I started down my journey to become debt-free in December of 2016. I remember the day so clearly because it was like I had been trapped in a dark cave, and suddenly, I could see! Once the idea popped into my brain, I couldn't let it go until I started down the path.

Now, a year later, I am now on Dave Ramsey's Baby Step 6: Pay your mortgage early and have paid $25K towards clearing out my debts. 

Here's what I did:

1. Cut my expenses in half

It might seem impossible to cut your expenses by half, especially since most people believe they've gotten the best prices for their services - but, with perseverance, it can be done!

The first thing that I did was write down on paper each service that I had, the amount I was paying, and the phone number for their customer support team. Then, I reached out and called every single one of them and haggled my prices down.

If I was unable to get them to budge, I got creative!

Service	Previous Amount	HOW?	New Payment
Auto Insurance	$1100 / 6 months	Switched to Geico and saved 60%!	$502 / 6 months
TV / Internet	$124 / month	Cut everything but internet + bought a new modem / router so they didn’t charge me to rent it.	$49.99 / month + $7.99 / month for Netflix
Cell Phone	$110 / month	Switched to a “family” plan with my family so we could all save.	$55 / month
Garbage	$24 / month	Shared the service with my next door neighbor. (We’re both single, so we don’t have lots of trash.)	$12 / month
Gasoline (Car)	$80 / month	Started taking my lunch to work instead of driving home. (Uses less gas + saves money on groceries.)	$45 / month
Car Payment / Auto Loan	$319 / month	I paid off the car auto loan in full with saved money.	$0 / month

2. Setup a budget spreadsheet

Just going through my list of transactions via online banking, I realized how often I used my debt card to buy "small" purchases. No, I don't buy a cup of coffee every morning, but I do like to shop. Things like fun pens and stickers or even decorative items would appear frequently. I never thought about how much a DVD cost because - well, I could afford it.

By setting up a spreadsheet with an auto-calculating checking account balance that is projected into the rest of the year, you start to see exactly how much those small items start eating away at your savings.

I've made it available to you for free for 2018. Simply type in your starting balance and any expenses throughout the day. For instructions, read the post entitled: Free 2018 Daily Budgeting Spreadsheet Download

3. Got on Mint.com

I had figured out how to tracking my daily spend by using the spreadsheet, but, I needed a way to view all of my accounts in one place to monitor my debts, expenses, bills, and investments. I found mint.com by searching online for financial tools and because I already do my taxes with TurboTax, my account easily migrated to their free budgeting tool. 

Mint.com also allowed me to setup a monthly budget that is as automated as the spreadsheet. 

Try it for yourself, it's free!

4. Changed Banks

I used to bank with three different banks because I had moved across country and had never closed out the accounts - preferring to leave them open for convenience. Because I wasn't using the accounts, I was being (unknowingly) charged maintenance fees to keep them open. Once I had integrated all of my accounts on mint.com, my eyes were open to how much exactly I was wasting.

One of the banks in New York had been charging me $7 / month in fees for over a year and a half. That was a loss of $126 that I could have used to pay off my bills! 

I couldn't let it happen, so I closed out my unused accounts and combined them all into the bank that held my mortgage. In doing so, I had to close accounts in three of the banks and start doing business with a new one.

Why I moved the accounts to the bank that held my mortgage is simple: online banking! By combining my checking, savings, and mortgage into one bank - I am able to use the bank's online transfer tool to transfer random amounts of money into my mortgage 24/7.

So when I have a few extra dollars, I move them into my mortgage. You'd be surprised how the $10 that you would have used to buy lunch one day or the $30 for a new shirt you almost bought will add up!

TIP: Make sure that the company that holds your mortgage doesn't have any fees for early payment.

5. Asked for a raise

This one makes my knees shake, but I did ask for a raise - and much to my happiness, I did receive it.

I suppose the old adage is correct, you'll never get it unless you ask.

6. Stopped spending & started saving

By monitoring my spending, I'm able to try and curb at least some of the waste. 

I will say that I am still struggling with modifying my spending habits. 

The category that I struggle with the most is food & dining. As a single woman, I find it difficult to find foods that don't spoil after I buy them. Bulk foods, unfortunately, will go bad before I am able to eat them all - so the savings there wouldn't make sense. Cheap foods aren't healthy. And pre-packaged foods are full of sugar that I need to avoid, leaving me with having to purchase either raw materials to cook my own food or to eat at a restaurant.

When I buy raw foods to cook, it's just as expensive to buy for myself as it is for a family. Eating out is costly too. 

If I can figure out the best way to save money in that area, I'll be sure to write a cookbook.

Feel free to share your ideas with me!

I put this under the financial dilemmas section, but it's not much of one since the deed is done.

Yes, I bought a new couch and used my credit card to buy it.

So, long story short - my back was murdering me after using the same recliner for the last 10 years. Every day, I'd come home and could barely get back up after sitting down. I was in pain - so much so that I went to the doctor for muscle relaxants. 

After months of pain, I started to search for a new couch. As a petite woman, it's very difficult to find a comfortable couch, but I did find one on sale during the Year-End Sales Event at Havertys. 

I was so happy to find a comfortable sofa that I did the unthinkable - I used my credit card to purchase it.

So, the thing is other than the mortgage, I didn't have any debt and now, I am in debt again.

However, I will only be in debt until my next paycheck. So, I will pay off my credit card as fast as humanly possible and then restart my extra mortgage payments. If you pay off the card without an interest payment in full, why not use it? 

Why did I do that if I had the money to purchase it? In a nutshell, I wanted the extra bonus points that my credit card rewards.

I got the new couch, will pay for it within the next two weeks, got it on sale (15% off), and also got bonus credits to use on Amazon.

I'd say that is a success!

Ever since I was a child, I was taught to never spend unless I had the money to buy. It's a very simple concept that has served me well throughout my adult life - to the point in which my only real debt is the mortgage on my house at the age of 35. This, from what I have researched, is a rare situation. Market research shows that Americans now have the highest credit card debt in U.S. history. (MarketWatch) Americans are over $1.021 trillion dollars indebted, about 67% of the total owed being from mortgages, followed by auto and student loans. I decided last year that I didn't want to be in this statistic anymore and that I would do my very best to be completely debt-free by the age of forty.

In truth, I have been very blessed in my life to have avoided a student loan through scholarships for academic excellence, a New York State Pell Grant, and generous parents who allowed me to live at home until the age of twenty-five. Living at home with my parents allowed me to save money for a mortgage down-payment when I moved out of state to start a new career.

Graduation from University at Buffalo

In terms of auto-loans, again, my parents' kindness and generosity saved me from going into debt before my twenties. As a birthday gift, my father had purchased me an old junker of a car that got me into my senior year of college. Then, as a graduation gift from college, my family bought me a brand-new car. And yes, I did greatly appreciate their gifts to me and am still trying to pay them back for all they had given and taught me. Now, I'm helping them as they enter retirement, but that's a different story...

The car that they had bought me lasted for over ten years - if you're curious, it was an Oldsmobile Intrigue. If that manufacturer still existed today, I would have purchased another. (I loved that car.) When I did need a new car, I did indeed get a new auto-loan but paid it off in two years instead of five by making extra payments. Yes, I did break Dave Ramsey's rule about buying old junkers. As a professional woman, it is very important to me to have a safe and reliable car that will get me to and from work, as well as on my many road trips. 

Buying a junker saves you money short term, but will cost you in time at the shop to maintain and repair it. Therefore, go ahead and buy a new car with the intention of keeping it for 10 years or more. Time is money!

Therefore, the only real debt I have is my mortgage and I want to wipe it away with hard work and perseverance.

Why pay off your mortgage, you ask?

Perhaps it's my age as I apparently fall into the xennial generation that exists between Gen X and the Millennials, but I don't want to owe anyone anything. I want to exist on my own terms and do what I want - when I want to do it without fear. Since my mortgage takes away the biggest slice of my paycheck pie, I'd like to remove it from the equation. 

Those of us who lived throughout the Great Recession of 2006 - 2008 know how difficult it can be when the "bubble bursts". I had purchased my first house, a townhouse with an HOA, after moving to a new state and lost my job in quick succession. I hope that you never know the absolute horror that you experience when you no longer have a job as a single person with a mortgage.

The unfortunate issue was that I felt stuck because I took advantage of that first-time home buyer credit that was available in that time to encourage home ownership by the government. Therefore, I was required to stay in that home for at least three years or I had to pay the credit back. I also had expensive Home Owners Association fees. Those of you who have bought a first home know that it's expensive to furnish and get it setup. Not knowing that I was about to lose my job, I had spent the credit on home improvements. My only saving grace was that at that time, the Bank of America had a special first-time home buyers mortgage insurance that covered you if you had a job loss for up to six months.

Side note:
If you know of any insurance companies that sell this type of coverage, please let me know! I don't think it exists anymore...

Takeaways from that horrible experience:

1. Build an emergency fund for at least six months of mortgage payments or
2. Pay your mortgage ahead for six months so that you don't have to worry about it.
3. Don't buy a house with a Home Owners Association fee - Please, don't do it!
4. Keep a very close eye on the markets before buying a home.
5. Pay off your mortgage so you don't have to worry about it!
6. Find friends that will support you. Be that friend in return.

I will say that it wasn't all bad. Unfortunately, ALL of my friends had lost their jobs within a week or two of myself - so we job hunted together and spent our time supporting each other through the tough time. I will never forget them! We also all found jobs six months later within a week of each other - so I am sure it was the economic conditions preventing us from working.

To get right to the point, I never want that to happen again!

Anyone who has advice on how to quickly pay off your mortgage is welcome to comment below.

I am a huge fan of Dave Ramsey and his budgeting techniques. Happy to note I am now working on  baby step 6 - paying off my mortgage as fast as possible. My goal is to pay it off by my 40th birthday. I might miss it, but it won't be for lack of trying.

I have investigated so many different types of budgeting tools: including mint.com (my favorite), printable budget sheets, simple spreadsheets, and expensive planners. I looked at Erin Condren, the Happy Planner, Blue Sky, Mead, and even Martha Stewart - but none of them worked the way that I did.

As a heavy internet user and admitted cell-phone addict, I wasn't a huge fan of carrying around a giant yearly planner, no matter how much fun the stickers were! The thought of spending $70 for a planner wasn't exciting me either, preferring to use any extra cash to pay down the mortgage faster.

For those of you interested in a free budgeting tool, I highly recommend mint.com. It's my absolute favorite app and I am a daily user. But, it does have some limitations, such as the fact that you can only budget one month at a time and can't see any future financial information outside the current month. There's no predictive analytics or forecasting. Since my paycheck is biweekly, it makes it tough to plan out paying bills and how much I have to spend before my mortgage payment is due.

That's why I had to come up with a way to track my daily spend in a way that I could see how what I spent 'today' would affect the future.

As an example:

Say you want to buy the latest fitbit smart tracker. You just received your paycheck, and it's only $150 (on sale today). You can definitely afford it and you are itching to just hit the buy button on Amazon.com. But, what you can't see is that you have a $600 car insurance payment the next month, and if you spend that money - you'll have to pull out an extra $200 from your savings account to cover the cost.

I designed the following spreadsheet to start from the month of December 2017 - so you can learn how to use it before starting off the New Year with a bang!

The spreadsheet contains the entire 2018 calendar year. It not only allows you to budget daily using a calendar, but it also tracks your goals, finances, moods, gratitude, special dates, weekly reflections, and goals, such as career, education, health, and finances. [I also use it to track what movies I plan to attend, so that I can put aside money for 'entertainment'.]

Try it for yourself, it's free. (The only thing I ask is that you share my blog link with your friends if you like it.)

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

How to use it:

1. Download the spreadsheet
2. Start off by adding the current balance of your account in the yellow box starting November 30, 2017. (I recommend only putting in your daily checking account balance there.)
3. Enter the balances of your savings, mortgage, checking, and credit card accounts next to the calendar at the start of the month.
4. Enter in the amount you expect for your paychecks. (It's easier if you are working a salaried job... but, you can always modify it over time.)
5. Enter in any scheduled expenses the date they are due:
1. Mortgage payments / rent
2. Power / Electric / Gas
3. Phone bills
4. Internet bills
5. Entertainment costs, like Netflix
6. Don't forget your insurance payments!
6. Once you've added in your expenses and income, it'll start to paint a picture. The spreadsheet will auto-calculate how much you will have in your account by date.
7. As you spend outside those fixed expenses, you'll see how the 'small' expenses hurt your savings over time.
8. Start planning your goals: if it's paying off your credit cards, or paying of your mortgage - add in the amounts you are willing to put aside in the spreadsheet and color code it so that it reminds you of  your goal.
9. As you spend, you may have to decrease the amount you put aside for payments - but it will help you decide if it's an expense you are willing to take on.
10. Load it in google docs or microsoft 365 so that you can access it on your mobile phone as you travel and shop.