Debt Free at 23
Tonight, after a bit of a "Monday" at school (if you know what I mean,) Josey and I hit submit and paid off our last student loan in full. I think this moment is best captured on video, so here it is.
In the last few weeks I knew we were close to being debt-free, and I was pretty excited to blog about it. But now I don't feel like "bragging." It was pretty anticlimactic.
Josey jokes that he is stoked. He wants to have a party, and is talking about the Razr he wants to buy. He says, "want to go have a $100 steak?"
And I can't help thinking - if we didn't have to pay off those loans, we would have had that $21,661 in our savings account.
Josey reminds me that if he hadn't taken out those loans then he wouldn't have his degree and therefore wouldn't have the job he has now. (Duh.) If he hadn't taken out those loans, he would not have come to Montana State, and I never would have met him/married him. So I guess it's okay to have student debt.
We made ourselves a goal to pay off his loans within two years of graduating.
275 days after graduation, we're done.
Here is how we did it.
We worked in the summers, and I worked as a long term substitute in Bozeman in the spring.
We had a simple wedding, and did everything ourselves.
We started paying on the loans before the wedding!
We both got hired in our degree field.
We also moved very far away, to a very small town, with super low living costs.
Then we got a cat.
We started teaching private lessons (piano, voice, guitar, brass) - I have 16 students and he has 8.
We didn't spend money, mostly because there is no Walmart/Target/McDonalds/Taco Bell/Kohls/Lowes/JCPenny/Goodwill/Costco or anything here.
That's it! You get a paycheck, you spend very little of it, and you put $2,000+ of it towards student loans each month.
Ta-da!
It does feel good to be debt free at 23 years old.
As for living in Saco, we're getting used to it. Not having those stores doesn't bother me as much anymore. I've gotten a lot braver at online shopping! (I used to just leave stuff in my "shopping cart" and never buy it.)
We've also gotten involved in the community, which I enjoy a lot. We've invited kids from all religious backgrounds to our Catholic youth group, so we have a bit of a crowd that hangs out with us on Wednesdays.
Josey also has been helping with renovations at St. Francis church in Saco every Monday night. The basement flooded two years ago, so they have had to redo everything. He's helped demolish a kitchen, hung drywall, and this evening was plastering putty for a few hours.
We do music at church in Saco every Sunday we are in town, and more recently I've been helping with music in Malta. They have no one to do music at St. Mary's on Sunday mornings.
I think that is just wrong. So far, I've helped start up a women's choir that sings one Sunday a month, "Chris Pippin and the Quiñones" sing another Sunday, and I'm really close to getting a middle/high school group up and running for another Sunday.
I can't stress how important music at mass is. Josey and I attended a conference in St. Louis two summers ago where we learned how to plan music for specific feast days and celebrations, and we were exposed to so much good music. It is a huge part of the Catholic faith! As Ash Wednesday nears and Lent is about to begin, I'm ready to take on the challenge of helping with music ministry in Malta, as best I can.
We have a lot to look forward to now, as we are in the second half of the school year. Music festivals and spring concerts are coming up, and in general the academic year seems to be moving very quickly. Our combined pep band has been getting better and better, and very soon we will be taking the band to Districts, and beyond. Go North Country Mavericks basketball!
This spring will be the first in a long time that I am not tied to track and field. I decided that it was more important to keep my piano studio running (most of my students are elementary school aged) than to drop all of that to be a second assistant coach for a track team of less than 15 kids.
I will be helping out as much as I can though, with hurdles and starts and sprint mechanics when I can squeeze it in. I plan to go to many of the track meets, but it will be nice not to have to go to a meet every weekend if I don't want to. Unlike the last 11 years. I think Josey will be happy not to follow me to track meets EVERY weekend.
In other exciting news, I got to go to Seattle in January to help Ainsley pick out her wedding dress! Oh my goodness, it was a great weekend. I flew in a teeny airplane from Glasgow to Billings, and then a normal jet from there to Seattle.
I cannot stress how nice it was to have a weekend in a city, with lots of people and lots of things to do. And sushi, although I ate that too fast to take a picture of it. We went on a tour of CenturyLink Stadium to see the home of the Seahawks, and in general walked around in the rain a lot. The best part was that Ainsley got her dress for the big day.
I also had the opportunity to take engagement photos for Ainsley and Eliot. It was neat to capture their "Seattle" engagement, even if the sun set a little too early. (Where was that sun, anyways?)
There are so many more things I could talk about in this blog post, but I guess I should go to bed. It is apparently 10:40 PM and I still wanted to write a math lesson tonight. (Yeah right.) I will leave you with this picture of Josey and Panther listening to me read my blog out loud before I publish it.
Love,
Chelsea, Josey & Panther
In the last few weeks I knew we were close to being debt-free, and I was pretty excited to blog about it. But now I don't feel like "bragging." It was pretty anticlimactic.
Josey jokes that he is stoked. He wants to have a party, and is talking about the Razr he wants to buy. He says, "want to go have a $100 steak?"
And I can't help thinking - if we didn't have to pay off those loans, we would have had that $21,661 in our savings account.
Josey reminds me that if he hadn't taken out those loans then he wouldn't have his degree and therefore wouldn't have the job he has now. (Duh.) If he hadn't taken out those loans, he would not have come to Montana State, and I never would have met him/married him. So I guess it's okay to have student debt.
We made ourselves a goal to pay off his loans within two years of graduating.
 |
| Montana State Graduation, May 9th 2015 |
275 days after graduation, we're done.
Here is how we did it.
We worked in the summers, and I worked as a long term substitute in Bozeman in the spring.
We had a simple wedding, and did everything ourselves.
We started paying on the loans before the wedding!
We both got hired in our degree field.
We also moved very far away, to a very small town, with super low living costs.
Then we got a cat.
We started teaching private lessons (piano, voice, guitar, brass) - I have 16 students and he has 8.
We didn't spend money, mostly because there is no Walmart/Target/McDonalds/Taco Bell/Kohls/Lowes/JCPenny/Goodwill/Costco or anything here.
That's it! You get a paycheck, you spend very little of it, and you put $2,000+ of it towards student loans each month.
Ta-da!
It does feel good to be debt free at 23 years old.
As for living in Saco, we're getting used to it. Not having those stores doesn't bother me as much anymore. I've gotten a lot braver at online shopping! (I used to just leave stuff in my "shopping cart" and never buy it.)
We've also gotten involved in the community, which I enjoy a lot. We've invited kids from all religious backgrounds to our Catholic youth group, so we have a bit of a crowd that hangs out with us on Wednesdays.
Josey also has been helping with renovations at St. Francis church in Saco every Monday night. The basement flooded two years ago, so they have had to redo everything. He's helped demolish a kitchen, hung drywall, and this evening was plastering putty for a few hours.
We do music at church in Saco every Sunday we are in town, and more recently I've been helping with music in Malta. They have no one to do music at St. Mary's on Sunday mornings.
I think that is just wrong. So far, I've helped start up a women's choir that sings one Sunday a month, "Chris Pippin and the Quiñones" sing another Sunday, and I'm really close to getting a middle/high school group up and running for another Sunday.
 |
| Church in Malta, before mass. It's a neat worship space. |
 |
| Up in the choir loft at St. Mary's. |
I can't stress how important music at mass is. Josey and I attended a conference in St. Louis two summers ago where we learned how to plan music for specific feast days and celebrations, and we were exposed to so much good music. It is a huge part of the Catholic faith! As Ash Wednesday nears and Lent is about to begin, I'm ready to take on the challenge of helping with music ministry in Malta, as best I can.
 |
| Patron Saint of Music stained glass, found in the Cathedral of the Plains Church in Kansas. It was one of our stops on the way back from the National Pastoral Musicians' conference in St. Louis in 2014. |
This spring will be the first in a long time that I am not tied to track and field. I decided that it was more important to keep my piano studio running (most of my students are elementary school aged) than to drop all of that to be a second assistant coach for a track team of less than 15 kids.
I will be helping out as much as I can though, with hurdles and starts and sprint mechanics when I can squeeze it in. I plan to go to many of the track meets, but it will be nice not to have to go to a meet every weekend if I don't want to. Unlike the last 11 years. I think Josey will be happy not to follow me to track meets EVERY weekend.
 |
| I don't know how much longer I can hold the "set" position... |
In other exciting news, I got to go to Seattle in January to help Ainsley pick out her wedding dress! Oh my goodness, it was a great weekend. I flew in a teeny airplane from Glasgow to Billings, and then a normal jet from there to Seattle.
 |
| Sitting this close to the pilots reminded me of when I was considering the Air Force Academy for school... |
 |
| Not my best panorama. |
 |
| This girl did not give a post game interview... but she did get her dress! |
I also had the opportunity to take engagement photos for Ainsley and Eliot. It was neat to capture their "Seattle" engagement, even if the sun set a little too early. (Where was that sun, anyways?)
 |
| AREN'T THEY CUTE!?! |
There are so many more things I could talk about in this blog post, but I guess I should go to bed. It is apparently 10:40 PM and I still wanted to write a math lesson tonight. (Yeah right.) I will leave you with this picture of Josey and Panther listening to me read my blog out loud before I publish it.
Love,
Chelsea, Josey & Panther
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