Still Scheming

I want to own my own life. I want freedom!

I'm tired of owing. I want to stand on my own two feet, to own what's around me, and not to owe any money to anybody.

I want to be debt free in five years. I'm willing to work hard and cut back and do what it takes. I'm willing to be patient. But I am serious, here. I want to own my house, not have outstanding debts, and be able to fund college for my children.

Five years.

Not that long really. I have lasted through longer stretches than that in my life already.

Okay, I'm forced to refinance our house right now because rates are so low. We lose money if we don't refinance. That has forced me to re-examine all this. I wish we had the money to just pay everything. But we don't. We haven't been saving. We have been living and thriving and enjoying. But that hasn't helped the bottom line of finances.

Soooo.... best strategy from here is to simply stick with all of our payments as currently scheduled. Yes, they are annoying and they are onerous and they take most of our money. But in about 4 and a half years they will be done. In the meanwhile, my income will increase dramatically as my businesses take off. And that needs to be earmarked for saving FIRST. As long as I do that, we'll be fine. Within five years, we can agressively save enough to pay for this house and get college started. Especially if we maximize the girls' educations by pushing into early community college classes and scoring on AP exams. They could potentially finish their first two years before high school ends.

It's a challenge to make this kind of commitment -- it's new territory for me, something I haven't traditionally been that great at. But I haven't been that awful either, so I'm encouraged that I can grow and change. The rewards are clear. Because, really, I really, really want to be free!!