Deep in Debt to Debt Free: The Unsuccessful Coupon Couple

Last we left you in our story, we had just found out we were expecting a baby after a few years of wanting a baby.   The Lord had blessed, but this was a real life-changer for us as God used this to wake us up to the reality of our financial situation.  But when we were woke up to the mess we were in, we knew we had to act now and act quickly.

I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom.  It was something we both discussed before marriage and so it was a very important thing for both of us.  But although this was our goal initially before getting married, our selfish actions were making this less and less of a reality – and at that point and the direction we were headed- it seemed like there really was no possibility of this happening.

We were at a point where we couldn’t even think about just one day without a paycheck.  We were literally one paycheck away from bankruptcy – but the Lord spared us by the skin of our teeth.

So here we were: pregnant, happy and so incredibly elated about this new budding life that would arrive in our lives in less than 9 months.  What were we going to do in 9 months to help us get to the point we needed for me to be a stay-at-home mom?

But before we tell you how we started, let us tell you what we didn’t do to get started:

• We didn’t declare bankruptcy
• We didn’t get a second mortgage to suck up the debt (more on this later)
• We didn’t go through a credit counselor
• We didn’t default or foreclose on any of our loans
• We DID work hard, learn on our own how to do it and dug ourselves out only by the grace of God.  He allowed all of these things to work out so that we did not have to do anything drastic (other than hard work) to get out of it.

We want to provide you the context for this because one or more of these are some of the first questions we receive when people are curious how we got out of our debt.  Many often assume that we used a credit counselor, got a second mortgage to eat it (which is NOT paying it off but rather just hiding it) or something along these lines.

So we’ll continue our story and now start on the details of how we dug out of the debt hole we found ourselves drowning in.

We were so lost as to where to even begin, we didn’t know what to do, where to start…. nothing!  We hadn’t talked to any friends or family (probably because of our pride and shame) and so we didn’t have any advice from anyone that we knew.

But one thing that was clear to us was that we had to stop spending right that moment! We shouldn’t buy anything, go out to eat, travel, not go to the mall – nothing except for the absolute basics until we could figure out where to start.

Shortly after starting our “spending fast,” two things happened that same week that started putting our thoughts together on how we could start paying this off.

Alex had run across the Dave Ramsey radio show and for once in his life, actually decided to listen to what he was saying.  We knew who Dave Ramsey was, but hadn’t ever truly listened to his words of wisdom in the area of debt.  We did not own any of his materials and was only going off of the tidbits of information that Alex picked up from his radio show.  Those ideas were to stop spending, cut back your budget, and bring in more income.

Well, duh, that made sense! Why didn’t we think of that! 🙂

But the question was “how” and “where” should we cut our budget and “how” could we increase our income.

So the second thing that happened, while we were leafing the newspaper we came across that infamous coupon packet in the Sunday newspaper.  It was then and there we decided to cut back our grocery budget by using magic money called “coupons!”  We put ourselves on a spending fast, but there are some things we couldn’t cut out – food and gasoline to get to work.  The gas situation didn’t change at this time, except that by not going other places and only driving to work we were able to cut our gas budget slightly.  We also had no food storage or supply.  We could not simply go without food.

So here’s how this went, we picked up two  Sunday newspaper the following week.  That Monday, Alex left for work in the morning and I was determined to plan a strategic shopping list and menu based off of the coupons.

I started organizing and cutting coupons that morning right before Alex left.  Alex came home for lunch and I was still on the floor cutting and organizing coupons.  Alex was a bit shocked about the amount of time I was spending doing this, but I assured him that “these were like money, so my time will be worth it!”

Well, Alex came home and we scrounged a dinner together with the bits of food we actually had in our home before our first ever “free money” shopping trip.

Well, I was ready to go grocery shopping, I had my coupons and my plan and Walmart was the place to go since they had the lowest prices.  Why wouldn’t you use coupons on the lowest prices, right?

Well, here’s how it went:

First aisle and first attempt to use a coupon!

Me: “look babe, here’s the coupon for this cereal, let’s find it and get this one to ‘save money!’

Alex: “well, look here babe, the generic is still cheaper than the name brand with this coupon…. so I guess we will save more money by getting the generic version.

Second aisle and second attempt to use a coupon! 

Me: “look babe, here’s the coupon for this pasta, let’s find it and get this one to ‘save money!’

Alex: “well, look here babe, the generic is still cheaper than the name brand with this coupon…. so I guess we will save more money by getting the generic version.

Third aisle and third attempt….. well, you get the idea!

So as our shopping trip was continuing, honestly we were both quite frustrated and I wanted to cry. Alex was frustrated that I spent the whole day to save money with nothing to show for it (we probably used one coupon for the whole trip).  I was frustrated that it wasn’t working.  As you can probably imagine we were both irritable and cranky which didn’t make for pleasant conversation or a productive one on what we were going to do next.  Whatever were we going to do??

Stay tuned as we continue our story! 

If you’re new to the series or just want to catch up, we encourage you to check out our whole Deep in Debt to Debt Free series from the stories below:

• Part I: The Newly Unthrifty Couple
• Turning Our Apartment Into an Unthrifty Home
• It’s A Crystal Affair
• The Show Me Just How Much Debt We Can Get Into State
• The Most Insane Way to Buy a Car
• Our Seven Debtly Sins of Eating Out
• One Year Later and Our First House
• Will This Business Get Us Out of Trouble?
• Why Didn’t This Couple Realize What They Were Doing?
• The Baby that Saved Us Financially

• The Unsuccessful Coupon Couple

• You Want Us to Eat What?