The Debt Slayers Conclusion
[NOTE: Due to the length of the interview, I have broken this up into two blog posts.]
Now it’s time for the meat and potatoes of Tim and LeAnn Norris’s journey to financial freedom. If you missed part 1 of this two-part series feel free to take a moment to get caught up. We’ll wait. Here’s the rest of the Norris story:
You and your wife paid off more than $400,000 in 4 years. How did you do it?
By the time we got married in 2014, we had around $300,000 in combined student loan debt alone. When you add vehicle loans, credit cards, and other little bills here and there, we were around $360,000 in total debt. Our debt as its peak reached $429,000.
Our debt-free journey started immediately after our marriage in 2014. Until that point, I was stuck in my old ways—not operating off a budget and thinking if you’re saving or investing something you’re doing the right thing. When we were on our honeymoon, I found myself unable to land a job after graduating a few months prior. After interviewing for several jobs, I was depressed because I was married, didn’t have a job, and my wife was the only one working. Over the next several months I still couldn’t land a job. I sank into a deep hole and felt really bad about myself. I spent all this money on grad school and was not getting any return with a well-paying job to validate it.
My wife was making the money and I felt like I wasn’t contributing. It was a feeling like no other and all I could do was think about my debt. It was about 4 months before I got my first job out of grad school and I like to think that I turned into a diamond during that period. I was ripe from all the pressure from the debt to change my lifestyle. My wife had already been on a plan to pay off her student loan debt which was the only debt she had. It was in the moment once I got my first job where I said, “I’m going to turn it around.” I had no plan, but I immediately started paying off every single loan I had. My wife and I were doing this simultaneously, not on the same budget, working off two different incomes, we had our finances separate, and we were both very independent. We had the wrong approach to money in a marriage. We were on the right track, but we were not together because we were operating in silos.
It was about a year later that we decided to do it together. We created a combined budget and began chipping away at the debt together. Another year later we had aggressively paid off about half the debt, changing jobs to increase our income because we needed as much money as we could get. Ironically, we each found out about Dave Ramsey individually from two different people. We dove into his resources and took some of the self-study versions of his Financial Peace University course. I realized, that’s us. We could do this! Not only had we combined our finances, got on the same page, and were paying our debt together, but we had a real plan. That fine-tuned everything we did up to that point and took us to the next level—propelling us to become debt free much faster. We had a legit plan that had already worked for thousands of people. A year and a half later, we submitted our last loan payment (my final student loan payment) and it cleared on my birthday, December 3, 2018. We were officially debt free.
What was the most difficult part of paying off all that debt? (What were the biggest sacrifices, etc.)
When I started this journey, my mentality was, “There is no way I was not getting rid of the debt.” The feelings were a combination of being married, starting a family, and now having someone depending on me. It changed me to where losing was not an option and this debt was going to be paid. I would be lying if I said that I did not get discourage and I never felt like giving up—because I did.
There is no way I was not getting rid of the debt.
There was the time I felt depressed after graduating from grad school and applying for hundreds of jobs. I had interviewed with every single vendor in town, but I was in a unique situation where I had a good education but not a lot of work experience.
Cashing out investments was more of a pain point for my wife mainly because she had more saved up than me at the time. The pain point for me was I did not get that Tesla I wanted. In grad school I did a huge research paper on Tesla and I was set on getting one when I graduated. Instead, I got a used Nissan Leaf. It was a $10,000 car. That was a huge sacrifice for me and I would eventually sell that Leaf to help pay off all the loans. I took public transportation, rode my bike, and took Uber to work. We were a one-car household for nearly a year. That was very difficult to do but we had to make some tough decisions.
We did a lot of random stuff to earn extra money including: selling things online, user testing of websites, leveraging mobile apps like delivering food through DoorDash, participating in marketing research, selling books, completing online surveys, and even jury duty.
How do we change our mindset toward money?
It’s very difficult because our mindset is based on our upbringing, social ideologies, and the culture around us. Sadly, these views are coming from people who live paycheck to paycheck. Seek out other like-minded individuals in your shoes. Find a financial mentor who lives what he or she teaches.
My mindset is radically different from five years ago. You must have a plan for your financial goals. We started by following Dave Ramsey’s plan. Then you have to trust, follow, and be open to that plan to see it through. If you do the same thing over and over it becomes second nature. Creating that repetition in your subconscious will generate trust and your mindset will eventually change. You will start seeing and believing in the results. You will start to feel different. It gets easier and easier over time.
Why do you think money is such a taboo topic?
This is difficult to answer. I’m a data guy so this is subjective, but I believe a lot of this comes from human nature. We are programmed not to talk about salaries in the corporate world. A lot of people don’t have that muscle in place to openly talk about money. We rarely talk about it with our spouses. Discussing personal finances need to start in the households then trickle down. We are seeing things start to slowly shift. People are now engaging others for motivation and inspiration regarding financial challenges. To improve upon the 78% of Americans who live paycheck to paycheck we must start having conversations with each other about saving, emergency funds, and investment plans. People are embarrassed about being in a bad spot but that’s how you get help—you tell someone.
Why is it so difficult to separate needs from wants?
I’m a firm believer in that we have the power to control our financial well-being. However, our society throws us a lot of curveballs. Every day we are marketed to on every platform possible—digital (our phones are always listening), clickbait, commercials, TV news, are all competing for your money. We are inundated with commercials from drug companies designed to make us all feel like we are dying. Seeing all these ads makes it difficult for us differentiate needs from wants. Because we live in a society of consumerism we are at a disadvantage. Companies using big data know more about us than we do about ourselves. We live in a tech era that leverages powerful tools that humans can’t compete with. Budgeting your money will help because you will think about what you are buying in advance. Do your research to get the price and budget you desire and avoid paying extra for things that you don’t need.
Because we live in a society of consumerism we are at a disadvantage.
What money lessons are important to teach children?
First, avoid debt. You’re going to throw away a lot of money by using debt no matter what validation you have. The interest is going to rip away your hard-earned money. Don’t feel like you have to leverage debt. The average person does not need debt. Avoid it.
Second, building wealth is a marathon, not a sprint—but that’s how it’s portrayed. People look at guys like Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk and think they are going to be like them but there are so many variables into achieve that level of wealth. Understand that you can have money and be wealthy, but it will take time to build. You have a fiduciary responsibility in life. Have a budget as a foundation, create an emergency fund, and invest the rest. If you have too much money in savings, you are living in fear. It’s not the big things that you do but a lifetime of small decisions that build wealth.
How can we not stress about money?
This is twofold: debt is one thing; building wealth is another. We all need to detox from the consumerism pressures of society. We encourage people to become debt free to focus on their passion. Many people do not know their passion. Don’t confuse your passion with a hobby. Sometimes passions will not afford you the life you want which is why you need a financial plan that matches it. Having a plan will help you reach financial freedom to support your lifestyle based on your passion.
If you enjoy community service, you need to figure out how to support yourself so you won’t have to struggle and worry about money. Then you don’t have to work and be stressed out. You can’t solely focus on your passion until you are debt free and you won’t truly enjoy it until you’ve paid off the lenders. I’m just now starting to have more flexibility to enjoy my passions such as writing and creating. Passions give you purpose and that’s what drives you to build wealth—a reason to live life. Creating a financial plan to support passions will save people from stressing out about money.
Get their Book
You can read Tim and LeAnn’s full story in their book, The Debt Slayers and follow them online at Cultivate Freedom & Legacy.
What’s your story?
If you have a debt-free degree story you’d like to share with the potential of it being a blog feature like this one, email me at jason@yourmarginmatters.com.
Tim’s journey toward financial freedom, along with several other stories, can be found in my book Margin Matters: How to Live on a Simple Budget & Crush Debt Forever.