When Mr. HutchLife and I decided we wanted to become Debt Free we shared that we went through Financial Peace University by Dave Ramsey. That got us started and the 9 lessons were helpful for us to have something to focus on and the steps to take. For me, I was/still am a natural spender but am inclined to saving more after having gone through FPU. Mr. HL is a natural saver and still is. While the first 9 weeks of the journey were FPU with the cohort in our class I wanted to make sure the momentum didn’t die down. So I did what any person would do – I googled. I googled Personal Finance, I googled Personal Finance Blogs, I searched on Instagram for people who accomplished becoming Debt Freedom or were on the journey like we were. Below are some of the people we followed and still do.
- Mr.Money Mustache: This blog opened our eyes to not just debt freedom but the possibility of early retirement and financial freedom, the FI/RE community. Early retirement had never crossed our minds. It’s been embedded and I think it still is today that you work until you’re 65. MMM, as he’s called, shows that’s not true, you can retire early by making sacrifices that allow you to enjoy life now but also enjoy retirement earlier than normal. One of the tools he shared on his website is the Early Retirement Calculator that lets you know how much you need to save in order to retire in a specific number of years. It changed the game for us and that became our goal after became debt free, to retire early. We are working towards being both Financially Independent and Retiring in 17 years. If you read the blogs of those who have Retired Early you will see that early retirement doesn’t mean you don’t work, in fact, most who retire early still work via blogging, community service, giving back in other ways. We will do the same.
- Get Rich Slowly: J.D. Roth has been in my life since 2009. I started reading his blog back then and thought it was crazy that someone got out of debt at that point in time and he was much older than me then and shared his journey. I wasn’t ready at that time to take it seriously, and as you can tell from our own debt free journey, I didn’t for another 7 years! GRS is a site that shares not just how he became debt free but shares stories and anecdotes of his life currently not only being debt free but how he built up his site, sold it, bought it back, moved across country, bought a cottage and now lives in the Portland area. He shares his finances as well and is quite transparent.
- HisandHerMoney: I found Tai and Talaat on YouTube. We were drawn to them because it was another black couple talking about paying down debt, sharing their journey and they were Christian. It was beautiful to see because we couldn’t find many Black couples online at that time. We still follow them today and were blessed to share our story with them.
If you’re on your journey and need some encouragement I would recommend starting with these blogs for motivation and encouragement. You won’t be disappointed.
If you’re currently following people online who are some of them? We’d love to check them out.
