In a good way and bad way, and the good definitely outweighs the bad.
I know it isn’t always easy for everyone that has to do it, and I feel for them. I know, it sucks being in debt and not having money. Definitely been there!
What it has shown me is truly how much money we were wasting. Not even just on trying to pay bad debt, but in general.
At first we didn’t know if we’d be able to do it, but we had our consult anyway. Somehow the initial number I came up with was way high, by about $1,200. Again it would suck but we’d make it work. Lawyer came back with a rough estimate of $1,800. Much better and easily doable. Final number after tracking down all the debt? $1,676. Even better!
While we have given up a lot of stuff we were wasting money on (constantly eating out, going to the store or Amazon and buying whatever just because) we are still living comfortably. Still getting to enjoy things. Add to that the fact that over the next year between a promotion and contract raises my income will increase by $20,000 and we will be doing amazing.
But what hit me today was the realization of what we can do. We’ve always wanted a different house, we’ll both need new cars eventually, and I was always stressing on how we’d do that. And what did I realize today? We’re paying $1,600 a month to pay off our debt. That’s $1,676 we can afford. After 5 years of paying that $1,676? That’s $100,000.
No we aren’t getting a new house or cars in 2 or 3 or even 5 years. But what we can do is save what extra we have now, and aggressively save even more once we finish. And I never thought we could do that. I never once dreamed that we could save $20,000 a year.
After doubting it, and worrying, I say anyone that’s on the fence and not sure, at least get a consult. See how it can help you.
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