"The anxiety from our financial situation is gone" - 101 Financial Success Story

So we're the Atkinsons. I'm Jake and— I'm

Mandy.

Mandy. We have 5 wonderful kids, 3 boys, 2 girls, and we've recently started 101. I'm a registered nurse and just became a nursing home administrator, and Mandy's a—

I'm a stay-at-home mom and a part-time hairstylist. So Jake and I are kind of at that phase of life where We're treading water. We were, we are like paycheck-to-paycheck people and stressed all the time. Like, life is just not fun when you are stressed about money all the time.

Our situation, we held our money with a bucket and water was coming in, that was our money. We had plenty of water coming in, but our bucket was just full of holes all over, and sometimes the water would go in and right back out with nothing left. And we were struggling to figure out what we were going to do because we only had little droplets in there. But when we started One-on-One, you know, we started learning how to fill those holes.

I think that's the best part about One-on-One Financial is that we are, yes, living within our means now, but we're also just not stressed about that because you start out gradually with 99 learning how to budget and how to stay within this little boundary that you have, but you're not— you don't notice that you are living frugally because you're not missing anything. And then 101 came by and we've paid off debt now and—

It's almost like we get this adrenaline rush from paying off so much debt.

It's funny because before it was not even an option. We just thought we'll just pay minimum payments on everything until we die.

We weren't looking forward to retirement because we—

We were just hoping we'd die before then.

Die before then. That was our retirement.

Because there wasn't going to be a retirement.

There was no hope for it.

So maybe we could retire someday now. Yeah, there's actually hope. We're just like, oh!

You know, our story, we started May 11th and by June 21st we've paid $10,000, a little over $10,000 in debt.

And

just, and another payment to a big student loan that we have, and we're just blown away.

Which is almost $15,000, and we, we didn't see a way out of it. And honestly, that student loan, that one student loan, was scheduled to be 2035.

So,

and we're projected to be paid off that and our house and our car, the 3 debts we have left.

Yep.

In 8 years. And that's crazy.

Yeah.

For us to think about. We can't even wrap our head around that. And we decided this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna sit down and we're gonna talk openly as a family because our financial situation doesn't just affect us. And we've known that from the beginning. So we We sat down and said, this is what we make. This is what we owe. These are our debts. This is why—

We can't go on vacation.

Yeah, basically. So we had this big long discussion about saving and why that's important now so that they don't end up in the same situation that we were.

What do you know about money?

Buying something.

Who knows what debt is?

When you're— you have to like owe someone money. When you, when you take a loan from someone and you have to pay it off.

Who right now is saving money? Do you guys save money?

Yeah.

Where do you guys put your money when you save it?

In a piggy bank. Yeah, in a big soda can. Can I have a big soda can?

Wow!

My favorite thing from One-on-One is peace of mind and not having the stress and worry of how to get through the next day and the next week.

It's just all around a calmer way to live. I mean, I don't know if that is the right word, but The anxiety is gone from our financial situation. Before, it was always stress and always worry.

And it's brought a peace to our home too. And, you know, I don't think we're the only ones that feel it, but our kids feel it as well.