Getting Out of Debt

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Combine your money with your spouse. So many spouses keep their money separate and they feel like this gives them more control or autonomy. I don't know what they feel like, but it just isn't healthy. It's not biblical and frankly, it's not.

Practical and it causes more fights. Like, I've heard a lot of people do this because they think it will avoid fights, but it just ends up causing more fights because then it's like.

No, I paid for this. You got to pay for that. And I'm like, in marriage, that's just a ridiculous mindset.

Hello and welcome back to the Naked Marriage Podcast. We are Dave and Ashley Willis, and on this podcast we Undress the truth about sex, intimacy and lifelong love. And we are so excited to be continuing in our series, our summer quickie series where we have shorter episodes but talk about all kinds of different topics. We've had some really fun ones this summer. I really enjoyed it.

I've loved every single one of them.

Yes. And today is a super important topic that we can totally relate to. And I know so many of you listening and watching can relate to, and that is getting out of debt. Yes.

Yeah, the money. For a long time, like, money was a dirty word in our marriage because we couldn't even talk about the subject without having tension and frustration because I felt like a failure in this area. I just felt like I couldn't figure out how to get it together and how to, you know, even still getting after, on the other side of getting out of debt, we still have a mortgage, but getting out of debt. Like, I still find myself getting, like tense around money topics, thinking about the future and all those different things. But I know the crippling stress that debt can cause in a marriage. Like, we know we started out, we were young, in love and broke and dumb when it came to money. And so we put stuff on credit cards. We just, we racked up some, the worst kind of debt that you can have. Then in the midst of that, we, you know, financed a, a car that was like, newer than we needed and just made some dumb things because we thought well, if we can afford the payments, it means we can afford it. But really what we were doing is piling on debt. And eventually we learned the hard way that what it says in the proverbs is true. The borrower is a slave to the lender. And God wants us to live in freedom, not slavery. And we had bound ourselves up in this form of bondage, slavery by all this money that we owed. And so it felt insurmountable. Cause at the time we had very low income and we had our debt with high interest. It just felt like we would never get out of that. And I know so many people listening right now have been there or are there right now. We're in a really unique time when so many people are facing financial uncertainty and financial pressure and debt. And so we just want to. We're not financial gurus. That's not our shtick. But we're people who have lived this and we just want to share both the marriage lessons we learned through it and then also a couple of just very basic financial principles that helped us dig our way out and get to a place with more peace in this area.

Absolutely. And you know, and this is something that's ongoing. It's not like we've arrived.

Oh yeah, no, it's.

I mean, we fairly recently actually made an investment where basically the. It turned out to be not what we thought it could be. And it really kind of sent us reeling a little bit.

Yeah. It was a. We don't even know the lesson we're supposed to learn.

We really don't.

We had, we had cashed out. We cashed out retirement, which is a dumb thing anyway. Unless. Unless it's an emergency, don't cash out of your 401k because the penalties and everything else.

But we had a plan because this was something for the future.

Right. We thought this was going to. This was gonna really pan out. It was a dream we'd had for a long time. Just something we prayed about for a long time. We felt like it was the right.

We can just talk about it. It was gonna be a wedding venue.

Yeah. We were gonna buy this place and make it into a wedding venue so that because we love marriage and we love sharing moments with people, we wanted to just have a beautiful place where people could have those moments. And we thought it's a recession proof industry and we could use it as ministry and all these things. And so we bought this property over 200 years old. Yeah. And we got it at a fairly low cost. But then the cost to renovate it was just way more than we thought it was going to be. Then the city where we got the little town where we got it voted against us letting us use it the way we wanted to use it because.

It had been commercially zoned. But they didn't want it to be commercially zoned anymore.

It became just a residence again. We couldn't use it for that. So then we had to pivot hard and try to treat it like a flip. But the thing is, nobody wants to buy a 200 year old house flip. And so we spent all this time and money and effort and just one of the most exhausting, frustrating things that we've been through in recent years. It was very just to get it ready for sale. And then when we finally did sell it at the end, we had to keep lowering the price until we sold it at a fairly significant loss. And it was humbling and it was frustrating and we learned a lot through it. In fact, we're still kind of processing that lesson. But the stress we felt through that was so much. But it was different than the stress we felt early on in our marriage when it was just debt itself. It wasn't like a bad investment. This was kind of like the frustration of both the financial loss and a dream that had kind of been lost. The dream we'd had for a long time that we sort of had to lay to rest. But I think where most people can relate to where we were for sure is just feeling like there's not enough money coming in compared to everything that has to go out. And I don't know how to make things meet. Years of that. We had years and years of that and we just had to be scrappy and resourceful. And one thing I love so much about how Ashley was so supportive during that time when I at the time she was first part of this was at home with kids and I was the primary breadwinner. But she always, always has been the hardest worker in the family, regardless of the job situation and would find resourceful ways to both save money and generate income from home. And so she'd sell stuff. I called her my ebay, but for a while because she would find stuff and resell it and be really resourceful that way. She was always looking for opportunities for us to, you know, to save money and be able to put that money toward debt repayment or generate extra income so that we could still not only get out of debt, but also live and enjoy life and find that balance and that rhythm. But it came down to communication. It came down to getting a plan and sticking to it came down to kind of swallowing our pride and multiple jobs. Yeah, working.

You took on an extra job as a professor?

Yeah, like, we would take on extra job. I would teach classes. I was. We were just doing whatever we could do. And then we were trying to live below our means, which is hard to do because once you have a little extra money coming in, you want to spend it. You're like, oh, finally we can breed. Let's go spend this money. But we tried to. And we weren't always great at this. Me especially, I feel like.

But we both like to spend.

Yeah, we do. But we got to a place where we said, listen, we're not going to spend over $50 unless it's like, groceries or bills. We're not going to spend over $50 on anything without checking in with each other. And we've actually still kept that all these years later. Like, Ashley will call me or I'll call her and say, hey, I was thinking about buying this for the house or buying this for whatever. And, you know, are we in it? Okay? And we just check in with each other out of respect and out of making sure we're all in tune with the financial situation. And that little habit has helped us a lot, too.

Well, it just clears the air. There's no. And there's no secrets. I mean, you know, there's a lot of these, like, memes and little funny posts online about Amazon, like, women hiding their Amazon packages so their husband won't know. And, I mean, I know it's all in jest, but, like, that. We can't fall into those kind of things because we always need to be communicating. We always need to make sure there's no hidden things going on. I mean, that just kind of breeds more secrecy and really bad habits. It's just not a good habit to just constantly, you know, spending can become an addiction. I mean, it really can. And there's something fun about getting a package in the mail or getting that new outfit or whatever it is. And so when you're constantly talking to each other, you can keep each other in check, you know, and most of the time, we'll say yes to each other. When we call about the $50 thing, most of the time we're like, yeah, go ahead, get it. But there have been some times where one of us will know that there's an upcoming bill or there's something where maybe not this month, like, maybe not this week or whatever it is that we should buy that thing. And a Lot of times it's not a flat. No, it's a. Maybe in a week or in a month.

Yeah, like, well, you don't forget about this. That's coming out tomorrow. And it just keeps us both in.

Tune and it saved us because we didn't always do that. And it would kind of be like, oh, my gosh, you know, I wish you had asked me or told me because we have this big bill coming and we really don't have enough, you know, and we've had to. I've had to go take stuff back before. I remember really early on, and you felt like a total loser. Like, you were so like, I hate that I have to tell her that she has to take back this stuff at Walmart. But really, it's because I. We weren't in that practice yet. If I had only been able, you know, if I'd called you and said, like, hey, I mean, I immediately showed you when I got home. But it would have been good for us if I had had adopted that practice back then, because I could have said, hey, I want to buy this lamp and this rug or whatever it is. And he would have been like, that is awesome, but can we wait till next month? You know what I'm saying? And it would have saved kind of that moment. So we've just found communication is key and making sure too, that you do, you. You do both know what's coming in and what's going out. And with debt specifically, you both need to know that number. You need to know that number and both be invested in paying that number down. And I know for us, when we had the most debt we've had, which I can't remember the exact number, but.

At the time it felt.

It felt like a mountain.

It might as well have been the national debt. It felt like seriously trillion dollars. But.

And again, I was staying at home with kids. And part of that was, you know, because we had, from the beginning of our marriage, we had talked about this, that we wanted me to have the opportunity. I know sometimes that's not possible for people, but we never, like, I remember even though, like, we barely made anything in the beginning and, you know, anyway, because we were so young. But I remember that we didn't always count on my income, even when I had a job at the beginning of our marriage, because we knew that one day I was going to stay at home and not be working in an official capacity outside the home. And so we tried to just depend on your income. Do you remember this? Because we were planning ahead and so I remember, you know, just really making sure of that. And once we knew kind of what that debt was, we were like, how can we practically, even though Ashley's at home, pay this off significantly? And I remember that Dave was just so good at, like, finding ways, whether it meant renegotiating a work contract so that you could get more money up front to pay down debt. Do you remember that?

Yeah. Yeah.

And that significantly helped us really get.

Creative of thinking of ways to.

And people. People would say, well, I don't know if I could.

You don't.

If you don't ask, you don't know.

Yeah. You have not. Because you ask not. The Bible says you got to sometimes just work out what would be best for our family and then explain it to your.

To your boss. And I remember at the time, like, your, your boss at the time honestly thought that was so awesome that you thought that way and that you were pursuing, you know, trying to be debt free, that he was, he was all too happy. You know, the numbers worked out for the company and the. In the place, but it was like he would, you know, he recognized, like, this is a good desire to want to set your family up.

And I'm so thankful that that was one of the ways, One of the.

Ways we also decided to flip a home, because that's something I could help with, and it brought in significant income.

We've done different things. Like, we have flipped houses. We have. And to varying degrees of success. We've done different things, but we were just willing to be scrappy and kind of like do what we could do. But listen, one of the financial principles that helped us the most seems counterintuitive. And that is we committed from very early on that we were going to tithe.

Yes.

And if you're not sure what that word means, the Bible calls us as followers of Christ. It calls us to be tithers. The tithe means tenth. And there's a biblical principle of bringing the tithe back to the lord. The first 10% of everything we make back to his work, back to the church, and giving 10% of everything you're making when you're desperately trying to get out of debt, it's feels like this feels like wasted money. I mean, I know, yeah, it's for the church and God and all that, and that's important, but at the time, you feel like this just hurts. But what you'll find when you realize it's all God's anyway and we're just temporary managers of everything that he gives Us. It's an act of faith that he really does reward, not just in financial terms, but in terms of peace, in terms of growing our faith, in terms of reminding us the hierarchy of things, that it's all his and he's the one who provides for us. And when we made that commitment early on, it really was transformative in our mindset, in our thought process to remind us it's all the Lord's. We're gonna return the tithe like he says to do, and he's gonna bless the other 90%. And he really, really has. And so I think in marriage, some of the best things you can do outside of getting out of debt. Number one, tithe trust God, follow his financial principles. If you go to the ExoMarriage YouTube channel, Ashley and I have kind of a visual description or we explain this at one of our Exo conference talks. It's, it's a free maybe 5 minute video you can find at the ExoMarriage YouTube channel. Just looking for our names and money. It'll pop up. Number two, combine your income, combine your money with your spouse. So many spouses keep their money separate and they feel like this gives them more control or autonomy. I don't know what they feel like, but it just isn't healthy. It's not biblical, and frankly, it's not practical.

And it causes more fights. Like, I've heard a lot of people do this because they think it will avoid fights, but it just ends up causing more fights because then it's like.

No, I paid for this, you got to pay for that. And I'm like, in marriage, that's just a ridiculous mindset in a friend. And I'm sorry if I'm insulting you.

But there are very rare circumstances where that, where really that's necessary.

Right? Maybe if it's a business account or something. But your money needs to be combined. And yes, you have to have unified principles of how this money's going to be spent. But it's both of yours. The debt is both of your debt. The income is both of your income. The assets are both of your assets. And you have to see it that way. That's the way God designed marriage. And if you're trying to keep everything separate, you're really practicing for divorce much more than you are, you know, living in the covenant that God created marriage to be. So those basic principles, like tithe, remember, it's all God's. Number two, combine your money. It's all, everything is ours, not mine or yours. And number three, we're going to relentlessly work to get out of debt so that we can live in freedom because there's nothing we can buy on this credit card that's gonna feel better than the freedom of not having debt hanging over our heads.

And it is such freedom. You know, I remember, like, I remember there's been several times over that we've had debt and gotten out of debt, you know, and I.

It wasn't a one time.

I mean, it wasn't just learn our lesson. There was several times over. And I just remember that freedom. Like, and I remember too, it used to be that we felt like, you know, we had to get a car loan or we had to like one time we tried to lease a car and then when we did the math on how, you know, we were gonna be driving past the mileage because we both at the time were commuting to work, we were like, oh my gosh, we're gonna really get ourselves in a pickle here. Because when you lease a car, they limit the amount of miles you're allowed to put on that car in a year. And because then you're giving it back, you know, so they're putting a limit and we're like, what? Like we, we live 40 minutes from where we work. Like, how is that going to work? And so we ended up taking that car back after there's a three day in Kentucky, three day window to return.

A car years ago.

Years ago.

We took advantage, took it back.

I mean, we were like, oh my gosh. And I'm like, God provided. And then we got an old beater of a car, but it was paid off.

It was paid off, guys. And the one thing that's better than a new car smell is a paid off car smell. It is all those, those stains and weird things in that car smell. Amazing when you know that car's paid off. And even still, like, you know, I'm, we. I've been driving old vehicles for the most part, for most of our, most of our marriage. And you know, our van, which is our primary vehicle, has well over 100,000 miles on it. And like, we, we've just. That's not where we want to put the most money for us. That's not like the highest value. And we try to fiercely protect the freedom that comes from being debt free again. We still have a mortgage. We're not, you know, like some of the, some of the.

I mean, we'd love to pay off that mortgage.

We don't follow. Yeah, we don't follow. Like this real Ridge we still live. We like to have experiences, you know, we go do stuff, but we've tried to not do anything that's going to create debt and we're just trying to stick that way. So, guys, I hope some of that has helped you. There are great resources to help you get there. If you're really wanting to develop a plan, number one, talk to a financial advisor. Those folks who are professionals at this, they can help you develop a plan. There are programs out there by Dave Ramsey, by Crown Financial Ministries, many Christian based programs to help you put some of these principles in practice in a really, you know, relevant way to help you develop maybe for the first time, a budget and just stick to it.

Absolutely. I want to mention this too. One of our dear friends and her husband, Shanti Feldheim. Shanti and Jeff Feldhahn wrote a book called Thriving in Love and Money. And there's a lot of research in there. And they're both social researchers and have such great wisdom on this subject. And we did an interview with them. If you want to go back to past episodes, they have some great information there. But that book also has some really, really good advice in there.

Yes, that's a great reminder. That was a good episode. Check that one out, guys. And that's totally free. Everything we've recommended here is, has been free. So free. Works with any budget. Guys, we appreciate you so much, you sticking around and being part of this podcast community. Do us a favor, leave us a review. Look us up on Instagram. Avanashleywillis. We'd love to connect with you there. God bless.

We'll see you guys next time.