Being Normal: Buying Things We Didn’t Need, With Money we Didn’t Have, to Impress People We Didn’t Even Care About! Part III
Part III, Changing Our Family Tree, The Conclusion
If you are coming across this conclusion of our "Being Normal" series, and have not yet read Parts I & II, click HERE to get the back story!
It was about this time that I did what any Marine would do, fall back on my training. Marines train, repetition after repetition after repetition, so that certain foundational actions become engrained within us as muscle memory. This enables one to execute a particular action during a moment of chaos and fatigue; the action becomes second nature. For me there was one Marine Corps Leadership Principle that rang in my ear loud and clear; Know yourself and seek self-improvement.
I recognized quickly that the first thing Nelli and I had to do was stop accumulating debt. This was a decision that was made with utmost certainty. We also knew that if we wanted to achieve anything we first would need to set specific goals. Our goal was to utilize the remaining months of our extraordinary income to become debt free before Sasha’s birth! The driving factor behind this was that Nelli had expressed the desire to stay at home with Sasha, which would result in us reverting back to a single income family. This was a decision fully supported by me, however I knew we were not financially ready for such an action!
For Nelli and I the decision on what we needed to do was clear. Although emotionally it took some time to not go ahead and buy everything we wanted, we physically made the change on the spot. We went from getting anything and everything we wanted to scorched Earth.
Dave Ramsey refers to this period as Gazelle Intensity, in reference to Proverbs 6:5; “Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the snare of the fowler.” We lived on “beans and rice” and when we got tired we switched to “rice and beans.” Not literally, Nelli was pregnant and had established quite an appetite and I was in Japan, the homeland of sushi and other sea food, but the gist of the story is that we were very, very careful on what we spent.
Speaking of scorched Earth, I did some serious soul searching and made the decision to sell the Camaro. Despite our ability to pay it off within the year, the decision to sell her went beyond the financial aspect. The purchase of this vehicle represented our “nail in the coffin,” the worst financial decision we had ever made. Even if we had paid this vehicle off she would have sat there as a constant reminder to Nelli and I of all of those negative emotions that we felt upon our realization of just how much trouble we were in.
Just to be completely clear, during our period of ignorance, Nelli and I thoroughly loved driving around in this vehicle. She was sleek, aggressive, quick, and sounded angry as could be. We enjoyed hopping inside and going out for a drive, not particularly paying much care to where it was that we were going. The only problem was that this was not the appropriate time for us. That time will come!
It was about this time that I became very engaged with personal finance and the different tools available. I had recently learned about the Service-Members Civil Relief Act (SCRA), stay tuned for an upcoming post on how you too can benefit from this amazing program geared for service members. Despite American Express enabling us to accumulate these ridiculous balances, I have always had a positive opinion of their business and the way they have treated us.
In my experience, American Express tends to go above and beyond in all instances, and for Nelli and I, they reimbursed us for approximately 10 years of annual fees as well as the accumulated interest we had paid on balances we had carried over from month to month. This led to Amex absolving approximately $14,000 of our balance.
After this moment, combined with how Amex had historically treated us, I vowed that American Express had gained a customer for life. The only difference is that going forward, our relationship would be managed in a significantly more responsible manner!
With our still impressive income remaining, we began to attack this debt with a vengeance. We had dug ourselves into a pretty big hole, $80,000 worth, but luckily, we had a big enough shovel to dig ourselves back out by Sasha’s birth.
Nelli and I became so hyper focused on our goal that not only did we become debt free by Sasha’s birth, we were able to amass approximately six months of living expenses to be used in what would soon become our Emergency Fund.
The only reason that Nelli and I were able to achieve that remarkable feat was because we sat down as husband and wife and together we created this shared goal. Just as, then Senator Abraham Lincoln, stated in his 1858 senatorial acceptance speech, that “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” the same principle bears true in any relationship. If husband and wife are not on the same page then these competing interests will likely lead to the inability to successfully achieve either person’s goals.
Around Spring of 2015, after Nelli and I had relocated to Iwakuni, Japan, I had the pleasure of working with the Gentlemen who would forever change the life of my family, Captain Michael Wright, United States Marine Corps. At Marine Aerial Refueler Transport Squadron 152 (VMGR-152) Captain Wright and I would be placed in charge of leading the Powerline Division; he as the Officer in Charge (OIC) and I as his Division Chief.
The dynamics between Captain Wright and I were ideal. We both shared complementing characteristics, morals, and beliefs; most importantly of all, we cared about our Marines above all else. In one of our many mentoring sessions, Captain Wright advised me that he believed I could benefit from the teachings of this guy named Dave Ramsey, who had written books regarding the topic of personal finance. Captain Wright could have never known at the time what this would eventually lead to.
That night I picked up the book, The Total Money Makeover, and within minutes I was hooked! I had come across this book before in the past however I invested little interest because “I knew better.” This time I did know better, and I knew that I needed help. The recommendation to read this book was exactly what I needed and it came at precisely the right time!
I finished the book within 24 hours and I bought into it with everything I had. At the time Nelli had traveled with Sasha back to Russia to vacation with her family. Upon finishing this book I immediately called Nelli and frantically began to attempt explaining to her what I had just learned and why we have to follow this plan. Looking back, I likely sounded like I had lost my mind!
Here Nelli was, on a lavish, multi-country, vacation with family. She had flown to Moscow and then to Germany where she would then drive through the picturesque mountains of Austria and settle on the eastern coast of Italy where she would sip wine while glancing out at the majestic Adriatic Sea and here I am trying to convince her that now is the time that we need to start a budget!
The comedy of my timing is not lost on me as it brings a smile to my face each time I recall this story. Nelli's reply to my "rant" was about as diplomatic an answer as one could give; "I think this is a great idea, lets discuss it when I get back!" Which was code for "I am going to finish enjoying this vacation first!"
As Nelli shares with others today, as she tells this story, “I had no idea what the heck he was talking about however I knew from his excitement and the tone in his voice that this was something we had to do!”
Upon Nelli’s return from visiting family abroad, Nelli sat down and read the book as well and she too was hooked. Nelli and I had once again formed a shared goal which would ultimately lead to significant successes.
For those of you unfamiliar with the teachings of Dave Ramsey, it all begins with “The Baby Steps.” These seven steps are so basic, so simple, it is almost comical looking back, yet the power of these steps is not to be taken lightly. Dave’s teachings are filled with time tested principles like spending less than you make, and realizing that your income is your greatest building tool, and that each debt you are in builds wealth for others, lessening your ability to build wealth for yourself.
Please click here to read my article titled “Personal Finance Done Right: Breaking Away From the Joneses,” where I discuss Dave’s Baby Steps in detail however, I strongly encourage each of you to read/listen to Mr. Ramsey’s book, The Total Money Makeover and begin your journey to financial peace!
This story could turn into a book so I will save that for the time in which it does. What I will share is that shortly after my becoming hooked on Dave Ramsey’s plan, I began to look for ways that I could help others achieve the same levels of success that Nelli and I had now achieved.
It was approximately fall of 2015 that I had been signed up to become certified as a financial specialist for the command. It was during this class that I would be introduced to Dana Carlyle, the Personal Finance Manager for Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, and a dear friend! I paid attention to Dana’s class with more attention than I had likely given to anything prior. Likely due to my hunger for the information as well as her ability to expertly present it. Had I have gone through high school with this same drive, there is no doubt that I would have been a 4.0 student.
With the certification Dana helped me to achieve I was placed in a position to help others at a scale once never imagined. To date, I have instructed, coached, and provided financial leadership to hundreds of service members and their families and enabled them to work their way through a myriad of financial issues of varying scale, but of equal importance.
To date, I have roughly estimated that I have helped service members to pay themselves out of nearly $900,000 worth of debt, and these are just the numbers captured by those who have physically scheduled one-on-one counseling appointments with me. In reality, when you take in to account the hundreds of people I have instructed during seminars and command formations, that number is likely factors higher.
This brings us to present day. With the birth of our second child, Nik, Nelli and I remain a single income family and continue to maintain a debt free lifestyle. This has enabled us to achieve a level of financial freedom that we never realized to be possible, i.e. fully fund our retirement accounts, save for our children’s college, and even work towards our most ambitious goal or saving to purchase a house, mortgage free!
Today I continue to provide education and assistance, to those who seek it, and, in an effort to reach out and help people on a grander scale, I have created this community here!
