Sallie Mae Hates the Proebstings.

Today was a big day in the life of the Proebstings. It started out like any other, but quickly turned into something fantastic.

We are both college graduates. However, and luckily, one of us didn't have to pay for college. The other one (me), paid enough for both of us. When I was 18 I didn't care about loans. Just get them, and pay them back later, right? Well, when I was 18 I didn't have the bills coming in every month. What a pain they are! It just feels like throwing money away every time we made a payment. Sure, we were working towards something... but we never actually saw anything from the fruits of our labor - until today.

We stumbled our way through breakfast, watched SportsCenter, and left for work - just like any other day. Knowing we pay loans at the end of every month, I decided to check out our statement when I got to work. I knew they were getting low, and so close to disappearing. There it was, taunting me. $1502.64.  When you start out with $34,000, $1500 seems like pocket change. I emailed Kyle, told him to check out our bank account and tell me if we could just finish them off once and for all (and still be able to eat and pay bills). If it was just me, I would have probably paid it and then thought about food and bills. But Kyle's the smart one in our family, and the money guy. And I know he likes to eat - so I decided to ask. He analyzed the situation, (like he does every situation) and emailed me back telling me what we had, what we will have after this week, what we will have after bills, and what we will have after making a payment of $1502.64... God love him. I just needed a yes or no. But through all of that, I interpreted him to being telling me yes. Finish them off. I asked one more time just for a yes or no, and he gave it to me. Yes, finish them off. Oh man, my hands started shaking and I got so excited! They have been such a nuisance the past two years. I typed in the amount, clicked pay today, clicked submit, and we were finished! No.More!

I expected Sallie Mae to be a little more excited for us. Maybe say congratulations? Maybe turn on flashing lights? Maybe make a noise maker noise? But she didn't do anything. She said thank you for your payment like she always does, and told me that I could expect my payment to go through in 2-4 days. Ugh, Sallie. But then I started thinking about it. She probably hates us! Do you know how much interest we stole from her?! We were set up on the 10 year plan to pay off $34,000! She could have made herself a millionaire on our interest alone. But nope, we robbed her of eight years of interest. Take that, Sallie. The Proebstings are done with you.

So how did we do it? Are we millionaires? No. But I like to think we're smart. Okay, that's not entirely true. Kyle's smart. And his smart ideas make too much sense for me to fight them... so I have to go along with them. That and my mom gave us Dave Ramsey as an engagement present two years ago. Not the man himself, but his get out of debt kit. Have you heard of it, Financial Peace University. You may have heard of it and think it's the dumbest thing out there. Or you may have never heard of it. But regardless, she gave it to us two years ago... and we managed to find $34,000 in that time to throw at debt. Ugh, that woman. What was she thinking? It's like she finds ways to punish me even though I don't live at home. Giving Dave Ramsey to Kyle might as well have been a death sentence to me. But I lived, and I'm a pretty happy girl today.

Here is the plan Dave and Kyle made me follow:

• Have a budget. Gross, huh? We literally get out a notepad and pen any time income changes and we have categories for tithing, rent, gas, groceries, clothes, electric, cable, gifts, spending, entertainment, cars maintenance, doctor visits, Leah and of course loans. (There are probably more, but today is not a budget day... don't make me do it). Everything we have to pay for gets a category, and every dollar we make gets placed into one of those categories. It's a 0 dollar budget, but everything has a category, so we don't need any money left over. Get it?
• Everything gets paid for in cash. Gasp! It's a simple philosophy, really. If we don't have the cash for it in our hands... we don't buy it. Crazy, right. We (I) have learned to save for things I really want, and not everything I want has to get bought today. Believe it or not, I actually like this one. It's simple. I don't ever have to think about if we have the money for something. It's either in my wallet or not. And Kyle doesn't tell me no. If we have the cash for it, then it's fair game! If I don't have cash, I don't buy it. We don't have credit cards... which is completely baffling to most people today. "What about your credit score?! It's going to be so bad because you never use cards!" Don't worry about us, I checked with our bank and we have a perfect credit score, and they even complimented us and taking such good care of our finances. Sorry, Capitol One, we don't need you. We have real dollars.
• Anything extra we made went to loans. This one was a bummer sometimes. And I'm not talking about gift money. I'm talking about if we got extra income from anything. My job is a perfect example. I work on both hourly and commission pay schedules, so you can guess what we did with the extra. We are fortunate though, we have budgeted out our lives on Kyle's schedule alone - so anything I make could be put on loans. That will also help when Leah comes, because we have only ever budgeted on Kyle's salary, so we won't freak out with one less income.
• We have lived below our means. Neither one of us have car payments. Sure, we could go out and buy new cars, but why? That would be one more thing to pay for, and one more thing that stood in our way of paying off loans. Our cars work. And we will drive them til they die. We found a relatively cheap place to live. It's not some dump, but we could have afforded more, and we could have even bought a house. But why? It's a nice little place. Someone else takes care of the yard, and shovels the driveway. A house of our own would be nice, but we want to save a really good down payment for it. So we'll stay here for a while longer and save our pennies. And now we have even more pennies with no loans! I could shop at the high end grocery stores, and I do get things at Schnucks... but a majority of our food comes from Aldi. Seriously, why would you go anywhere else? All the coupons in the world don't equal Aldi savings. Things literally have cent signs on them in that store. So how do I do it with buying organic or natural food? Well, I get what I don't need organic at Aldi, which is a whole lot, then I can afford to buy the organic stuff at Schnucks. I have my budget for groceries. A cart full of food costs $40 bucks at Aldi, 10 natural things cost $50 at Schnucks, then we still have money leftover for Kyle's beer! We all win. 

That's about it. It's pretty simple. Don't spend what you don't have, don't buy what you don't need, and don't spend just to buy. See how much I've learned in two years?! My mom should be proud. I haven't been miserable. We haven't been miserable. We get what we want, and we get it guilt free. We don't worry that our account will overdraft. We don't worry about debt collectors. We don't worry that we can't pay bills. We are aware of our money, and we spend our cash freely. Kyle still gets to golf, and I still get to shop.

And what will we do with all of that extra money we now have?! Well, don't get excited... I've learned not to. We will just have even more to save for our house. And maybe soon I can tell you all about how we bought Leah a brand new house!

Peace out, Sallie, it's been fun.