Great work everyone!
My husband and I threw down the gauntlet in March, when we found out we were expecting our first baby this December! We had a combined 60,000 in debt when we were married last December, 2012, the vast majority of which was student loans and one car loan. My husband also had a small line of credit from buying a new mattress, which we would NEVER do now! My initial calculations were to have all of our car and student loan debt paid off by our daughter's first birthday Dec. '14.
However, thanks to discovering this blog, and my husband's deployment in July (and the accompanying increase in income and decrease in taxes), we are awfully close to having it all paid off by the end of THIS december! Basically while my husband has been deployed, we've been living off of 1/2-2/3 of my income (1500), and throwing ALL of the rest at debt. It is addicting! Fortunately since we are active duty and our medical costs our covered by Tricare, pregnancy and childbirth will be no cost, but we did have a reduction in my income when I started working 80% to ensure a healthy pregnancy.
MMM has also helped me to realize I can afford to stay home with our baby if we move within bikeable distance of my husbands base when he returns in April and sell one of our cars. The calculated savings are well over 5k per year because he had a 1.5-2 hour round trip commute before. At first we were resistant to moving to "the city" (Norfolk) with a new baby, we are small town people, but we realized time together as a family is more important than anything else, and I credit mr MM and this community with helping us see this more clearly.
So even though my husband will miss the birth and first few months of our baby's life, I am really proud of him and thankful that his hard work has provided so much for our family. We have about 10,700 left to go, and with the sale of our SUV and the last few paychecks before Jan, we should be in the clear with a few thousand extra for savings.
Good luck!
