Penny Kidd shares how she and her husband Mark went from $30,000 in consumer debt to paying off their house in 2013 and funding two kids through college debt-free. A coworker's death pushed her to take finances seriously, leading to a budgeting system focused on what you do with what you earn, not how much you earn.
Chapters
Hey Wise Guys, I'm Penny Kidd with Penny Wise Coaching. I use the term Wise Guy to indicate the community that surrounds me, people trying to be just a little wiser with their money every day. There's no gender associated with that, so please don't be offended. I wanted to share a little bit of my backstory with you since you're new to my community, or maybe you've never heard my story. When I was about 40, I was a caseworker in child protection and my coworker came to me and said, hey, will you come help me with my money? You seem really good with yours. I didn't think I was really good with my money. I did what everybody I knew did, paid my bills and blew the rest. Basically, I had no plan, no intentionality around my money, but I sat down with her and we were going to consider reading a book and be accountability buddies and try to get better with this budgeting thing. Unfortunately, after only 2 sessions, my friend was hit and killed by a drunk driver. Needless to say, it rocked my world and made me get really motivated about not leaving my family in such a predicament and realizing that there's no time to wait to get better with my money. It was a slow and steady kind of slugging it out, trying to figure it out with my husband, Mark. We had about $30,000 worth of consumer debt. Plus our mortgage and really no savings to speak of. Once we learned that budgeting was not so much about what you make, but about what you do with what you make, we were able to create a system to systematically eliminate our debt, build our savings, and make smart decisions about growing our wealth. After paying off our house in 2013, we were able then to cash flow 2 kids through college because we had never saved any money for college until our daughter was about 9th grade. It was really important to us that after we had worked so hard to get out of debt, that we didn't saddle our kids with that kind of debt as well. We are looking to change generations with what we do. I hope that you learned something new, and if you have questions or need support, you can reach out to me. Let's help you be more wise and intentional with your spending so you can align your goals with your money. Be wise.
