Our first big debt-free purchase

My husband and I bought our first car this morning DEBT-FREE! So exciting! After completing Jim Sammon's Financial Freedom Seminar (which I HIGHLY recommend you check out for yourself), we started throwing a lot of our money at getting out of debt. We also promised to never borrow money again.

Well, living debt-free sounds great until you realize that you can't go running to the bank for money when things go wrong. At the same time we are trying to get out of debt, we have to be saving money in order to stay out of debt in the future. This means there isn't a lot of money left over to live off of, so we have to be very frugal, and that is not always fun. While my husband and I are counting every penny, it seems everyone we know is throwing money around on houses, cars, and entertainment (and often funding these purchases with debt). But we know that someday our sacrifices will be worth it.

My husband's car has a ton of miles on it and I began to get nervous about his 30 mile commute each way to work. We decided to buy a new car and sell his old one, and luckily things fell perfectly into place.

We got our money in order, prayed, and the Lord pointed us to the perfect solution. The car was from a private seller who was retired and drove the car very little, and we got it for thousands less than it is worth.

Here is our new car:

Our 2008 Ford Escape Hybrid gets great gas mileage, which helps me to see past the fact that it is an SUV. I never thought I would own an SUV, as it seems very American to me, but this opportunity came up and we knew we had to seize it. Plus, they definitely have their advantages, and this SUV gets nearly the same gas mileage as my Civic, so.....

We are very happy with our purchase, but we also feel so accomplished. This is our first large purchase with cash, and it was amazing to purchase it and know it is completely ours. We won't pay a single dollar in interest. Not only that, this car will last us many years (hopefully!), during which we can put our money towards other things.

It is amazing to see that our hard work is paying off.