To start off, my name is Chris. I am currently serving in the US Army and I love my job. I get to serve my country and fly helicopters, which is pretty awesome. I have a knack for helping others so I thought, 'why not' I'll start a blog to reach out to others around the world. I've created this blog to help share ideas on how to save money, make extra money, pay off your debt faster, plan cheap family trips, and plan a cheap, but great date.
My growing debt:
Before going to college, I had zero (0) debt plus I had my entire tuition paid for by Army ROTC. Coming out of college, I was lucky and had only $24,000 of debt (flight costs that were not covered by the ROTC scholarship). Immediately after graduating college I took out a $25,000 low-interest cash loan and I bought a brand new 2012 Jeep Patriot. I traded in my paid-off 2004 Pontiac Grand Prix GT and paid the rest in 'cash' from that loan. My total debt as of May 2012 was $49,000. In December 2012 I married my College love and she brought an additional $40,000 worth of debt to the relationship. Our total debt after marriage was $89,000. WOW!!! Talk about drowning in debt. I was the only one working and we were struggling to keep our heads afloat. We were making our minimum payments on our loans and we luckily had the remaining cash from the cash loan to keep us living. In September 2013, we moved to Tennessee. My wife didn't have a vehicle and despite the knowledge we had, we went and bought her a used car, adding $16,000 of debt. (Later I will tell you all of the mistakes we made with this purchase) Our total debt after purchasing the new car was $82,000.
Time for a change:
In February 2013, our lives changed. We attended Dave Ramsey's 'Financial Peace University'. At this point we realized that we were a 'slave' to the lenders and we wanted out. This blog will walk you through the steps that we took and are still taking to get ourselves out of debt and become free.
What this blog is about:
This blog is truly meant to inspire others to become free and share my experiences as a Soldier while trying to climb out of debt. This blog is not intended to be only for other Soldiers, but for everyone who knows the struggle.
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