School loans are a b*&%$

I'm not usually a big potty mouth, but school loans warrant a little profanity.  They have been chasing me around since 2007, and we are not friends.  Warning: this post is going to be a doozy, so if you're interested in hearing about the crazy journey Ryan and I are on, and allllll the details behind it, keep reading.  If not, no harsh feelings, but you should stop reading now.

For those of you that have school loans, I wonder if you feel the same.  That they're like a giant cloud following you around everywhere you go.  I don't take debt lightly, and I'm so grateful Ryan and I don't have any credit card debt and haven't since we first got married.  I know people say "school loans are good, they are an investment into your future!"  True, but doesn't make me feel any better about the amount of money we owe (more details on this later).

You might wonder what our school loans have to do with Lucille, since this blog is supposedly all about her.  There is a connection, I promise.  Ryan and my plan since he graduated from his Masters program last May has been to just write that BIG check every month and have our loans paid off in 10 years.  Subsequently, our plan has also been to not pay for our kids' school because by the time we got ours paid off, we'd be putting every penny toward our children's school funds.  But then Lucille came, and she changed everything.  She melted our hearts into a giant puddle, and we want more for her.

• We don't want her to feel this same burden we're feeling now.
• We want to be able to support her in whatever she's passionate about and send her to camps and trips and whatever she wants to do to bring experiences and meaning to her life, and to help shape the little lady she will become, without worrying about it breaking the bank.
• We want to be able to fund family vacations, so she can experience places outside of Spokane, WA and Salem, OR.

Here are some other reasons that aren't really Lucille related:

• We want to be able to donate more freely.
• We want to save more, both in our savings account and our retirement fund.

There's more, but I'll leave it at that.  So we decided it was time to do something drastic.  That if we didn't do something drastic now, we would most definitely regret it down the road.  We've been praying hard for what that means since last October, and have finally landed on an answer. We're moving in with our cousins and best friends, Kurt and Les, and putting all of our monies toward that *&%$ school debt.  In their 1,600 sq ft house.  With 3 dogs.  And 2 babies (they have a 2 month old little girl).  And we are squeezing our entire life into 1 little bedroom that will barely fit our king size bed.  Crazy?  Yes!  Worth it?  Absolutely!  My mantra since coming up with this plan has been "You can do anything for a year".  So we'll be practicing minimalism to its core. We are so grateful for their generosity and love and support of our journey to allow us to move in with them... we keep saying they are the crazier ones!  Here they are, in all their cuteness:

That being said, we are trying to rent out our home, otherwise this grand plan that we've been scheming will be a giant fail.  We think it'd be the perfect home for a group of girls, with 6 bedrooms and 3 baths and lots of space, so we're praying hard for that right now.

We have a hefty goal for the year, and my hope is that you'll walk with us in this journey and celebrate with us as we work toward our goal and be annoyed with us when we feel like complaining that all of our money is going backward instead of forward.  Ready for it?  Brace yourselves: $60,000.  Let me repeat that for you... sixty-thousand dollars.  And that's not all of it, but that will take care of a large chunk of it.  That's a crap ton of money to pay off in one year, but we think we can do it.  With a lot of focus and no splurges.  Well, mostly no splurges... you'll likely still see me with a Starbucks in hand, because a girl's gotta have something to keep her sane!

What's a Lucille post without a picture of the cutie?  Flyin' high this weekend in our spring weather we've been so desperate for!

And it's all for her.  And it's all worth it.

Cheers,
Ali