Hello 2015, Goodbye Successful 2014!

We had a big year in 2014 with lots of accomplishments. I'll keep this post short and sweet and list off my favorites.

January 1—Moved from of Austin, Texas to Houston, Texas.
January 6—My husband started his new job in the outskirts of Houston.
January 8—I joined my husband in moving in to his cousin's three bedroom, two bath home. (We thought this would be temporary!)
February 17—I started my new job as a copywriter in Houston.
April 10—We officially paid off my husband's student loan debt ($17,000 in less than 18 months).
April 14—We had a student loan debt payoff party at my parent's house. We began saving for a house the next week.
June 11—I was hired on as a full-time employee from a contracting position at my job.
June 18—I found out I was pregnant with our first child.
July 28—We heard our little one's heartbeat for the first time during a prenatal appointment.
August 18—We saw our baby during our first ultrasound session.
October 16—We celebrated our four-year wedding anniversary and found out we were having a little girl named Eleanor Jane.
November 15—We saved up $16,000 in less than 7 months for our first house and put in an offer on the seventh home we looked at that day.
November 16—The sellers accepted our offer and we began the contract period on the home.
December 12—We signed on our home after a few bumps in the road, and moved out of my husband's cousin's house.

Overall, it was a good year, and we can't wait for what 2015 will bring.

We Saved $16,000 in Less Than 7 Months to Purchase Our First Home

In mid-November, we saved up $16,000 to purchase our first home after seven months of saving. You probably already know that I'm a huge Mint.com fan, and sing their praises any chance I get. I know some people have much more student debt than we did and probably have saved up more than $16,000 in the same time frame that we did, but I still feel it's a huge accomplishment and am proud to share our story.

If you think it's impossible to pay down debt (any amount), I'm sure you'd learn at least something from our story, or be inspired to tackle the debt head on. I know it's not easy, and we certainly had a unique living situation during our time of savings for the house, but overall, we feel pretty good about being able to call this house our home.416



Note: The following post first appeared on the Mint.com blog the day that we closed on our home. Check out my related links below for more info on how I used Mint to pay off our student debt and save up for the house.

How to Create a Monthly Budget—and Stick With it!
How To Pay Off $17,000 of Student Loan Debt in Less Than 18 Months
Finance 101: 7 Reasons Why I Love Mint.com
Sell your crap. Pay off your debt. Do what you love.

I never thought I’d be days away from becoming a homeowner just one year after our move out of Austin, Texas. Last November, we decided to move to Houston, Texas in hopes of better jobs with higher salaries. We had struggled for years, yet always somehow managed to stay above the water in the financial sea that we found ourselves drifting in.

Below is my story on how my husband and I paid off over $17,000 of debt in less than 18 months, and saved-up to purchase our first home with the help of Mint.

With the help of our new salaries, we paid off my husband’s student loans ($17,000 in 18 months) in April of this year and I was then able to set my eyes on yet another goal: saving up for a house. I had no idea how much it would actually cost to buy our first home, but with the help of Mint, we started saving within a week or two of paying down the student debt. I took the payments I was making on the student loans and instead sent them directly to the savings account, upwards of $1,500 a month!

We had been living with my husband’s cousin since moving to Houston and we were paying him rent for a room in his three-bedroom home, saving hundreds each month in rent alone. As we continued to live frugally and save what we could afford, we began to discuss the possibility of expanding our family. I knew it wasn’t the ideal time (where would we even put the baby?!), but we announced over the summer that we’d be expecting our first child, due in February 2015.

That’s when things started to get real. I soon became obsessed with saving, slashing our budgets even further to accommodate the growing savings account upwards of $2,700 a month. Every purchase was up for discussion between my husband and I. We now had a true deadline that even nature would not allow us to miss. I called our realtor and mortgage lender to find out just how much we’d need to save to purchase a home, and was shocked to find out it was nearly $15,000 for the price range we were looking in.

Our pennies were pinched even further and we continued to save, as I knew we had to move out by the end of December to allow us time to unpack the towers of boxes stacked in my parent’s garage and “nest” before the baby arrived in February. Following my strict guidelines I had created for how we handled our money, we continued to stay the course and adjust budgets as necessary. By mid-November, we had reached our goal and then some. We saved $16,000 to purchase our first home in seven months, which would cover closing costs and the down payment. We had cut it so close, but we did it!

During the first day of house hunting, and the seventh home we viewed, we put in an offer on a 1,650 square foot home (perfect for our minimalist lifestyle) and short commutes to our jobs. We can’t wait to make our new house a home for our baby, Eleanor Jane, to grow up and make memories in.

I credit my success to a lot of self-discipline as well as technology like Mint. So if you’re feeling the burden of student loans or other bills like I was, I would encourage you to sign-up for Mint, and get on the path to living a debt-free life. It’s truly life-changing.

The Holidays Should Be About Presence. Not Presents.

I used to love gift giving. That was before we had a strict budget and financial goals to pay down our student debt and purchase our first home. And don't get me wrong, I do love to shop, too. However, my purchases now involve much more scrutiny and a longer thought process.

Do I really need this? 
Can I find it somewhere else cheaper?
Will this last long enough for me to get my money's worth out of it?
How long do I plan to keep this? 
Can these be used for multiple tasks?
Is it on sale?

I know, I sound crazy. But as you can see, I clearly overanalyze everything when it comes to spending my money. Something else I noticed was that I found myself dreading the holidays. I used to feel obligated to reciprocate gift-giving and receiving. I had to be fair. If I got something for so-and-so, I couldn't leave out this other person. How much would they spend on me, and what should I spend on them?

I quickly resolved all of these issues by declaring we wouldn't be participating in the holiday gift-giving before Thanksgiving had rolled around in November 2012. You see, this was the same month we decided to overhaul our budget and pay down our student loan debts. I just decided we would take the minimalist approach to the holidays. I was called a scrooge, but I didn't care! We had goals and I think it's more important to be near loved ones during the holidays,

So, this holiday season, or any season, for that matter, give your family your presence, not presents. I recently read that the number one regret on the top five regrets of the dying is that they wished they lived a life true to themselves instead of living the life someone else expected of them.Not one of the top five listed "I wish I had given a more perfect or expensive present!" So keep that in the back of your mind if you need some comfort or if anyone questions why you're being a scrooge. The latest gadget isn't going to be remembered by someone else when they reflect on their life. I'm sure they would be cherishing the moments you shared instead.