I had the absolute pleasure and honor of photographing @debtkickinmom and her family to celebrate the END of their amazing DEBT FREE journey!! How AMAZING is that?! Ah!! @debtkickinmom, aka Angela, is so, so sweet and I just loved getting to meet her! My friend Megan introduced me to her a few months ago and I fell in love with her Instagram and YouTube channel. She’s been doing the Dave Ramsey plan for 3 years now, and she is just kicking butt at it! They’ve paid off $77,000 in 3 years!!! Can you believe that?! What does that feel like, y’all? To be completely debt free and owe NOTHING to anyone?! I can’t wait until we get there!
My favorite thing about Angela’s story is that she isn’t in the same stage of life as me…Almost every time I tell someone about our plan to be debt free, they always say something like, “Well, you don’t have kids. It’s much easier when you don’t have kids.” EXCUSE. Angela is a mom of FOUR!!! Four kids, all different ages, and over half of their journey to be debt free was done on only one income—that’s right…for most of it, she was a STAY-AT-HOME MOM. So yes, friend, YOU can do it too. It doesn’t matter what your life looks like—you can make a CHOICE to take responsibility for your finances and actually WIN with money. Angela is proof that you don’t have to be a two-income household with no kids to make it happen.
No matter what your financial situation looks like—good, bad, awful, mediocre…Dave Ramsey’s plan is such a good one. It’s all about handling money the way God has called us to handle it, and that is the biggest motivation for me—I want to be a good steward of the money God gives me. Before I took Dave’s class, I really didn’t know how God wanted me to handle money.
We started the Dave Ramsey plan this year in January, and so to be able to connect with someone in the same phase as us has been so encouraging. We started this year in baby step 2, which is to pay off all of your consumer debts—all debt except your mortgage! In January, we had $48,574 in debt: two cars, my undergraduate student loans, and Tyler’s graduate student loans. Now, in December of 2018, 12 months later, we have paid off $31k, with $17k left to go. If you had told me at the beginning of this year that we’d be able to do that, I would have laughed…it seemed impossible when we got started, but with a lot of sacrifice, we’ve been able to make huge bounds in paying off our debt this year! We’re hoping to have the rest paid off at some point next year, and we’ll definitely have to do some sort of photoshoot to celebrate too!
I encourage you to go follow Angela to hear more about their story and how they did it! She shares so much good information, and is a FABULOUS resource for teaching you practical ways to live while trying to pay off debt—meal planning, frugal shopping, learning contentment, creating sinking funds, etc. She is a huge follower and fan of Dave Ramsey, and she’s one of the people who gets it right when it comes to following his plan. I highly encourage you to follow and learn from her!
If you’re interested in learning more about Dave Ramsey, I highly encourage you to check out his podcast. It’s completely free to listen to his live shows every day, and they are so encouraging, motivational, and educational. You don’t have to pay a single dime to learn what he teaches—open the podcast app on your smartphone and look him up! (I listen every time I get in the car through bluetooth.)
If you are ready to take action and really find financial peace, I highly encourage his class Financial Peace University. We took it in January, and absolutely loved it, and hope to be leading a class ourselves next summer at our church! (Get in touch with us if you’re interested in taking it with us!) You can also check out his book that talks all about his financial plan, The Total Money Makeover. It’s on sale for $10 right now and a very easy read.
I’m an open book and would be happy to answer any questions you might have about our debt free journey, the Dave Ramsey plan, or anything else that may be on your mind. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have questions or just want to talk about why we’re working so hard to get out of debt!
Now, drum roll please….DEBTKICKINMOM IS DEBT FREEE!!!!!!!!!!! Enjoy my favorite photos of her sweet family!!!! <3
My passion is in documenting the lives of our families well (mine and yours), and teaching you how to do it too. Follow along as I share photography tips, inspiration, and beautiful portraits.
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