Financial Freedom

As some of you have seen, our family recently moved out of our first home and into an apartment.

You might be thinking, “How can you move from a house into an apartment with an (almost) one year old?”

This decision to move has been in the works for awhile now and we are so excited about all of the things this move means for our family.

Our decision to move from our home to an apartment first began when Trevor and I were discussing financial freedom.

Sounds amazing right?

Freedom from loans.

Freedom from monthly payments.

Freedom from crazy interest rates.

Freedom from working incredibly hard and watching all of your money go to something you purchased or did in the past.

Freedom to spend your resources on things that true matter to you!

Who wouldn’t want this?!?!

Our family has been working to pay off our loans slowly. We make the monthly payments and a little extra (if we can). We have watched the number decrease, but it feels like we are watching molasses drip from a tree at the pace we were paying things off. More than half of our payments were going toward interest and not the principal of the loan. We got discouraged with the pace we were paying loans off, so we looked really hard at our budget and what we could do to pay off our loans quicker.

Our family has had a budget for some time now. We update it and watch it very carefully so we can control our resources.

We are a one family income – I am blessed to be a stay at home mom and yoga instructor.

But we still had this idea of financial independence on our minds and hearts and we had to follow it.

Trevor and I sat down and looked at our budget and saw where most of our money was going:

Home Mortgage

Car loans

Student loans

Groceries

We can’t stop eating, so groceries will remain as part of our budget.

The idea then came pretty clearly – If we sell our home, we could eliminate the home mortgage, pay off the car loans, and attack the student loans.

The housing market in our area is booming. We had no idea how long it would take to sell our home, but we trusted the plan God and the universe planted within us.

We took a deep breath, and went all in on selling our home.

Our home sold in less then twenty-seven hours.

We were and are blessed.

The family that was meant to move into our home came along quickly and we are so honored to bless them with the home we worked so hard to restore.

We accepted their offer and had the moving date set for less than a month later.

We did need to do more minimizing as our space would go from a 2,000 square feet home to an apartment less than 1,100 square feet. We went through everything we owned (again) as minimalism is a journey that is never truly finished.

Please recall, we have a little one. A baby boy that has toys, clothes, furniture, etc. But babies don’t need the most shiny, expensive toys and trinkets. What babies need, and what we need most is love – lots and lots of love.

Selling our home, downsizing, and moving for our financial independence was not a hard decision. Our family has aspirations that will be achieved through this physical and nonphysical move.

Our home mortgage was paid in full and we officially own both of our vehicles. Now, we are attacking our student loans to be closer to financial freedom!

2020 will start a decade to remember – one with financial independence, health, travel, happiness, and lots and lots of laughter.

We can’t wait to share our journey with you.

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Thanks for reading.