Our Financial Peace Story

Kevin and Erin Jones are coordinating a nine-lesson weekly course from Financial Peace University in the Parish Hall beginning Tuesday, March 7. More information is available here.

Since 2010 there are two critical points in my life that that have helped to shape who I am. The first is meeting my wife, Erin, in Parish Hall here at CCA one Sunday afternoon. In our first interaction, I didn’t say anything to her, but I left the meeting thinking that my life might have just changed as she could be my future wife. We ended up dating shortly after that, and there was no turning back. During that time as we discussed money, we both disclosed that we had student loans, but it also became apparent that she was much better with her money. She was naturally a saver, and I was a spender.  If this was going to work, I would need to make some changes.

The next critical point occurred six months after we started dating when I randomly came across this radio show on personal finance called The Dave Ramsey Show, which I instantly gravitated to. It had a Christian focus, and the idea of better money management was something I was seeking even though I didn’t want to enact it as I had plenty of excuses for not making changes. I gravitated to the calls where someone’s problems were seemingly worse than mine. That helped me feel better about the fact that in my mind I couldn’t save any money or pay more on my loans even though I had more than enough income. People would call in to do these “Debt Free Screams,” and I wrote them off as just being lucky or having it easier than I did. This was incorrect because often they paid off more debt than I had while making less and doing so in a short amount of time.

In June of 2011, we got married, and our finances were merged. Our income level was higher than we’d ever individually experienced so we more than met our monthly obligations but it sure was easy to spend aimlessly. We talked off and on about whether we should buy a house, when to start a family, and if we would both work once we did. There was a lot to sort through, and society sure had its opinions about what to do.  All of this seemed to hinge on our debt, though. Six months into our marriage I received a bonus and a raise at work. I told Erin that I wanted to put it towards debt, so we totaled up our debt and saw that we had over $107,000 of debt to pay off. We didn’t know it was that high but weren’t surprised and decided to tackle our debt before any other major moves. Due to having listened to the Dave Ramsey show I presented the Debt Snowball plan, and Erin was very supportive.

The Debt Snowball method is an approach where you pay off your debts smallest to largest regardless of interest rates. This method has been proven many times to be the most successful way to pay off your loans because it factors in human emotion. By getting small wins early on in the process, it keeps you motivated to tackle the next debt while freeing up money in the process.

We put together a budget and initially calculated that it would take about five years to pay off our debt. Not bad, huh, considering the amount? Well, once we tightened up our budget we started to do better than anticipated we ended up paying it off in two years and nine months. It felt like we received a raise once we had a focused budget. During that time our quality of life improved as our goals were more important than the sacrifices we were making and we found happiness with each other that money could not buy. We also realized that we could do anything financially and were able to take those lessons to save up for an emergency fund and house down payment.

We took Financial Peace University two years into our debt payoff and figured that it would be more of the same from what I heard on the radio. Immediately during the first class, we realized how much more informative the class was than the radio show (which was already helpful). It helped us to focus the remaining few months as we were getting closer to that goal.

When we completed our goal, we contacted the Dave Ramsey show and were given the opportunity to go to Nashville and do our Debt Free Scream in his studio. What an about face I had made! After being jealous and petty towards past callers, I was now one of them hoping to provide inspiration to those feeling left behind. A LOT can change in a few years. We met him and had him sign our debt thermometer that we used to track our progress and was now completely filled out. On it he wrote “Transform Romans 12:2″ which was a passage I had memorized previously in my weekly Bible study but how would he know that? Surely he writes that for everyone, but it sure meant something to me at that point. It was great to see a transformation lived out through Jesus Christ in my life (all starting with meeting Erin).

As a result, we have found peace in our finances and confidence in our abilities. I no longer feel left behind and hope to inspire others. We can more easily give without wondering if we have enough. We still have to put the work in to continue down our path, but the principles we learned in this class can last a lifetime.