How We Paid Off $20k Of Debt In Less Than 4 Years

Being a full-blooded military mom and wife wasn’t always my present nor the future. It somehow dropped down on me all of a sudden and I believe I fit in well.

Remembering the times when I was just hanging out with my then-boyfriend and when he mentioned the possibility of him enrolling in a military for the first time. To be honest, somewhere over that point we were considering a marriage and moving in together before that so I didn’t like this idea on the first take.

But yes, I firmly believed that that is the right decision to make so I was as supportive as a future military wife can be.

It didn’t happen overnight though… Although my future husband was in a great physical condition and shape, we had another type of obstacle – we were looking at a hefty sum of $20,000 – and we knew nothing about facing debt at the time.

Yep, it turned out that the Navy my boyfriend was looking into joining, needed to be sure that their recruits wouldn’t run into any financial problems. Since they invest around 30K in every new recruit, every cadet enrolled had to have top-notch financial background and history.

We were off to the races at that point I guess.

Paying Off Debt

It was the most turbulent period of our lives together, you can bet on that! Any subsequent situation when my husband was deployed or when we had to move with the entire family to follow his footsteps to another base and the unit he was assigned to, couldn’t compare with the period that actually preceded him joining the military.

So, how did we do it?

It was tough, but fun at the same time. Since he obviously didn’t do his homework on how to hack college and cut his tuition fees, we were now looking at some $20,000 that he had to give back to the banks in order to enroll in Navy.

We both had to give in the best that we can. I somehow feel that having a mutual goal in overcoming financial problems is what brought us together really.

As I was still in college, I had very little spare time but I started working in the pizza parlor in order to get some money.

On the other hand, he started working double shifts, one at the construction yard (which helped him a lot to stay in shape) and the other as a pizza delivery guy. When there was not enough work at either of these, he was employed part-time at the auto body shop.

By the time I finished my college I got my first full-time and I even started taking the paper route on my way to work in order to earn some extra cash.

The Aftermath

As I said before, it was tough and exhausting and depressing at times, but we made it. Was it worth it? Damn, right it was!

The picture I uploaded to this story of mine showcases the writing on the wall that quotes ‘’debt will tear us apart’’. I would rephrase it and would say that debt actually made us stronger and fostered our family bonds, which I’m really proud of.

We managed to pay off the entire debt by following the snowball method of debt repayment in less than 4 years!

My husband joined the Navy and the rest is history. Now the military pays for our housing, groceries, and medical bills as the entire family are completely insured. Yes, it comes at a great deal of compromise and we don’t have to settle anywhere really, but it’s the path we chose as a family.

When I look back at all the trials and tribulations we, as a family, had to go through, I think I wouldn’t do it any different.