In the past 12 months I have probably experienced some of the biggest financial events that people go through. Since last year this time I have paid off all my credit card debt, bought my first house, gotten married, bought two new cars, and set up my emergency savings. That’s a lot in a year’s timespan, and looking back I’m amazed that we were able to do it all (somewhat) smoothly. Thinking about my life and finances a year ago compared to now is pretty crazy, and I’m really grateful for the amount of positive change that I’ve been able to experience. My wife and I knew that we’d have a busy year, and we really did the best we could to make smart decisions that would help us get through it.
Eliminating our credit card debt
I have battled credit card debt a few times in my life. Last year I had some left over credit card debt from my stint on unemployment and I worked toward finishing that up. Being that we were getting married and looking to buy a house, we had to be careful to balance our spending with maintaining the quality of our credit score. It wasn’t easy, but I have gotten pretty good and managing debt in the last 4 years or so.
Getting married
Getting married is supposed to be the happiness time of your life, right? Well, my wife and I both agreed that the wedding planning is just a crazy process that we both disliked very much. Sure, it was fun picking out the cake but not so much having to decide who gets to come and who doesn’t. It was very stressful for us, but we actually decided to cut back a lot on the wedding spending in order to put more money towards buying our house. Our initial plan was Cancun for the honeymoon, but we decided to put that money towards our house and just ended up going back to the place we got engaged for a week or so. It was still nice, very romantic, and it helped us buy our house.
Buying our first house
Buying a home is stressful as well, and we went through the whole process of building, picking out options, and shopping for mortgage lenders. I did a good job of getting the best mortgage I could by having multiple lenders fight for my business, and in the end buying our house was one of the happiness days in my life. There is something about buying your first home that just makes you feel good. Our house is great, and it’s the only big purchase I’ve made in my life where I’ve never felt one ounce of buyer’s remorse. Cutting back on our planned wedding spending really helped us get the house and we even used it as the place of our rehearsal dinner!
Buying two new cars
The last thing I wanted to do after spending on a wedding and a house is buy two new cars. But it just so happened that around that time my car had a pretty serious breakdown. At the time I had plans to fix it, but realized that it wasn’t going to be worth the money I would have to put into it. Instead I decided to get a nice (and brand new) 2007 Honda Civic. Cars are never good investments, but a Honda is about as close as you can get to one. Overall, I’m really happy with the price and the purchase that I got on it and it’s been a sound purchase. Around that time my wife’s car started to give out as well, and hers was actually quite a bit older than mine. Instead of spending more trying to keep it running, we decided we’d both start fresh and we went down to the same dealership (had a great experience!) and got her a CR-V. Financially I would have preferred waiting to buy new cars, but emotionally I felt better knowing that I wouldn’t have to worry about my wife being stranded somewhere with a broken down automobile. Piece of mind is worth something.
Setting up our emergency savings
Finally after all the wedding, home buying, and car buying slowed down we were able to concentrate on getting our finances back to where they needed to be. Getting our 4-6 month cushion in our emergency savings was huge to me. Being that we had taken on a lot of new financial responsibility, the last thing I wanted for us to have trouble paying it. Having that emergency savings locked away is a great feeling, and allows us to not worry so much about potentially losing our jobs or dealing with an emergency situation.
The last year has been a whirlwind, but I really feel that we ended up on top. Sure, there are some things I might have done a little differently, but looking back now I think I made some really great decisions to get us to where we were trying to go. As much as you plan and prepare, there will always be things that pop up and surprise you. You just have to keep your goals in mind and try the best you can to make decisions that align to them, and hopefully the rest takes care of itself.
