Sooooo....I am slightly OCD/type A. And if you're sniggering into your hand right now because the use of my term, "slightly," know that the first step is admitting the problem, and I'm still standing at the top of the stairs. One benefit to my SLIGHT problem is that I try to get things done as efficiently as possible. We're talking how do we shave 5 seconds off this process? Anything, from cleaning a room to pumping my gas has a step by step system to maximize time and minimize effort. Listen people, I've got a lot to do and not enough time in the day to do it, so every second counts.
When Mike started working for Bayer (now Siemens), he started using the buzz word "lean manufacturing" in our house. This term has nothing to do with waist sizes, fat content, or long and lean muscles, but instead refer to making processes as simple as possible for all involved, maximizing output and minimizing input. Sound familiar? I guess I've found my people. Who knew they would be Japanese?
Even not taking into account my work systems, Mike & I have lived our married life working, planning, and taking care with the assets that we have. We aren't always successful, come on, we're PEOPLE, but we try really hard. We have been "living lean" and never knew it. When we were married we moved to town where we knew no one. This was the first time either of us had lived outside of our parent's homes. We survived with one car, Mike's graduate student stipend, and any income I could make doing odd jobs. Nothing like handyman jobs, we all know I don't have the skills for that!! But tutoring, running the labs, teaching nutrition classes brought in a few extra funds. We were both full time students and we knew we were working like we were so that our futures would be easier.
We lived in a tiny apartment, which we traded for a small home, because the costs were about the same. We had nights in with friends, went to church, and rarely went out for dinner. But life was really fun! I know not being able to buy everything you want when you want it hardly qualifies as fun in this society, but we were free. We had each other, we had friends that loved us, and we had a future. What more could two young adults ask for?
Over the years, we took out some small student loans to, gasp, pay for school. I know a lot of people maximize their student loans to buy things they want. They justify it as a low or no interest rate loan. I'm not judging, because everyone has to make their own choices, but Mike & I both agreed that any loans we took out needed to be used carefully.
When I started graduate school, I received a scholarship. It was the mother of all scholarships. It paid my tuition, books, plane tickets to the university I was attending, everything. The one stipulation was graduation. Everything went well for the first year, and then Olivia was born. Pre child Ashley had no idea what post child Ashley was going to feel like, but mostly, she felt like being with her baby. (Yes, that's me, talking about myself in the third person. Hi self!!). I didn't go back to school at that time, which I don't regret, but it meant I had a big (to us) scholarship turned loan to pay off.
Over time we've been slowly whittling away at our debts. We throw extra money towards debt, trying to pay things off as quickly as possible. Finally, finally, we are seeing results. In the past year we paid off our smallest student loan, Mike's car, and now, finally, my U of A loan. We received this in the mail, and I was celebrating:
Don't misunderstand, we still have debt. We have a consolidated student loan, our Jeep loan, and our home loan. We will continue to whittle away at each one until we can say we are debt free. It's still not exactly easy, although our lifestyle has come a long way in the past 13 years, but it is 100% worth it. Hopefully in another 13 years we'll be FREE!! :)
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