I always wanted to have a paid off house I mean how long have you wanted to have
a paid off house oh well honestly I didn't know that we could I don't know
if I knew that you could either but I always wanted to if it was possible I
wanted to and I didn't want to wait till a 65 to do it somewhere along the lines
you know since we've been married we began to believe that it was possible
yeah which I kind of think is a first step in
the first key don't you think yeah because not only it is actually
possible I mean I think your old neighbors I think they paid off their
house it was I remember your family talking about it like yeah it's a big
deal where I come is it's a huge deal and so I knew that there was like this
oh yeah there's just some of those people who like either lived there for a
really long time or whatever and they have a paid off house so really smart
with their money yeah yeah I don't know but then we started realizing wait a
second not only is it possible like financially but then with God's grace
yeah it's actually kind of like the wind at your back it's like it's not it's not nearly as difficult as
we always it does it took the impossibility out of it yeah so much of
it is just like the to this point of believing that's possible so because
once you believe that it's possible then you start thinking all right what do I
need to do to make that happen and so you begin making different
decisions whereas if you just think it's an impossibility and you never even
think about it you're not gonna try and therefore it kind of isn't a possibility
right you know so that's just really the first step and in our case I think the
absolute biggest factor at all in helping us accomplish this is God's
grace like there's just no way we can talk about this without saying that like
there's just no way because there were just so many factors and that caused us
to get this thing paid off that yeah it shouldn't have worked yeah it just
shouldn't have happened like it mathematically it shouldn't have
happened but we saw that as we started going after this goal and doing what we
could do in our strengths God came through and just like you said like wind
at our back just like pushed us forward propelled us forward so much faster
through this process than we could have imagined right yeah and I mean I don't
know if this is the list or not but one of the things we
did was we started giving towards like giving to the Lord with that goal in
mind and no doubt I feel like which doesn't make sense it doesn't make sense
you're trying to pay down this massive debt so let's give more money why see it
doesn't make sense in the law of the kingdom which is that when you sow you
reap when you plant seeds something comes up yeah like we learned that all
in what preschool kindergarten where you plant the grass seeds and then you watch
it grow but it just it seemed to work that way for us right yeah on a really
practical note one thing that we did was we put down 20% when we bought our house
no that was a challenge in and of itself coming up with that kind of down payment
and that had its own series of miracles in it to allow us to do that but if you
can put down 20% it does a couple things for you so the first one is that you
know you now only have 80 percent left to pay on your house it's like you know
you just chopped off a big chunk of what you would have to pay just by putting
down 20% down payment that's kind of obvious but the other factor here is
private mortgage insurance and so if you don't put down 20%
almost every lender is going to charge you PMI or private mortgage insurance
because you're more likely to default if you don't put down 20% and so that fee
you know whatever that's gonna cost as you know sometimes might be a hundred
dollars a month that you have to pay extra every single month for this
insurance because the lender thinks you might not end up paying your bills and
so by avoiding that you now have an extra hundred dollars a month that you
can put towards your mortgage and that hundred dollars a month like goes a long
way that'll shave years off a 30-year mortgage you know just by paying that
consistently that's crazy so being able to do 20% like was definitely part of this
equation so the next thing was a seesaw principle like we've we've done seesaw
challenges before you and I right who weighs more so I have another video
about the seesaw principle where I go into depth about this and you can check
that out for more information but the idea the goal is is that you are
constantly trying to free up margin so you have more cash so you can put
towards your mortgage you know so it's the same idea
as a debt snowball each debt you get paid off you know you're now more cash
that you put towards the next one so just kind of like that thing but the
goal here is how can you continue to expand that gap increase that distance
between your expenses and your earnings so that you have more and more and more
to put towards the mortgage and just by focusing on that and continuing to work
towards increasing that gap widening that gap you just puts you in a really
good position to really make progress on your mortgage super fast like it did
for us so you would just do that by making more money yeah that's the thing
though it's easier now than it's ever been like there's so many side hustles
and ways to make some extra cash on the side like it's insane we have a whole bunch of
videos about that too okay so that or reducing expenses you have two sides of
the equation that's like the either increasing or you decrease it but both
of them are going to expand that gap so you have more money to put down towards
your mortgage okay and can we just remind them like the incentive for this
would be to pay off your freaking house yeah it is it is so good like one of the
best feelings of my life I think when we get that mortgage paid off oh my gosh
yes this is pretty awesome yeah like and don't get me wrong like I know that
there are mathematical benefits to having a mortgage and you know and there
people will argue that and that's completely fine I'm not disputing that
I'm just saying the peace that comes from owning your house outright is yeah
it's all it's cracked up to be it's really good yeah it's really nice
and so if you're not sure about whether you want to chase that goal it's a goal
worth chasing for sure yeah I think yeah you don't know what it's gonna feel like
until you get there really yeah cuz yeah I think it just doesn't compute a lot of
times like what it feels like to be completely debt free yeah yeah I think
when we paid off that first car no you feel lighter yeah we paid off our first car
like that was amazing to remember that yeah yeah yeah it was a bronze Mazda 626
whatever color it was anyway when we first got
that paid off like that was thrilling I remember now the bank didn't we have
the title I think in that state they can do it anyway I just remember like this
is that amazing I own this car they can't take it from me you know anyway
and not that I ever had a car repossessed but it just felt really
really good and then the house is just like a whole nother level yeah yeah so
it's good if you're going to be reducing your expenses cutting back on what
you're spending cutting making sacrifices it's a worthwhile temporary
worthwhile sacrifice to make yeah so don't get like discouraged by oh man I'm
gonna have to just not do not have Starbucks every single morning or four
times a day or whatever you know don't get caught up in that and look at the
goal of like what is it gonna feel like with a paid off house and how much more
money will I have like honestly there's more money get 12 Starbucks a day yeah that's one
of my favorite things about having them but I always said like before we had it
paid off it was just the idea of knowing that the biggest bill that I have each
month is like my electric bill like the biggest monthly expenditure you know I
mean now it's definitely groceries but you know you get the point
this is really really nice knowing that I can go get a job at Starbucks in like
provide enough income for our family because we have the mortgage was it just
the two of us at that time I don't know I can't remember if Alden was around I don't either
yeah once Alden came around the grocery bill went from like they've
pretty much doubled once Alden started eating no joke that kid can eat and the last one on our
list for us was starting a business and I used to have a mentor who he told me
that the fastest way to build wealth or to increase your earning potential is to
start a business and and I always thought hmm well I mean if some people
have jobs to make really good money and I think there's some truth to that but
once I became a business owner I quickly realized that it's a whole different
it's a whole different ballgame because as a business owner I you know I've had
years where our revenues doubled from one year to the next as an employee like
my best year as an employee if I got like a promotion or something it might
have been like a 15 maybe 20 percent increase in earnings you know and most
years were just like maybe a three to five percent raise if that you know so
it's just a very different thing in terms of earning potential when you're
running your own business now obviously there's plenty of risks and this isn't for everybody
yeah it's absolutely not for everybody like right there are some people who
shouldn't be doing this I happen to be somebody who's wired for it but find
out your enneagram type and then decided if you should do it there you go but point is is that there's no
doubt that that helped speed up the process so we could get our house paid
off and do it in 3 years yeah yeah the business was a big part of that just because our
earning potential was so much different than my old job like yeah we would have
no doubt we would have paid off her house early in my old job but it
was definitely amplified by the business right so definitely some benefit to it
if you and not to mention like you had control of the finances of the business
you know what I mean so it's like it's not just crazy business expenses and
money just flying out the window on stuff that's not completely necessary
but other people might think that it's necessary yeah yeah I mean it just makes
a lot of sense like you just have a lot more control yeah okay if you've paid
off your house or if you want to pay off your house early let us know in the
comments or something will cheer you on we'll give you a big hurrah yeah and
we'll just pray with you that God moves you through that process so much faster
you can imagine like we made a plan we did our part and we started down that
path and we just watched God just kind of come in and just move things so much
faster than we could have thought yeah like I had I knew was gonna take this
many years and like God just did something really different so just pray
that he does that for you as well so anyway that's all be blessed be and we'll see you next time alright bye