MEET MY DEBT

Yes. You read that correctly.

You’re going to see the “big number” of our family’s debt.

I have no shame.

I guess once I had publicly blogged my cancer story (complete with the oh-so-glamorous details surrounding my boobs and bowels), sharing my debt with the world didn’t seem like that big of a deal.

But I’m sharing it for a reason BEYOND the fact that I have no shame.

I have a vision for this website. I think it can become a community of VIPKid teachers who are inspiring each other to keep their noses to the grindstone as they work to pay off debt. I want it to be a resource for teachers who love what they do AND who are living frugally to maximize their income with VIPKid.

In order to foster this feeling of community, I felt like I needed to be transparent about my own debt situation. You might agree or you might think I’m crazy. That’s cool!

Either way, let’s get this party started.

Here’s the big number, but then keep scrolling to see what is included in that grand total. This page updates based on my current income reports, but you can also see the starting amounts. That way you can see how far we’ve come in paying off our debt, thanks to VIPKid!

This number frustrates me quite a bit, but I need to tell you a quick story to help you understand why:

Back in the day, my husband (“Mr. Blue Eyes”) and I were both working full time. After our third daughter (“Ladybug”) was born, I decided to take a year’s leave of absence from my special education teaching job. This was mostly to be home with the baby, but we had other reasons as well.

You see, Mr. Blue Eyes was applying for a promotion with his job and I didn’t want to leave my school district in a lurch if we had to move mid-year. I figured that this would give us flexibility to move as soon as the promotion worked out.

Since we were in debt to our eyeballs at that time, the plan was for me to substitute teach during my year off. We calculated the number of days that I needed to work in order to meet our financial obligations and it was very doable.

We also listed our house and had an offer right away. Everything appeared to be going to plan.

Then we were thrown a curveball.

Six days before moving from our home, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

We decided to put the brakes on my husband’s promotion, go through with the sale of our house, and move in with my parents while I went through cancer treatment.

The one positive to that nightmare was that we were 100% debt free for the FIRST time in our married life. We used the proceeds from the sale of our home to pay off our cars, our remaining home improvement debt, my grad school debt, and my medical bills. Miraculously, we still had a little bit of money left over for a decent down payment when we were ready to move to our next home.

We were debt free and it felt SOOOOO good.

After completing cancer treatment, Mr. Blue Eyes got a promotion almost immediately and we were on our way. However, we ended up in a fairly expensive area in Oregon and the size of our mortgage basically cancelled out Mr. Blue Eyes’ raise.

I was SO excited to find VIPKid. It was the answer we needed to help us make ends meet and build a cushion so that we could stay out of debt (other than our mortgage).

But things started breaking before that cushion was fully “fluffed.”

And here we are, about to take a look at the breakdown of our current debt. We are Dave Ramsey fans, so I’ve decided to list our debt in true snowball fashion, with the smallest balance first.

HOME IMPROVEMENT

So our lawnmower died just this past month. We were limping along with our sad little 13-year-old mower so that we could just dump it when it was time to move in a few months, but it finally just gave up. On top of that, we had some home improvements that needed to be taken care of before listing our house. We put these expenses on a Home Depot credit account with 12 months of no interest.

COMPUTER #1

I actually took a couple months off from VIPKid earlier this year. My laptop died and, since it was during Chinese New Year, I decided to take some time off and slowly look into getting it repaired. After a brief moment of excitement when I was told it was fixable, I was bummed to find out that it was actually beyond repair. Financially, it made more sense to replace it.

I decided that I wanted a dedicated laptop for VIPKid. I was tired of unplugging my webcam and headphones every day. Plus, I liked the idea of keeping my personal information off the computer that I use for VIPKid.

So I waited until I found a good sale on a laptop with the specs I wanted and then I made the purchase. The plan is to pay this off with my first VIPKid paycheck now that I’m back to work. Even though this isn’t the smallest balance, this is the smallest balance of what is accruing interest. So it’s getting dealt with first in our snowball. (Sorry, Dave!)

MEDICAL BILL

Even though I’m almost two years out from my cancer treatment, I still have medical bills pop out of nowhere. I thought that all of my bills from my reconstruction had been dealt with (before buying computers, of course) but I recently received a bill with a huge balance due. Grrrr!

COMPUTER #2

I am kind of tired of replacing technology every few years. On top of that, I needed a beefy laptop that could keep up with my blogging tasks. So I decided to jump on the Apple bandwagon and get a MacBook Pro. Dave Ramsey would be very angry at me, I’m sure. But I financed it with a zero interest plan (for 18 months) and we plan on knocking this down quickly.

VISA

Argh! We have a cash rewards Visa that we use for our recurring online subscriptions and auto-pays. Since my income has been lagging due to my time off, and our expenses have increased, we had to make up the difference with our Visa. I just checked the balance for our upcoming statement and it looks like this month is the first that we will not be able to pay off the balance.

AUTO LOAN

After paying off my van and Mr. Blue Eyes’ truck after selling our home, we vowed to run our cars into the ground so that we had time to save up and pay cash for our next vehicle. We aren’t picky people and it doesn’t embarrass us in the slightest to drive older vehicles with quirks. However, due to our frequent travel we need highway-worthy, reliable vehicles. When my van needed a major repair that didn’t make fiscal sense (due to its age and condition), we had to replace it.

We went with a solid used minivan and I love it. But I HATE the monthly payment. I can’t wait to get our other debt paid off so that we can throw multiple payments at this balance.

WHAT ABOUT THE MORTGAGE?

We are getting ready to sell our house (yes…another move). The first step in Mr. Blue Eyes’ promotion was a two-year training program. The rental market where we landed was insane, so we purchased for the short term. I decided to not list the mortgage for now, especially since the number will be changing.

I’m going to get through this debt snowball first, and THEN we’ll work on paying off our mortgage early.

Check out my most recent debt and income report, where you can see exactly how I’m using VIPKid to pay off our debt. (Just click on the image below.)

I love to hear about YOUR wins when paying off debt! I will often showcase readers who are using their side hustle income to pay off their debts. Join us on social media to join the celebration!