Our Fiscal Epiphany

We started on journey this year.   I call it our "Fiscal Epiphany", and by "our" I mean "Mikes", and by "Fiscal Epiphany" I mean early retirement.  Let me fill you in.

About half way through 2014 I began following the Dave Ramsey envelope system for our finances.  I had listened to Ramsey's audiobook "The Total Money Makeover" and was inspired, actually, more like motivated.  We already had no debt other than our mortgage and miscellaneous credit card spendings that we paid off each month.  Prior to our "epiphany" money was good for us.  We never missed a bill.  We charged only what we could pay off each month.  We lived well and we had a lot to show for it.  We had toys- both for the young and the not so young.  We had vehicles, three to be exact.  We upgraded our kitchen and shopped, semi-modestly for clothes for the kids and for ourselves.  We did a lot of dreaming.  What we would do with our money "one day." What we would buy.  What we could "get."  At the same time Mike was feeling stuck.  Stuck working for what we had.  Stuck working trying to reach these dreams of things we were planning on getting.  Things that if you asked me now to list I don't think I could recall a single one.  So a few months after we really began to watch where our money was going Ramsey-style we noticed a few things.  For starters, when I tried to recall what I purchased using credit throughout the month I could not recall exactly what it was.  Food, definitely, but I had no idea exactly how much.  Gas for the cars.  Clothes for the kids because they grow like weeds and seem to have outgrown something every time I blink.  And I may have gotten some extra clothes for myself here and there.  I have never been super into fashion and spending a lot of money on clothes and accessories, but I do enjoy shopping and I do like to get new things.  I was couponing for hours a week and stocking our shelves with bottles of products and boxes of foods that filled our pantry and then some.  I did all of this peddling through the month to keep up.  To the fill needs that I felt I needed to fill as a mom and a wife.  The cleaning and organizing of our stuff.  The cooking and cleaning up of our food.  The kids and their activities. Hosting parties, going to parties, decorating, planning, buying for fundraisers, scheduling pictures,  planning our next family trip.....  It seemed to never, ever, ever, end, ever.

Our house was cluttered with the stuff we were buying with all of our money that was coming in.  My mind was cluttered with what needs to be done next.  Mike's mind was cluttered with his work and the stresses that came with it.  It was too much.  We were a happy family, we were a happy couple....  but we wanted to be better.

So became our epiphany.  Mike began reading some blogs and I began going over our spending budget with a fine-toothed comb.  There was room for changes all over the place.  What was important to us as a family was coming into focus.  What we really wanted, we couldn't buy no matter how long we saved.  We wanted time.  Time to spend with our kids who were already more grown up than we could believe.  You can't get that back.  This was the most important thing to us.

So we changed.  We changed everything.  The end game became our beacon and nothing else is as important.

1. We pay off our mortgage(s) in less than 8 years.
2. Mike wants to "semi-retire" as soon as we can.
3. We declutter our lives of stuff.
4. We spend as much time as possible together as a family.

These are our new rules and every choice we make from here on out will be in support of them.