Chapter 9

JOY FOR THE JOURNEY: A BENEDICTION

Eucharisteo —thanksgiving —always precedes the miracle.

ANN VOSKAMP

I ARRIVED HOME to find a big white trash bag slumped on my front step —filled with hand-me-downs for the Princess Youngest, I assumed. A new friend I barely knew had mentioned she was going to drop a few things off at our home. Her Facebook message mentioned there were some items she had cleaned out of her own closet too.

We were so close to the end of our debt-slaying journey, I could taste it. Yet the final payment loomed off in what seemed to be the untouchable future. We had paid off over $125K in debt. I knew it was a miracle to have come this far. But in the last two months, I had struggled with discouragement, bitterness, and even disbelief that we would ever truly slay the debt dragon. Looking back, it seems absolutely ridiculous, but in the midst of the situation, my feelings were very real. In some ways, the last sixty days were more difficult than the previous 1,396.

I tore into the bag and began sorting through what I thought would fit our daughter and what was too big. When someone gives your child hand-me-downs, it’s a blessing. When someone gives you hand-me-downs, it can feel insulting. However, my clothes were absolutely shabby by the end of our journey. It was rare that I purchased anything for myself. I could get by with yoga pants and stained T-shirts most days, even though they were beginning to wear thin. I longed to buy just a new item or two for the spring season —something that didn’t have holes in it.

My fingers ran over the clothing she had included for me —beautiful brand-name items with the tags still attached, in styles and colors I loved. Each fit perfectly. Tears filled my eyes as I realized God was saying, “I’m still here. I still care about you. Even in the smallest of things, in the simplest of ways, I provide.” My thoughts rushed headlong to Jesus’ words to His disciples in Matthew 6:28-30:

Why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith? (NLT)

Certainly, my faith had grown during our four-year journey, and yet I had once again fallen into the trap of thinking that God didn’t care about the small details of my life. In His grand generosity, He hadn’t shamed me or condemned me for my lack of faith. Instead, God had shown up inside of a bulging trash bag of hand-me-downs. Someone else’s cast-off clothing displayed His glory in the quietest of ways.

As I sat on the floor of my bedroom, I wept and whispered words of choked-up gratitude. I’m not sure if my friend had any idea how deeply my soul had been struggling with lack —of clothes, of faith, of encouragement. Perhaps she was thankful to lighten her own load and clear away clutter. Maybe God had nudged her that day and she had no idea why. She’s never dropped off a bag of hand-me-downs at our house again. Yet her simple act of obedience did more than she’ll probably ever know.

Even when your faith is small, God’s love is enormous.

{Callout 9.1}

Slaying the debt dragon brings wearisome fatigue. You wonder if the battle will ever end. Your heart yearns for freedom while your finances remain indefinitely chained. Open your eyes to see where God wants to remind you that He cares for the smallest of details. He tends to the tiniest of needs. Even when your faith is small, His love is enormous.

As I carted the contents of the white trash bag to the laundry room, I realized that God had shown up and my physical needs had been met that day. The deep longing of my heart to draw closer to the Creator had been eased too.

We’re Having a Party and You’re All Invited

While working toward any worthwhile, soul-stretching goal, our emotions inevitably oscillate between incredible highs and lows. Although I battled discouragement —along with debt —on some days, at other times I soared on the knowledge that my family was on the path toward true freedom.

About two years into our journey, I was sharing our story with a MOPS group[53] on a rainy Wednesday morning when I impulsively invited this group of strangers to my house for a party once our family had paid off all our debt.

Inviting thirty women I didn’t really know to a party that wasn’t even on my calendar to celebrate a goal I hadn’t yet reached might not have been my best social move ever. I’m sure Emily Post would have disapproved of my timing.

But in the day in, day out struggles to pay off over $127K, Brian and I needed something to fix our eyes upon. We needed a goal out in the distance, something we could see faintly, as if through the fog. We needed hope to supply joy for the downright drudgery that telling ourselves no over and over again could bring. So we decided to throw a debt-free party after the final installment on our Sallie Mae loan was paid.

Feasts, parties, and banquets are sprinkled throughout the Bible. From the wedding where Jesus turned water into wine to the giant “camping party” that was the Feast of Tabernacles, our God delights in throwing a smashing party with a purpose. He shows up at the table, ready to delight with us. How amazing is that? Not only does He long for a relationship with His people, He desires for us to join in the divine extravaganza that He’s throwing, all expenses paid. Heaven itself is described as a banquet feast. And in spite of my fundamentalist upbringing, I just know there will be dancing in heaven.

Our inspiration for throwing a debt-free party came from a parable that Jesus told in Luke 15:8-10:

Suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, “Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.” In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. (NIV)

Deep in our hearts, Brian and I longed to celebrate what we had found. What had been lost for us hadn’t necessarily been money, even though God helped us “find” $127K to pay off our debt over four years. What we had lost was so much more.

Living day to day, paying bill after bill, our lives had been locked into a boring status quo existence. There was little space for God’s wonder, little room to notice His quest to free our souls. We were too busy looking at our feet to cast our glance upward and even acknowledge His daily glorious presence. We would still be in that same place, chained and tethered by debt, without His grace.

On the white bookshelf of the cotton-candy-pink bedroom of the Princess Youngest is a children’s book I have read over and over again to both our girls. It’s Not Funny, I’ve Lost My Money! retells this very parable in a sing-song form. The cartoon widow searches all through her home, retraces her steps from the day before, and employs a number of other search tactics. We giggle each time she exclaims, “It’s not funny, I’ve lost my money!” Finally the widow lights a lamp, sweeps with all her might, and spies a tiny glimmer from the coin in the corner of her home. Overwhelmed with gratitude, she calls together everyone she knows and throws the party of the century.[54]

Certainly we identified with both the coin and the widow at different points in our journey. As we considered God’s work in our lives before our debt-slaying journey began, we saw that He had never stopped searching for us, trying to draw us into the warmth of His searchlight so we would place our identity and security in Him. He never gave up the challenge of clearing us out of our cozy corner of indifference. He kept looking, kept lighting lamps to illuminate our path. Once we caught His vision for our finances, we applied that same spirit of perseverance to paying off debt.

Being discovered by God for His purposes in the midst of our own story was humbling and terrifying. Light streaming in on our soul felt warm and safe while also raw and humiliating. We had made so many mistakes. Cue the stark spotlight on our financial idiocy. God still had a plan for our finances, and He never gave up on us.

While I related to the coin in the parable, I also felt a connection with the treasure-seeking widow. As I shared our story with more groups and we inched closer to our goal, I wanted to jump up and down, waving my arms and cheering, “Hey! I found something of outrageous value. I want to share it with you! I want to bless you because of what was found in our story. C’mon! You don’t want to miss it!”

But let’s not overlook the most important point of this parable. Jesus didn’t come to earth to straighten out our finances. The most jaw-dropping sentence in this parable is this: “I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” If you remember nothing else in this book, if none of the financial or frugal tips stay with you, please don’t miss this essential, eternal truth: God is the only source of true freedom in your life. Saving money, paying off debt, and balancing the books might all bring temporary satisfaction and might even clear the confusion in your life. But they will never eliminate the chaos in your soul.[55]

God is the only source of true freedom in your life.

{Callout 9.2}

D-Free Day

Wednesday, March 28, 2012, was a good day; no, a very good day —though it didn’t start differently from any other. A friend and I had jogged three and a half miles to Panera, where she treated me to lunch. When I got back home, it was time to tackle the stack of dirty dishes and the pile of laundry.

After folding clothes late that afternoon, I was sitting at the keyboard cranking out a blog post when Brian came home. After greeting me, he tossed a Meijer bag in my direction. Opening it, I found a package of undies. Don’t think ooh-la-la; think basic Hanes six-pack. Let’s just say the towels weren’t the only thing in our house that were beginning to wear out. (Remember my excitement at the contents of that white trash bag?) I giggled anyway, knowing he had bought them because he knows I’m not good at spending money on myself, even in those days when I needed something.

I figured Brian was just encouraging me because I’d been battling doubt, anger, and fear over the past few weeks and we were still a month or so away from the finish line. But then he handed me a deposit slip. It showed that he had just deposited more than twice as much as we needed to pay off our final Sallie Mae installment. Turns out, a bonus had come in earlier than expected.

I stood up, fell into Brian’s arms, and wept. It was hard to believe it was almost over. Four years of struggle —of scrimping every dime, of saying no dozens of times to others and ourselves, of endless number crunching, of feeling in bondage to debt that literally owned us. Everything was soon to change.

Like the woman who found the lost coin, we knew we wanted to share our news with our family and friends. So we quickly cleaned the area of our kitchen where we could shoot a video announcing the official slaying of our debt dragon. (We didn’t care that the rest of the kitchen was a wreck.) After telling our girls the good news and asking a friend to come over to take the video and some photos, Brian and I sat at our kitchen table and logged into our Sallie Mae account. Our friend recorded Brian and me as we made our final payment.

We capped off the night by going out for dinner at Texas Roadhouse, the restaurant our girls picked.[56] (Their choice was awesome because I had coupons good for two free kids’ meals. Old habits die hard!)

The next day we posted the video on YouTube, calling it “A Royal Announcement,” as a surprise for our friends, family, and blog readers. We had reached our goal about thirty days before we originally anticipated —three days before we hit the four-year anniversary of launching our battle against debt —and we were still in a state of shock.

A few weeks later, we traveled to Nashville, where we’d arranged to scream “We’re debt-free!” live from Dave Ramsey’s studios after he’d asked us a few questions on-air about our debt-slaying journey.[57] Once we were home, we immediately launched into debt-free party planning. We knew we wanted good music. We knew we wanted good food. We knew we wanted to celebrate with anyone who had encouraged us on our journey, whether we knew them or not. We knew we wanted to give away good gifts, things that had helped us so much —from the homemade cleaning products I mentioned in chapter 6 to books that had inspired us and more. We knew we wanted a record of who was there.

In mid-May, we hosted our party. Attendees drove from up to three hours away to be with us. We served fried chicken, and everyone brought a dish to share. In lieu of gifts, we had asked our party attendees to bring any loose change they could find in their cars and homes. Together we collected $100 to donate to Blood:Water Mission![58]

After Brian and I did some fun giveaways, a friend performed two songs written in our honor —“Sallie Mae Is Not My Lender,” sung to the tune of “Billie Jean,” and “The Grocery” (a tribute to my coupon binder) to the tune of Matthew West’s “The Motions.”[59]

My favorite remembrance from that day now hangs over the love seat in our living room. It’s a four-foot-by-two-foot green canvas shaped like a dollar bill with the word Freedom scrawled across the top. In place of Washington’s face are two crowns with our last name emblazoned beneath them. In the two top corners are the numbers 3 and 12, which represent the month and year we paid our final debt. At the bottom are words from one of our favorite Bible verses, Romans 13:8: “Owe nothing to anyone except love.”

All over the canvas are words of congratulations and encouragement. Each brightly colored Sharpie greeting was penned by a reveler at our debt-free party. My favorite ones were written by children, some accompanied with little hearts and smiley faces. Reading all the scrawled messages was a great way to end the evening. Even today I relax and feel happy just thinking about our celebration because it brought such relief and fulfillment.

I strongly encourage you to set an “endgame” goal for your own debt-slaying journey.

{Callout 9.3}

Even if you’re not the partying type, I strongly encourage you to set an “endgame” goal for your own debt-slaying journey. On the days when you feel at your worst, you can cling to the vision of that experience, knowing that the end will come and it will be epic. Whether you decide on a vacation or a fancy meal or a phone call to someone special, make plans to celebrate what God has done in your story. Be sure it will allow you to express your gratitude to those who have made a difference in your debt-slaying journey. To pause and reflect. To inspire others to take the same journey.

Life after Debt

In many ways, our lives have changed dramatically since paying off $127K in debt. In many ways, they have remained the same. In July 2012, Brian finally broke his restaurant-free streak. After fielding a bracket of sixty-four dining establishments (the majority of them local), we let blog readers vote on where he should eat first. There were four divisions —fancy schmancy, Italimexinese, bovine, and Errbody Else, each with sixteen possible destinations. In the end, 3 Sisters Café won out. The lemon corncakes served with seasonal berries featured on the Food Network’s Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives did not disappoint. However, by the spring of the next year, Brian went on another six-month restaurant fast.

We purchased new pillows and towels. We returned to eating meat and even bumped up the grocery budget by fifteen dollars per week. We started buying toilet paper that’s a little more expensive due to Brian’s decree of “No more prison paper” after we became debt-free. I’ve returned to purchasing paper plates for our household. We went on a real vacation and a couple of short road trips. We purchased a car with cash.

Brian and I give each other gifts now, although they’re still affordable and simple. We have an official budget for dining out and entertainment. I’ve even bought some new clothes, which has been nice but not nearly as exciting as I thought it would be. I discovered I actually love my old sweatshirts and yoga pants.

Most of our money-saving habits remained in place even after we paid off debt. We still use coupons. We still meal plan. We still pay with cash. We still garden. We still bargain. We still abide by the same principles we established to teach our children about money. We still have regular budget meetings. We still spend every Thursday night with our community group. We rarely turn on the TV. Instead of whacking away at the debt dragon, now we’ve built an emergency fund that could cover six months of living expenses for our family. We began pouring extra dollars into saving for retirement and building college funds for the Princesses.

It’s so much more fun to watch savings climb rather than debt reduce. That money actually belongs to you and not someone else.

We’ve loved the ability to give away more of our income as well. We now choose to fully tithe. We also created an account we call the “Generous Fund,” which allows us to occasionally take people out to dinner, buy them books, or serve them in other practical ways. Not long ago, we were able to stock some college students’ refrigerators, which was so fun! We gave away more money in the first year of being debt-free than we had ever given away in all the previous years of our marriage combined.

We’ve started making a concentrated effort toward paying off our mortgage —our new enemy. We owe much less on it than we’ve paid off already, so it doesn’t seem like that far of a distant dream.

Time marches on and life is different. But the experience of paying off debt has marked us in a way that has forever changed our lives. Never again will we borrow. It’s simply not an option. Credit cards and loans are a thing of the past. We left some of our “crazy” sacrifices behind. Others we know are essential for sustained financial success.

God has continued to broaden the platform from which we get to share our story. In December 2012, the Wall Street Journal e-mailed me about our debt-free party. Turns out, googling the term results in seeing my face. By the end of the month, we saw our story shared on a national level, which was so fun and a little bit bizarre. I still regularly blog, encouraging people to save money and slay debt. Also, I now appear weekly on the NBC affiliate in Indianapolis, sharing frugal life hacks and personal finance tips. I write a column for a local newspaper and through God’s grace have had the opportunity to write this book to share our story. Plus, we’ve been blessed to speak with a number of amazing churches and groups, telling about our journey and spreading hope.

Writing Freedom in the Sand

Six months after we announced to the world that we were debt-free, I traced my finger on the ocean shore. In the sand I scratched out seven letters, F-R-E-E-D-O-M, and then I watched as each groove filled with foamy water. Glancing back, I saw my sweet little family and some of our dearest friends building sand castles near the beach house we had rented. I don’t define many moments as perfect, but that sixty-second experience was one for the books.

I skipped around the letters written in the sand, knowing that God always had this plan in mind. To bring us out of bondage and into freedom. To surprise us with twists and turns in our story that we could never have dreamed, asked, or imagined. Salty air filled every square inch of my lungs. After days of struggle, frustration, and tears, I realized that each battle and every sacrifice had been worth it.

I had begun dreaming of standing in this very place four months before we made that last payment to Sallie Mae. I visualized myself standing on the other side of debt, taking a vacation paid for 100 percent with cash and not spent crashing at a friend’s or family member’s house. In my dreams, I could feel the sunshine on my face and hear the crash of the waves.

Now I was standing in that remote destination in North Carolina. I had trolled the Internet for the perfect beachfront house, one with four bedrooms and three baths to accommodate our friends and family. Each bedroom needed to face the ocean. A killer kitchen and a washer and dryer were high priorities. I wanted a home far from traffic and commerce, just a quiet place to gather our joy and watch the waves.

After some intense bargaining (we got a great deal!), narrowly avoiding car-sickness as we drove through West Virginia, and making a highly anticipated stop at a Southern chain known for its biscuits, we spent seven wonderful days inhaling sea air and exhaling words of praise. God had done so much for us.

Our family walked along the beach together holding hands, splashing in the waves. I was overwhelmed by God’s expanse of grace for us all, far greater than the depths of the ocean. I couldn’t help but think of Psalm 36:5-9, a passage that had always meant a lot to Brian and me:

Your unfailing love, O LORD, is as vast as the heavens;

your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds.

Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains,

your justice like the ocean depths.

You care for people and animals alike, O LORD.

How precious is your unfailing love, O God!

All humanity finds shelter

in the shadow of your wings.

You feed them from the abundance of your own house,

letting them drink from your river of delights.

For you are the fountain of life,

the light by which we see. (NLT)

We were overwhelmed by the enormity of God’s unfailing love and care. We had once been in the dark; now He was the light by which we saw.

All that week we paused. We played. We prayed. We savored a moment given to us with some of the people we loved most. Also, I got to eat fresh seafood. For me, our time on the North Carolina shore was a glimpse of heaven on earth.

In the evenings, we left the sliding door open and listened to the waves crash while we did many of the same things that had sustained our souls during those years of paying off debt. We read books. We put together puzzles. We watched silly movies. We played games.

From the moment we shared our story for the very first time, God began rippling it forward in ways that have often left us speechless. From the local newscast to the Wall Street Journal, He began broadcasting what He had done for us and through us.

Even now, when He sends another opportunity to share, we stand in awe, as if we are watching the waves of the ocean. We’re filled with a deep sense of the enormity of His lovingkindness, and gratitude floods our souls. How could it be that such messed-up people get to bear His image and share His story?

Oh, Money-Saving Lords and Ladies, how I wish I could place freedom from debt in a bottle for you, sparkling with beauty just like the sea glass from that very beach that now sits on my bookshelf. But if I could offer you that gift, you would miss the twists and turns, the grace-filled surprises, and the eternal lessons of contentment. After all, our God “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” (Ephesians 3:20, NIV).

You don’t want our debt-slaying journey. It would be a cheap imitation of your own.

Endings Are Better than Beginnings

At her urging, I tell my friend Kayla about the events that led up to our unforgettable vacation. She sits across from me at the coffee shop and delicately sips her hot cocoa, which is still a little too steamy. “I love hearing others’ stories of becoming debt-free. I get so emotional just listening,” she says. “But you see, it’s just so hard to begin. We don’t really have that much debt. You guys could probably pay it off in a weekend. I don’t know why we can’t kick-start our own journey.”

I know that my friend is exactly right. Screaming that you’re debt-free is much more fun than starting after the debt dragon on day one. Debt-free parties, vacations, and celebrations fill us with excitement and joy, even when they aren’t our own. The beginning of a debt-slaying journey, while exciting in many ways, occurs with much less fanfare than the ending. No one offers words of “Atta girl! Atta boy!” “You did it!” “Congratulations!” No one sings songs or signs canvases. No one drives hundreds of miles to see you and share in your joy. Commencing your journey of commitment is certainly one instance in life when these sage words from Ecclesiastes ring true: “The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride” (Ecclesiastes 7:8, NIV).

Beginnings require you to move in a new direction, to reorient your life. Beginnings seek to break old habits and put new patterns in their place. Beginnings are painful. For there to be new life and freedom, something else must die. Beginnings bring grief.

I can’t tell you how many times I have avoided beginning because I know it will hurt. From difficult decisions about jobs to complex conversations about relationships, beginning stinks worse than that sippy cup filled with milk from three weeks ago that you found under the car seat in the middle of July. Beginnings are that bad.

This is old news to you now (assuming you actually read chapter 6), but when the King of Free and I were first married, we weren’t the best at keeping our apartment in tip-top shape. In fact, we once pulled out the bed of our couch in the living room and slept on it instead of clearing off the bed in our bedroom. What’s that you say? Was our bedroom flooded so we weren’t able to sleep there? Did our ceiling cave in and create an enormous mess? No. Our bed and bedroom were simply trashed. It looked like the Rolling Stones had partied there all night. I cannot for the life of me remember what we had been doing, but let me assure you we have always been incredibly boring people. There was no reason for our room to have been such a pit.

Seriously, how lazy do you have to be to avoid just shoving all the dirty laundry and junk onto the floor? It probably took more energy for us to make up the couch in the living room than it would have taken for us to simply clean up our own mess. And let me be frank: the pull-out couch was not comfortable. More than one spring poked up through the three-inch mattress. We knew that. We were avoiding cleaning our room like eight-year-old kids, and it literally ended up physically hurting us both. It was a ridiculous, painful situation of our own making.

Can you see the metaphor I’m drawing here? Even though it’s difficult to begin a debt-slaying journey and you’d probably rather daydream about the endgame, you don’t want to endure another night sleeping on the pull-out couch.

It’s okay to be afraid. It’s okay to feel as if this season is never going to end. It’s okay to feel overwhelmed, frustrated, and confused. Those are your feelings, and you have them for a reason. It’s not okay, though, to wallow in those feelings, doing nothing. In the end, work —hard work —is what pays off debt. Remember, when you are afraid, God is very near, ready to take your hand and do the unthinkable and impossible. Trust Him to battle your feelings of insecurity as you take your first steps toward freedom.

Final Words and a Battle Cry

We’re all tempted to think that our lives are inconsequential. That we’re daily tasked with doing the mundane while more qualified individuals get to have all the fun. Granted, we might not ever get to scale Mount Everest. (Come to think of it, I saw a documentary on that once and it did not look like fun, so count me out.) And we might never hear a stadium of people chanting our names.

Those lies and whispers often intensify.

Such taunts are simply not true. With grace, you have the potential for greatness. You can allow your story to ripple and change the lives of others.

Back to that oversized canvas painted like a dollar bill hanging in our living room. It is an overwhelming symbol of the ripples we make in one another’s lives. Three of the families who signed the canvas are now debt-free themselves. Another is close to paying off their final credit card. One of them invited us to their mortgage-burning party.

Everyone has a story. Everyone’s story ripples. Whose waves are you feeling, and which ones are you sending forth? Proverbs 13:20 says, “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm” (ESV). Please note, this is not saying you will become a fool if you keep company with fools. You will suffer harm. But if you walk with wise people, not only will you avoid such harm, but you will also become wise, just like them.

Dragons can be beaten. You have more strength (God’s power) than you realize, less debt than you think, and everything it takes to kick that debt dragon in the teeth and to eventually boot it out the door. You’re fighting not just for bottom lines and account balances, but for your marriage, your children, your friends, your family, and your very soul.

It’s time to gear up, Money-Saving Lords and Ladies. To act like grown-ups and dig into that mess. Avoiding the situation will only make it worse. The pain will be greater with each passing day. The beginning will be more difficult. Remember, there is no good time to begin paying off debt. There is only today.

Let me leave you with a special blessing, one that God commanded the priests to proclaim over the people of Israel as they made final preparations to enter the Promised Land —and to take on their enemies. God had promised them a new beginning, to move out of the darkness of oppression and into the light of freedom. Sound familiar?

The LORD bless you and keep you;

the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;

the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

NUMBERS 6:24-26, ESV