Hi Reader,

Because I get paid biweekly, most months I get two paychecks. May is one of those months where a third one shows up. It doesn't happen often, so when it does, we're intentional about where it goes.

This month, the extra paycheck is going to two places: a chunk toward our debt snowball, and whatever's left to top off the travel fund for Hawaii. It won't dramatically change our trajectory, but it moves the needle, and we're not letting it disappear into regular spending.

We're very fortunate to have this pace structure, but let me give you some numbers that might make your heart beat faster 😬

What $6,600 a month in debt payments actually feels like

Our minimum debt payments right now are $2,627.50 a month. That doesn't include the mortgage. The mortgage principal alone is another $3,978.92. Combined, that's over $6,600 a month going toward minimum debt payments before we buy a single grocery or put gas in the car.

We think about that number a lot.

Not in a paralyzing way, but in a very specific, motivating way. That $6,600 represents the version of our life we're working toward:

Family vacations we don't have to save for. Completing house projects we've been putting off for years. Being insanely generous with our money instead of carefully rationing it. Summer activities for the kids without having to do math in our heads first.

The mortgage isn't going anywhere fast. We have about $600,000 remaining, and that's a long road. But the consumer debt is a different story. Watching that number go down month by month is the closest thing we have to seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, and it makes the bigger goal feel less impossible.

The Motivation Behind It

We've been incredibly fortunate with our income. Good jobs, flexibility, stability. We know that. And we walked into this level of consumer debt anyway.

The reality is that we're one job loss away from everything falling apart. One unexpected medical situation. One bad year. That's not a comfortable thing to say out loud, but it's true, and it's one of the reasons we're doing this with the urgency we are. We've watched debt destroy families in ways that are hard to come back from, whether that's a death, a layoff, or a health crisis that nobody planned for.

We can't control what happens, but we can control where our money goes.

The goal isn't just to pay off debt. It's to build something that can withstand whatever comes, and to leave our kids in a better position than the one we created for ourselves. This is the beginning of that. Thanks for taking the ride with us.

Talk soon,