats and we had to replace all four tires. Our AC went out and we had to redo the HVAC system. Our son got into a car wreck. We had unexpected extra bills and expenses etc.
Life continued to happen but we just continued to re-focus and adjust. We weren’t going to allow setbacks to derail our dreams of being debt free. So, we just stayed in the game.
As life continued to happen to us, we just had to take the journey day by day. When there was a setback, it was time to look at the books and refocus. We learned to adjust things, re-evaluate the finances, and our strategy. As kept our dream of being debt free in the forefront and continued to stay in the game, even when things got tough.
Team Work Makes the Dream Work
My husband and I read and researched a lot about reducing our debt. We evaluated our personal finances and situation regularly. We re-evaluate our finances and strategies every single month to make sure we are on track.
It’s all about finding what works for you. I am a graphic designer and I love designing printables. My printables, charts and goal sheets are what kept me on track and heading in the right direction.
The bottom line is whatever works for you, you have to put it in place and go with it.
On this journey, we’ve accepted that there are going to be setbacks on the journey. It’s inevitable. Allowing those setbacks to completely sabotage our journey to being debt free was not an option for us.
If you are just starting or you’ve been on the journey to being debt free for a while, you have to re-evaluate and keep pushing forward. If you are married, utilize each other’s strengths.
My husband and I both know he’s terrible with finances. So together we made the decision that I was 100% in charge of organizing the finances. We both agree we would not be where we are if he was taking that role. It works for us, and we both respect each other’s strengths.
If you or your spouse are more prone to spending and one that is more thrifty and prone to saving, step back and let the thrifty one take the lead. Our marriage is give and take and absolutely a team effort. But, we realize each of us has strengths and weaknesses. And that is okay. We still work together and it has worked for us.
Where We are Headed
We are super happy that we have been able to eliminate $75K in debt in a year and a half. This is mostly due to the extra income we have made flipping items. It works great with my schedule and I have unlimited income potential with it.
Although we are not quite debt free, we are on track to be completely debt free in six months! We could not be happier with what we have been able to accomplish. Today our dreams do not seem so far away. In fact they are getting closer and closer the more debt we eliminate.
If you have a dream to get out of debt, make a plan with your spouse and tackle it together. Wherever you are, it’s never too late. With some focus and planning, you can reach debt free status and you can dream big and reach your goals.
Nothing gets me more jazzed than to see people deep in debt work together and dig themselves out of it to find freedom. I love every aspect of flipping, but one of the best benefits of flipping is the unlimited income potential
We’ve been able to witness so many people break free from debt and it is amazing. Thanks for sharing your story with us, Lindsey. We can’t wait to see what happens over the next 6 months.
Check out our free intro flipping webinar to see if flipping could be for you!
FURTHER RESOURCES
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