CELEBRATION!!

We made our last school debt payment. Last. Final. Done. No more. I can't describe the excitement I feel knowing that monthly payment is gone forever! I've talked about my feelings on school debt before, like here, but I'll give another little reality check now. 

We've been paying $325 a month for a long time. With the exception of a season on food stamps, that's more than I have ever spent on groceries, which includes all food, paper products, toiletries, OTC meds, tampons, and diapers (something we spent more on than people would have assumed for many years). I'm frugal, we've sometimes had food in our cupboards or freezer from friends who share their bounty, and God is good, so it's always worked out. In fact, we even deliver meals to friends from time to time and have dessert regularly. It's not like we've been malnourished or anything. That being said, there have been many times I've resented the fact that school debt is the reason I sometimes have to work hard to stretch our grocery dollar.

It's also money that couldn't go toward other bills, so our thermostat has always been set at 60 degrees from about October through May. Of course, we turn it up when we have guests and I give myself a few degrees once every month or two, particularly on days I'm super stressed and crabby. The rest of the time, though, we keep a cool house. It's just part of living within our means, but there have been plenty of occasions where I would have loved to spend more on heat and less on debt.

I don't share those those details for pity or accolades, as so many people live in equally cool or cooler homes and don't even have heat available or have grocery budgets that make ours seem like millions. Plus, we've lived like that for many years and it's simply not the end of the world. I share them because I know most people would prefer to spend more than $50 a month on all the things I listed earlier for each person in their family and because they want a home that's warmer than 60 degrees for half the year. 

I just really want people to be realistic about what the long-term effects of school debt may look like for them and their families. Will it look like that for everyone? Absolutely not. Some will get it paid off at the speed of light, others will have such high incomes that they'll have more wiggle room in all areas. That's totally fine. It's just important to look at the big picture before sinking yourself into the quicksand of school debt.

Moving on ...

Let's talk about celebrating!  

We've just about settled on what we'll do with the money we're no longer putting toward school debt each month, but we pulled some out this month for a single indulgence to celebrate the milestone.

Tim's in the thick of weekend basketball tournaments, but he had this weekend off. So, like any good parents would, we lied to our kids. We told them on Friday that we were just going to lay low on Saturday so that Tim could enjoy his day off. On Saturday morning we said that we'd changed my grocery shopping trip to a family one so that everyone could get out of the house together for a bit and brought along some lunch because we weren't sure we'd be home by the time that meal rolled around.

Then we passed the exit for the store ... and went to OMSI. We were given a membership in November, so we had several hours of free entertainment there. We opted for a couple of posed pictures instead of "look at this cool thing we're doing" ones this time around.

We got in the car mid-afternoon and the kids thought we were going grocery shopping before we went home ... but we went to Spaghetti Factory. We never eat out as a family, so this was a huge treat and our way of celebrating the end of school debt. Here we are just after we ordered.

And here are some of us after we ate delicious food ... and right about the time a long (even though it was fun) day of being on the go and having people getting tired was starting to take its toll. So, yes, I did tell the little Ws to pretend everything was going great for this picture, even though I was fighting tears and had just catapulted over a ledge I didn't see and sprawled out at the front door of the restaurant because I was looking up while trying to catch someone's runaway balloon that they shouldn't have let go of at the entrance to a business in the first place and certainly not at the busy door of a restaurant at dinner time.

But I, and my bruised shin, digress.

Here are four little Ws, two bows and arrows, one funky hat, and one sword.

We really did go shopping after that, though some family members stayed in the car for the sake of sanity and family harmony.

Once we got home we did one more thing to celebrate, something we haven't done in over two years. We paid the kids. If you're interested, then you can read about how we handle money with the kids and the awesome envelopes that Heidi made based on my description of what I wanted.

So, after many years of regular payments, gift money (like this), chunks of tax refunds, adding an extra five or two hundred bucks whenever we could, and moving for the purpose of making bigger payments, we are done! So awesome!