Our Story

Hi there.  Cute family right?  I'm a little biased but I'm kinda in love.  There are 7 of us.  Crazy, I know.  Sometimes I look around and I think "what the?!  I'm too young for this!".  But crazy things happen and they're all ours.  I'm wife, mom and enforcer.  He's my better half.  He works the hardest, keeps our family headed in the right direction and works some crazy hours to take care of us.  He's also sort of the best guy ever.  I thank God everyday for the phone call that started it all.

After we had been married for a little while and were expecting our first baby (she's 10 now), Greg decided it was time to get an education.  He was working at a pretty good job but we knew it wouldn't work for forever.  Plus he didn't want to be stocking shelves in a warehouse for the rest of his working life.  We didn't really have the money for school but the financial aid people told us that student loans were a great option.  So we signed on the dotted line and he went to work.  Greg worked a full time job and went to school full time.  While he was earning his bachelor's degree we were blessed/ surprised/ excited to add a set of twins to our family.  I was able to stay home and take care of our babies which was a really good thing because I can't even imagine the cost of daycare for 3 littles under the age of 2!

He finished school and went to work.  The student loans were pretty overwhelming and the job just wasn't paying enough so he started working part time at a really great company.  After a few years in the real world Greg realized that he was getting stuck in his career and that he needed and wanted a master's degree in the field that he loved.  So after some long conversations and prayer and debating, we decided on a program that would give him what he wanted and would also be flexible enough to work with a family of 6 (we're up to 4 kids by this time).  We weren't smart enough to figure out how to pay for it so we just signed up for more student loans.  Greg got his master's degree, we welcomed another baby to the family and we added to our debt total.

Stop!  Don't think that we went into this blindly.  I know that it seems a little crazy for us to have 5 kids in a relatively short span of time and to take on a crushing amount of debt but I promise we did try to be smart.  We believe that having a family is the most important thing and we were blessed to have 5 kids.  That's amazing.  We didn't know how to get the education that we knew was essential without taking out loans.  Of course now that we've learned a few things we could have figured it out.  But we can't beat ourselves up about the past.  I've forgiven myself for my mullet- like haircuts during the nineties and our previous love of matching polo shirts (full body shudder), I've also made peace with the fact that we made some stupid financial decisions.  The only thing we can do now is just move on and try to clean up the mess and to NEVER do this again.

So here we are.  Greg works a full time job and a part time job.  He is gone everyday from 730 in the morning until 930 at night.  I work part time a couple of hours a day and take care of all these kids.  The reason we are working and sacrificing so much?  Because we are not willing to live with debt for the rest of our lives.  Our monthly debt payments are more than our mortgage payment.  We're not okay with that.  But that means that we both have really long days.  Five days a week Greg is away from home working two jobs and feeling isolated from us.  He hates that.  Five days a week I am the only one taking care of homework and shuttling kids here and there and making dinner and baths and flossing and brushing teeth and putting everyone to bed.  I hate that.  We're both tired and overwhelmed and focused and determined.

I also don't want anyone to think that all of this is the result of Greg and his choices.  First of all, we are a partnership.  There's no yours and mine, it's all ours.  I willingly agreed to every single student loan application.  I am also the instigator of a decent portion of our debt.  Just like it took both of us to make this mess it's going to take both of us, plus some Divine help to clean it up.  But we're going to make it.  We have a written budget.  We say no to each other and to our kids all the time.  We have a short term and long term plan.

So there you go.  I've just shared our deep, dark secret.

My name is Kristen and we're in debt.