Greetings Mustachios,
Long time reader of the blog but just now signing up on the forum. Life is about to significantly change for me and I figured I could post here for support!
My wife and I are 26, no kids. I am an officer in the USMC and my wife is a school tutor/substitute (full time gig until Christmas!). I am currently deployed and when I get home, I am getting out of the Corps.
Our financial stats: (ynab junkies 2 years running)
Income: ~5k per month
Roth IRA: 10k
Cash: 8k
Honda Civic Auto Loan: 12k
Federal Student Loan: 30k
We have credit cards but 0 cc debt and we use our rewards to pay for flights and hotel rooms! YNAB has allowed us to keep all of our spending under control and we have flown free for 2 years straight at no cost whatsoever.
Unfortunately, our debt payoff plan has been reduced. Since I am deployed, we have a bunch of other expenses and I am not able to make the major payments on our debt that I want to. I am also hording cash so that when I get out of the Corps, we have money for a few months if my job offer falls through (highly unlikely but still...). I really want to get rid of the student loan and once I return from deployment, I have a plan to knock it out in 2-3 years. The Honda civic loan is at 2% and I am going to pay it off next but for the time being, the student loan is my main obstacle.
We are slowly but surely embracing the MMM lifestyle. Over the last 2 years, we have:
- paid off 30k in student loans
- paid off 1 car note
- followed ynab religiously
- made numerous daily changes in order to reduce wasteful spending
Once I am out of the military, we are moving to DC where we both have jobs lined up. We plan on:
- selling our SUV
- moving as close as possible to work so we can bike/walk
- selling lots of our furniture and downsizing into a smaller apt
Wish me luck!