God speaks about money more than 800 times in the Bible. Money and our possessions are the 2nd most important topic after God’s Kingdom and how to get there. However, the Bible teaches us that debt is not good and should be avoided. In fact, the Bible likens it to slavery. We are a slave to the lender as long as we owe, owe, owe.
This scripture resonated with me, as I grew up thinking that freedom was the ability to buy whatever you wanted whenever you wanted. Then the bills started adding up and along with this, I found out that my freedom was quickly disappearing. After years of living this dream, it quickly became a nightmare. When you are young and start making money the euphoria of retail therapy is so addictive. However, we found ourselves working to pay off bills. We were a slave to our lender, just like that.
Per Experian, the average consumer debt is about $92,727. The average credit card balance is $5,313, the average student loan balance is $38,792. The current debt burden stands at approximately $14.56 trillion and includes all types of consumer secured and unsecured loan totals using the latest available data for the full year of 2020 cited in Investopedia.
Time To Sit Down With The Hubby
You do not realize you have a spending/debt problem until the bills arrive and after paying your bills there are still more to pay and no money left to pay the rest. To be honest, in one year we got married, had a baby, and then bought our first home. Granted, one of these life events is enough to challenge a budget but three is a recipe for disaster. Also, we each bought to the relationship our own debt.
To climb out of the debt we each created we were going to have to make some serious adjustments. The first thing was to create a budget, curb spending, review each bill and determine what needed to be cut. Finally, we would each have to begin to find new jobs that would cover the added expenses. Even, with these steps, we were each going to have to truly curb our spending. My husband complained, “but we have to live.” My immediate response was, “we have lived, now we have to pay.”
I do not know which is harder, changing your eating habits or changing your spending habits. I have had to do both and believe they are equally hard. Please read Budget: Money over Mind where I share how we keep our mind on our money to enable us to manage job loss, recession, and life in general.
Paying Off Debt to Be Less of a Slave to the Lender
So, we cut here, and we cut there. We began the snowball effect of paying off the credit cards with the smallest balances first. When we were left with the two biggest with high-interest rates, we decided to kill two birds with one stone. However, two major events happened that moved the needle. The first was after years of bi-monthly payments on our home the home was nearly paid off. The second was with the rising prices of the housing market that increased the equity in our home by more than three times. We decided to take out a home equity loan and build a true master bedroom over the garage and pay off the last of our debt.
The last owner who was a real estate agent told us if we ever had an opportunity to expand the home from a 3 bed and a 3 bath to a 4 bed and a 3 bath we should. Taking out home equity to build a true master suite allowed us to maintain the value of our home after the market crashed and to consolidate our debt to a much lower interest rate. Feels good to pay off debts and to be less of a slave to the lender.
Selling the House to Pay off Debt
Therefore, when we sold the house eight years later, we were able to pay off the 1st mortgage, the home equity loan, and our credit card debt. We also walked away with a nice profit to begin working towards our retirement goals. I am in no way suggesting that this is the route you should take as we made a calculated gamble based on the current market and it worked out for us. Others might say we used our home as a true investment flipping our home and walking away with less debt and profit. A win-win situation in my book and two steps closer to paying off our debt.
Final Debt to Pay and less of a slave to the lender
The next step was to pay off our cars which we both used savings. Based on our current savings we had enough to pay off our cars and still maintain a 3-6 month emergency fund. We were still not completely debt-free, so we are still slaves to the lender. We recently purchased our retirement home and are currently aggressively paying down the mortgage. Making extra payments has worked for us in the past so we will continue to do so to pay off this home.
In my blog Pay Off the Mortgage, we talk about how a bi-monthly plan helps to pay off the mortgage faster. However, our current plan is even more aggressive as we plan to make one extra payment per month. If our new payoff plan holds up then we should be completely debt-free in less than 10 years. However, the elimination of credit card debt and car notes is a large step towards true financial freedom. It is also a huge step towards becoming less of a slave to the lender.
God never intended for his people to live in slavery. That is why he was adamant about releasing the people from their servitude during the Year of Jubilee (Leviticus 25:13). However, debt is part of the fabric of our country. Debt is promoted as a way of life. We are constantly being told that we deserve and are entitled to the good life. Hence, if you continue to borrow you will always be a slave to the lender.
Steps To Take To No Longer Be A Slave To The Lender
1 List all of your debt
2 Create a budget that includes a debt payoff plan
3 Create a payoff schedule
4 Cut wherever you can
5 Sell whatever you can
6 Stop spending
7 Earn more money
Other articles that might interest you:
Let’s budget, spend and live!
Sabrina
Blogger
I’m glad you and your husband were able to pay off most of your debts together! It helps when you have someone helping you through it.
Hi… This site is both inspirational and educating. Great job keeping the Lord involved while we stewart our finances!
Love this! It’s so true … “slave to the lender.” I like how creative you were with combining all your debt into the 2nd mortgage.
We were creative and we were also lucky in the real estate market which can be tricky. But our home was an investment that paid out nicely for us.
I never realized money was mentioned so many times in the Bible. Wow! Way to go on eliminating the debt and being so close to totally debt free! And I love that you give a detailed explanation of how you and your husband were able to do it. Great post!
Thank you for your support. I am always happy to share our experiences.
Having debt is not great i know because i owed the irs and trust me that sis not good because they will not let up until you pay them. Also i had credit card debt but it was paid off so I’m in a good place now but i have to get my credit score up there and then i will be even better.
I am so happy you are in a good place. With all that you have accomplished I am sure you will get your credit score where you need it to be.
My husband and I are working on getting our debt down. We are tired of being a slave to our debt. Thank you for sharing what you guys did and reminding your readers of God’s principles.
Good luck on getting your debt down. God is walking with you.
Wonderful post! That scripture resonates with me as well. I refuse to live my life as a slave to the lender. That is definitely not God’s plan!
I agree. True freedom is when you are truly in control of your finances.
What a great post and this blog post is a perfect timing to us. We are in the process on getting an equity loan on our first house to purchase a rental house.
I’m honestly scared and I told my hubby if it’s Gods will we can have that house if not then let it be…
We don’t have any other debts too as my hubby is very tight for money.
Hearing you say you were able to sell the house and walk out debt free after selling it makes me more confident to pursue it once the bank will approve us. We are currently 10 years left for our first mortgage and 8 years to our second. This will be our 3rd. Praying for God’s guidance.
It all starts with prayer. We were blessed by God and extremely lucky. I pray all goes well for you. Please seek as much counsel as you can before making your final decision.
What I love is that you and your husband are so committed to paying off your debts. My husband and I are currently working to do the same. We are going to be first time homeowners and want to go into it as debt free as possible. We are still working on our student loans. This is inspiring to me. Thanks for sharing your story!
You are welcome. I wish you good luck in becoming debt free.
Budgeting is so important! I didn’t realize money was mentioned so frequently in the Bible. Thanks for the informative and inspiring post.
God wants us to be faithful with our time, talents and money. You are very welcome.
This entire website is an awesome resource for those that want to be good stewards of the gifts we are given by God! Beautiful! Thank You!
I think it’s so important to talk to those around you about money because it tends to be such a touchy subject! Love your ideas to work through it with your hubby!
I agree. Talking about money is always touchy, but it is necessary. Together we are made stronger.
Your post is very thorough and timely for many. My hubby and I always saw eye to eye about our finances and that has been a great foundation for our marriage. I love how you acknowledge the importance of scripture in our own financial world.
Thanks so much for your kind words. I am glad you found the blog thorough and timely. Please subscribe to my newsletter as I will be writing more content like this. Have a blessed day!
Wow, this post is pleasant, my younger sister is analyzing these kinds of things,
thus I am going to inform her. This is a topic which is close to my heart… Cheers!
Budgeting — so important yet often hard to talk about! Our family had some hiccups along the way but plan to be debt free this year. Woohoo! Great post!
Thanks and congratulations on becoming debt free. It is a great feeling to be free and having all your money belong to you. Thanks for your support.
Oh man I hate debt! I always pay my credit card off every month, I refuse to pay more than the value of the items I used it for haha. Lots of good tips and info here.
Oh, Man! I do too. Since paying off our credit card debt we no longer carry any balances.
“We have lived, now we have to pay…” Wise point! Congrats on your debt journey! And I find it inspiring that this quotes Leviticus; I actually just read that particular verse in Torah study a couple days ago. 🙂 Thanks for sharing with us!
Welcome and thank you! The Bible is a great inspiration for getting out of debt.
Having debt can be a huge stress to deal with. It takes a lot of discipline to be able to tackle it. And getting away from the lenders is always a good thing I have found. As a single mom and relatively new house owner I can attest first hand to how quickly it can spiral and have made my own plans to reduce mine with the goal of moving towards eliminating it. Great post!
Debt is one of the biggest stresses one can deal with. Debt-free is awesome. You can do it if I could. Just mind over matter and yes discipline too.
Wow, that’s amazing! Good for you, Sabrina! I have always been a proponent of no credit card debt. Though we still have credit cards (unlike Dave Ramsey’s suggestions), we pay the full balance off as soon as it’s due. This has allowed us to gain points to use toward other expenses. Our only debt is student loan debt and the mortgage on our house. One day I hope to have those gone too! Your story is encouraging. Thanks!
I also split with Dave Ramsey on credit cards. As long as I only charge what I have cash available to buy then I am not giving up my credit card points. I like to use them for traveling.
We are down to our mortgage and one debt left before we are debt free and it is very freeing!
Yes, it is. Good luck with paying off the house. I know that I am looking forward to being completely debt-free.
Great tips! Debt can be crippling and it’s so helpful to take a systematic approach and if you have a partner — work together towards the goal instead of hide from it! Good for you for making your house sale work in your favor! I know so many who would love to take advantage of this market right now but then…where do you go? It’s challenging but these ideas are a great way to start the conversation at home.
It does work best when you and your partner are on the same page. We were lucky that the house sale paid off. We moved from a very pricey area to an area much less pricey. Northeast to Southeast
Having financial control is such an important part of a happy life. Dave Ramsay’s system helped me get things under control in a difficult divorce that unearthed a lot of horrible financial secrets. Thanks for providing this resource for people.
I followed Dave off and on throughout my years. I agree with most of his financial tips. He is a great resource.
This was a very helpful and honest post about debt. If more people were educated in this area, I really feel it could help them avoid bad debt situations. Thank you for this info!
I try to be as honest as possible hoping others will grow from our learnings. Welcome and thank you for sharing.
Paying off debt is so freeing!
Yes, it is. I am enjoying every day of it.
We are happily debt-free. We use credit cards to our advantage, paying them off every month, and drive a 21-year old vehicle that we love with no car payment. It definitely helped when we lost our jobs last year.
I agree. Being debt-free with an emergency fund was key for us during this pandemic. Thanks for sharing.
great points! Life would be so much easier if we didn’t have a mortgage.
Being mortgage-free is key to a much easier life. It is our greatest expense after a car not.
What a great personal example! I bet you are proud of yourselves. And it really helps to listen to you and to follow your example. Thank you for sharing:)
Thank you. We are just trying to get ahead of the game.
Being set free reduces stress and brings with it an ease of living
I agree with you 100%. I can’t wait for the mortgage to be paid off.
Thank you for sharing. These are great tips and strategies. My husband and I are not in debt but we don’t have a lot after the bills. We need to cut spending on wasteful things definitely!
It’s such an amazing feeling when you pay off a debt and are finally free!
Yes, it is. It is worth all the sacrifices made to get to this point. Freedom feels really good.
Great advice. Hard to live by if you are not disciplined.
Yes, it may seem hard but it is much harder to live with debt.
Great tips and strategies!
Thank you so much!
I’ve paid off my credit card debt and couldn’t be happier! It’s such a weight off, even though it took some sacrifice to get here.
There is nothing like being debt-free. All your money is yours now.
Excellent post! We currently do not have any debt.
Congratulations! So happy for you. Thank you!
great post!
Thanks!