The Beginning
I guess you could say that my story is a little different from some of the other folks espousing the principles of debt-free living. There’s no bankruptcy involved; no digging out from under mountains of debt. On the surface, my story looks pretty boring. But beneath the surface are 15 years of perpetual struggle just making ends meet, long periods of scraping by from paycheck to paycheck. During this time my wife and I raised three great kids, went to school, got better jobs and basically lived normal lives… including the constant tension of just getting by.
My wife Lisa and I had never had much of a savings plan. By the mid 1990’s we were still basically lived from paycheck to paycheck. I had a job that required daily travel, and so received a monthly reimbursement check. My usual habit was to deposit it into our checking account. Each month it would get absorbed, and spent along with whatever money was in the account at the time. One month, I decided to try an experiment. I’d forgotten to submit my travel voucher and was told that I’d have to turn it in with the following months. Miraculously, we survived the month without the added stipend, and more importantly, without adding any additional debt. I decided to continue the experiment by not depositing the next months check. To my pleasant surprise, we ended the period much the same as the first. If the money didn’t get deposited in the checkbook, it didn’t get spent. I started cashing the travel checks on a monthly basis, and instead of depositing the cash, began placing it in an envelope. Over the course of several months, the little pile of cash began to grow. And, in this manner, we slowly grew a family emergency fund.
