Deep in Debt to Debt-Free: One Year Later and Our First House

Here we were approaching our first anniversary and house hunting with a quickly declining credit score due to the amount of debt we had already accumulated in the first year.  But thankfully there were lenders that were willing to lend us money to buy our first house!  In fact, they somehow thought we could afford a house 60% more than we had “budgeted” for (yes, we think its funny we use the word budget from that part of our lives).

You know as well as we do that its the American Dream to finally “get to the point”  when you can buy your first house together! It is the symbol that we attach to success, to happiness, and to your dreams.  But what became reality was for us was a mortgage that when we added all our other bills and expenses the monthly outgoing equaled that of the monthly incoming.  It especially meant new financial stress as we put no money down, was barely approved, and ultimately would become the biggest ding on our credit score (you’ll have to read later to find out why).

But who cares?! It was our first anniversary and we had just moved in to our own house (we didn’t see it as the bank’s house of course!).  We can remember the day well.  We were in our new kitchen celebrating with the leftover wedding cake top (who came up with that nasty tradition of eating year-old cake? :)), with just the two of us and having barely moved in.  Here we were, not looking at each other but rather noticing that our new, big house seemed so empty.  Our apartment seemed so complete – especially after all of those purchases we made to fill it up! But the new house afforded us a space three times bigger.  We just couldn’t leave it empty!

Our conversation quickly turned to our upcoming housewarming party (because that is just what you do) and our guests needed a place to sit and visit and entertain themselves.  This can only mean one thing – before that first mortgage check was even due, before the big mortgage purchase was even counted on our credit, we would drive right to the furniture store to locate those pieces that we knew were missing.

I found the perfect pieces for my living room with paintings and all!  So out came the credit application that the furniture salesman was so helpful in providing.  Don’t think it was just the living room pieces, but a few other things that we felt we needed to make our house a home.

As we drove home, adding thousands to the debt-load, all I could think about was how perfect life was as we were well on our way to achieving that American Dream even after just one year of marriage.  I truly did not realize the impact of the major purchases we had made.  We justified the expense by the fact that we would not have a house payment for a month.  But you and I know it was not just a month’s worth of furniture we bought.

We really were getting credit so quickly right around our first anniversary that the idea of the obligations in payments to be due soon had not hit us or our creditors either because the other credit wasn’t yet showing up on our report or just that fact that even with how thinly spread our finances were they still had no problem approving us!

The foolish part of all of this was that I was not content in where I was or with what I had been given.  I always wanted to have everything right now! I suppose you could call this the “microwave mentality.”  I look back on this time in my life and am completely ashamed of my attitude and more importantly how I did not honor my husband by requesting so much.  Its not that I was dishonoring by spending money on things he didn’t want to purchase, but rather I was taking advantage of his desire to provide for his newlywed wife at any cost. Most importantly, I was not honoring God in my desire for more, nor in my desire to have the perfect life by the world’s standards.

The truth of the matter is, although we were so deeply in love, we were so foolish in how we thought we could make our lives better. Our communication was greatly lacking in this area.  We seemed to communicate about so many things, but one thing we did not discuss with each other was the subject of money and finances – it was unofficially named the mute topic.  Soon we will address why this lack of communication was such a problem and the dangers of not having true, open and honest communication.

But don’t despair too much for us because we continued to travel, eat out luxuriously and spend like crazy during the first several months we were in our new domain.

If you’re new to the series or just want to catch up, please check out our whole Deep in Debt to Debt Free series!

• 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? 

Photo Credit:  Thank you to seabunny.net for the awesome open room.  This part of our lives was prior to the amazing digital age and we’re missing this picture.  We’re sure though that if we had a digital camera we would have justified purchasing the best with our “savings account” credit line.  🙂