Now that my husband and I were debt free and had fully funded our emergency fund, we could take a little break from the gazelle money-saving craziness. We actually had an entertainment budget, moved into a nicer rental house that had central air heating, and started socking away money for long-awaited purchases like a car. We also wanted to start saving for a down payment on a house. This would be considered a Baby Step 3b in the Dave Ramsey plan. We wanted a house but wasn't sure where God was leading us to buy and we wanted to be sure we had a hefty down payment to avoid such a big mortgage.
It was right about this time that God decided to move us to Europe. We took a job overseas and had 3 months to move our life to Germany. Somehow we managed to get our finances in order after several months of figuring out the exchange rate, how much things cost, and how we were to pay our German bills. We stuck to a strict budget but also allowed extra savings for traveling Europe. It was hard to say no to buying a bunch of new things, blowing money
while in places like Italy or Spain, and keeping to a strict budget even
with the higher cost of basics like gas and groceries. There is
something that happens when one pays off debt and has an emergency fund;
an ability to breathe and relax. But, we did not allow that to take
over our senses and we stayed on it. Even with traveling and the higher cost of living, God blessed us so much that we were able to save $60,000. This was no easy task and it took us over 4 years but we were determined. We kept the end goal in mind through all of it. We focused on getting a house and paying it off as quickly as possible.
By this time we had a credit score of...well, it said that we were either deceased or we hadn't used credit in the past 6 months. So, now that we were headed back to Colorado with babies on the way, how were we going to get a mortgage with no credit score?
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