What can I possibly say besides, "My husband rocks!"
This is us at the bank and my hubby signing our final payment on the house!
At the beginning of the year my husband informed me that he was almost done paying off our home mortgage! I was in shock at the possibility and just hugged him and told him how proud I was of him! He informed me that it was "us" and all the years of scraping the bottom of the barrel (he says we didn't even have a barrel!) and making small sacrifices!
In the early years friends used to introduce us as the couple who had everything, except money! God provided everything for us, cars, clothes, shoes, furniture...we never bought anything but food...or as my kids say, "we lived off of hamburger helper, hotdogs, mac & cheese, and oodles of noodles!" Thanks to our generous friends we ate out at least once a week for a real meal and Friday night dinners with my in laws.
When we got married we bought a nice townhouse and moved after five years when I was pregnant with our fourth child. We owned a small Christian Bookstore where we made practically nothing and got paid about twice a year, after Christmas and First Communion season. We moved back to our hometown and bought a nice cape cod, lived there for six years and had three more children. After our seventh child was born we found our dream house across town which was a foreclosure in the best neighborhood!
We sadly closed the bookstore and my husband got a new job, we started to appreciate things like sick leave, insurance, and vacations. After about seven years he got an even better job but we continued to live simply. During this time we had our other five children. Things like homeschooling our kids saved us a ton of money, making our kids pay for their own phones, their own car insurance, and college is a biggy too! Not to mention things like my coffee loving husband only going to places like Starbucks five times in his entire life! We splurge now on things like paper towels, dryer sheets, ice cream, real butter, real tomato catchup, and a monthly date out!
My husband making his growling face in front of the bank with letter in hand!
My hubby would put all the extra funds (I of course didn't know that they existed) on our house. Simple things like using cloth diapers and not stopping for convenience food made a huge difference. The kids and I would always say as we drove past all the fast food places in town, "It is a good thing we aren't rich, cuz we would stop there right now, then we would be fat and unhealthy!"
We are pinching ourselves and can't believe we paid off our 30 year mortgage in 12 years 3 months! WE didn't know what to do...have a mortgage burning party? Only our older family and friends remember things like that! So we just went out to dinner with our wonderful accountant and his wife!
Who said it can't be done...one income family with 12 kids!
(One married,
3 in college, 2 in high school, 2 in middle school, 3 in elementary,
and one in preschool)
Now our goal is to pay off our van and we will be completely dept free!!! Thanks be to God!!! We will continue to live the good life and put money away for our 25th wedding anniversary and retirement!Watch out Rome...
Us in front of our PAID OFF house with the check before we mailed it!
THY WILL BE DONE!!! +JMJ+
