While I am the one writing this post, I would not have come as far if I we were not working together. Imagine a situation there is a married couple and they are trying to save up for a house for themselves and their kids. The man is in debt and the woman is debt-free. They both agree that they want to save money for the house. They put money away every month into a savings account and then use that money to pay down some of the debt. They are both frustrated because it looks like it will take forever to pay off the debt and even longer to save enough to purchase the house. 

This is how I feel many people think about paying off their debt and making priorities. They have multiple goals and do not prioritize them. One important factor I walk you through in Abundance In A Budget is how to make financial goals. In short, 1. goals should be prioritized 2. goals should be reasonable, and 3. goals should be able to be completed in less than 2 years. Keep these rules in mind while I go over how we paid off this debt. 

We worked together.

We had a few goals to take care of. We were newly married in April 2020 and needed to figure out exactly how we were going to deal with our money. We choose to do it together. 

For us, together meant setting our financial goals together. Those goals were:

1. Establishing our emergency fund
2. Setting a budget that worked for the both of us
3. Paying off our debt as quickly as possible. 

While we were working towards those goals it was natural to have our paychecks to into a joint bank account, set up our automatic payments for bills, and set our transfers for debts payments and savings. 

Now, that we have paid off the student loan debt, we can work on maxing out retirement accounts. 

For the people in the crowd that think joint accounts are a bad idea, I ask you to evaluate the reasons why. I hear,

1. What if your spouse spends all of your money? First, there is no my money and his money, it's all our money and we decide what to do with it. If your spouse has a spending issue then you should address that. You may have to limit your spouse's access the joint account because spending issues will lead to trust issues. 
2. I don't have debt and my spouse has debt, why should I pay for my spouse's decisions. As a wife myself, I think I signed up for the good and the bad. If I want us to have the house of our dreams or take ski trips to Park City, then we should build that foundation together. If he wins, then I win. If he loses, then I lose. Have these conversations before you get married. As far as debt goes, if you think your spouse or soon to be spouse has secret debts, they will usually all be listed on a credit report. Check them long before you think about getting married. 

Establish an emergency fund

I'm a huge fan of Dave Ramsey's Baby Steps. I got married April 2020 and had saved up a few thousand dollars in case of an emergency as well as paying off debt. I could have just used that money to pay down my student loan, but I knew that when I was married our debts may be reordered and they were. 

With the money my husband and I had sitting in savings accounts, we had way more than the recommended $1000 that Dave Ramsey suggests. My husband felt that extra money gave security and I felt like it was doing nothing. 

In the work that I do, I usually find new jobs quickly. I could leave one job and have a new one in less than a month. My husband on the other hand is an engineer and the interview process for some companies can take at least a month, so in case of a job-loss type of emergency, he likes to have 2-3 months of expenses. I think that's fair so we kept enough for 3 months of expenses. 

If you need help getting into the right mindset to get your budget and money working for you, then check out Abundance In A Budget.

Set a budget that worked for both of us.

After my husband and I had been dating for a bit, I got a peek into how he budgeted his money. He put away $500 a month for discretionary spending and just paid bills with the rest. 

I promise I was trying not to judge, but I had questions, like what are you spending $500 a month on? He was living in a house and did not have a lot of "things" and we split the bills on our dates, so it didn't add up. He was indeed spending that much and more on things that he did not plan for because, like many of us, until we write out a budget and check it against our expenses, you never know what you really spend. 

When we budgeted together, we both needed to be comfortable with what we set out in our budget and would you believe that we have less than $500 in our budget for discretionary spending between the 2 of us. 

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Payoff debt as quickly as possible. 

Now, that we got the heavy lifting out of the way, we could work on the big goal of paying off debt. Finally! 

Our budget was tight but did not feel like we were depriving ourselves of anything. If anything, it allowed me to enjoy spending money. There is something about knowing you can easily pay for unexpected and expected expenses that you don't get when you're swiping a credit or debit card without really knowing what's happening. 

Enjoy the little wins. 

We started in April and eventually in December we made our last student loan payment. Throughout that time we were paying a mortgage and utilities for a house we were not living in addition to the apartment we payed for. This was one of the largest concerns we had paying off debt and we had to deal with that until October when the house was sold. 

Here's what our little wins included:

• paying off my husbands smaller student loan
• paying off a loan to family
• Creating short term savings for Christmas and visiting family

We hit each of these goals before the house sold and they made the process much sweeter. 

It was also nice to see that we could pay more towards our other debts as we paid our debts off. When the house sold in October we blew through my student loan and could pay massive amounts on my husbands final student loan. It was a great feeling.