Financial Freedom

What Financial Freedom Brings

10.15.2010 by juliegumm@yahoo.com //

So from July 2005 until fall of 2007 our financial goal was simple – PAY OFF THE HOUSE. We lived on about 60% of our income and paid about 40% of it to the mortgage company every month.

This took lots of discipline because really, we could have totally cheated here and there – splurged on a vacation, etc. But really we just sat down when we first moved in and came up with a figure. And THAT became our payment. Since I paid bills online I really didn’t even look at that pesky monthly payment coupon with the “real” mortgage payment. We treated our “new” payment as the minimum payment.

Of course had something dire happened we could have stopped paying extra, but in all honesty I don’t think we ever sent less than what we had planned. After all we had that nice big emergency fund, right 🙂

So sometime during 2007 (truthfully, probably long before that) God began working on both Mark and I and he began calling us to get involved with the orphan. Sometime in October during a lunch at Chipotle I sprung “SOOOO, what do you think about adopting?” on Mark.

Me, the gal who had joyously declared our family complete 4 years earlier. Ha ha!

Our adoption story is well chronicled here and if you want to read more of it, go here and then work your way forward – so I won’t go in to a ton of detail here.

But as we began to look at international adoption, and decide to adopt two kids, of course the dollar signs got bigger and bigger and bigger.

But then we realized something – within a couple of months the house would be paid off.

And all that money that we had been sending to Wells Fargo? Well what better place for it to go?

It was then that we began to get the first glimpse of how our new found freedom gave God more and more room to work miracles in our lives and open us up to adventures we never knew possible.

But God had another lesson he wanted us to learn even more….

…to be continued

Taking Advantage of The Housing Boom

10.08.2010 by juliegumm@yahoo.com //

The next huge step in our financial journey really came in 2004 when the housing market in Phoenix went absolutely crazy.

The house that we bought for $199,900 over a year earlier was suddenly worth about $350,000. Crazy right? So of course Mark starts talking about selling and I start rolling my eyes at him.

At this point we’ve been married 11 years and moved 7 times. I was tired of moving. Plus I loved our house and our neighborhood.

And, as I was quick to point out, what was the point of moving when everything was hugely over inflated.

So we did some research and began to look at new housing developments that were a little further west (the city of Phoenix just keeps spreading out) and had not yet peaked like the rest of the city.

And I learned something. I shouldn’t look at model homes unless I want to move. Because of course once you look you find something you love.

It didn’t take us too long to decide to make the leap and we signed on the dotted line for the construction of a new home. We downsized a bit (going from 3300 sq ft to 2700 sq ft) and after our construction options I think our final sticker price was $215,000.

They told us construction would take 6-8 months.

It took about 12.

Of course all that time we were praying that the market would hold because we weren’t going to put our current house on the market until we were closer to the move time. The market had been so crazy that houses were literally being bought within hours and I was NOT going to have to deal with a whole temporary move thing.

When it finally came time to sell we listed the house and sold it within a few days for $385,000.

From the proceeds we held back money for movers (my stipulation although we packed all the boxes ourselves), paint, landscaping, window treatments, etc.

But everything else was spent on the down payment which left us with a $65,000 mortgage.

And then we started to do some math. By this time we were making more money and we had continued to keep our budget pretty simple so we moved money around and figured out that by dumping everything extra at it, we could pay off the mortgage in 2 1/2 years.

And so we cheated. We totally skipped baby steps 4 & 5 and went straight to paying off the mortgage. We were so motivated because we could see the light at the end of the tunnel and could almost grasp total financial freedom.

Only later would we realize how important that freedom would be.

…to be continued

I Met Dave!

09.24.2010 by juliegumm@yahoo.com //

We interrupt our normally scheduled post for this breaking news…

I met Dave!

Yesterday I got the opportunity to volunteer at the Dave Ramsey Live Event in Phoenix. It was this same event 10 years ago that changed our lives.

Before the show Dave came around and greeted every one of the 60 or so volunteers that gave up 8 hours of their day to come and work the event.

He shook my hand and said “Thank you for helping out!”

And I wanted to laugh because really, there is NO WAY I could repay him for the difference he has made in our lives.

If I had more time I would have told him that other than God and our families, he is the one person who has had the greatest impact in our lives.

He made our marriage better.

He helped us grow in our faith.

Beginning to apply his principles was like the gentle turning of a rudder on a great big ship that is our lives. We changed our direction that year but now, 10 years later we can see the DRAMATICALLY different route our lives have taken.

I am not in any way trying to cut God out of the equation. Quite the opposite – through Dave we gained a greater understanding of what God wants from us when it comes to our money.

He wants us to not be in debt (Prov 22:7)
He wants us to save (Prov 21:20)
He wants us to make a plan for our money (Prov 27:23)
He wants us to help others (Philippians 2:3-4)
He wants us to give cheerfully (II Cor 9:7)

To be honest when we first started the baby steps our motivation was to pay off our debt so we could build our wealth and retire early. But along the journey we discovered the extreme joy in giving. We discovered the freedom to alter our careers and pursue our God-given dreams. We discovered what REALLY matters.

For us what really matters is not the size of our 401k, or what age we’re going to be able to retire at. It’s the impact our money can have RIGHT NOW! It’s adding two children to our family through adoption. It’s helping send orphans in Uganda to school. It’s helping a church in Ethiopia care for at risk kids in their community (more on that coming soon).

All of that we owe, in large part, to Dave and the ministry God has blessed him with.

So thank you Dave, for everything!