To say that this has been a year of change for us would be an understatement.
In September, my husband Cam quit his job and went back to school full time.
I couldn’t be prouder. Three classes in and he’s gotten straight A’s. This is exactly where he needs to be, and he’s doing just what he needs to do to take his career to the next level.
But as happy as I am to see him pursue his dreams, it means our financial position has changed. A lot. We’re now down to one income – mine – and this could potentially be our reality for the next couple years.
This change was unexpected. When we began our debt-free journey, schooling for Cam wasn’t on the radar. But then life happened. He had an accident at work and even though we were planning on him quitting his job in a few years, life forced the timetable. And we’re so thankful that we were in a position where we had made debt freedom a priority, otherwise we would be in a seriously tough spot right now. Our quest to be debt-free created an unanticipated result: the freedom to deal with life as it happens.
We’re no strangers to being frugal. We were used to working with the simple budget system, and have gotten to the place financially where we were essentially living off of one income anyways and using the other for debt repayment. But there were always months where one income didn’t quite cut it. Now, the big wildcard will be having to pay for Cam’s school costs. While we currently don’t have any consumer debt, our new reality may become a bit of a balancing act between our needs and wants.
In a sense, we’re going back to the beginning. When we began, our debt-freedom journey almost seven years ago now, we were bringing in a combined family income of $78,000. Even though my income has increased over the years, with just one paycheque our income will now be less than it was when we began – a good amount less. And that’s okay. The choices that we’ve been making over the last seven years have enabled us to make the decision to go down to one income so that Cam can go back to school, set himself up to make more money, and more importantly spend his days in a career that he enjoys.
Real life just keeps happening and sometimes the changes come quickly. We don’t always know where it will take us. But the groundwork that we’ve laid paved the way for a completely unexpected future. We’re choosing to see the excitement in the uncertainty. And even though this wasn’t the initial plan, we are so grateful that we took the time to understand our finances and take the steps that ultimately lead us to be prepared for the unexpected.
