Jawanda

I'm doing pretty good.

My pleasure. Where are you from? Really excited to be here from Philadelphia.

You could say.

$86,613. Wow.

About 48 months.

Started around 70 up to about 84.

I'm a construction manager. I work for a general contractor and just help with our teams there. And we build multifamily projects.

So $14,000 was a car loan. $4,000 was unemployment repayment, which was interesting and unexpected. Another unexpected thing was $4,000 of local taxes, like city taxes, that wasn't coming out of my checks, and I had to pay it back. Like some back taxes. Yeah, that wasn't fun. And $63,000, about $64,000 was student loans.

So in 2020, I wasn't working like most people when I filed for unemployment. And I didn't think that I applied, but a few people encouraged me to file and I did. And they said, hey, we'll send you this much money every month. And then about 16 months later, they sent me an email and said, hey, all that money we gave you, you actually weren't eligible for it. We need you to pay it back. Oh, wow.

Very unexpected. But fortunately, I didn't take a lot and I got it paid off pretty quickly.

So I got a bachelor's in urban planning and a master's in construction management.

So I actually took Financial Peace University when I started grad school in 2013. And I got rid of all of my credit cards, closed those out and was like, okay, the college loans when I graduate, I'll deal with them then. So I started off well, but I got distracted. just trying to do other things or trying to figure out another way to get out of debt.

And then four years ago, I was like, you know what? It's just going to take the time that it takes. And I just decided to get after it. I got an accountability partner or a Ramsey, I believe, financial coach. Yeah. Yep. And we've been meeting ever since then twice a month. And it's been really helpful to have someone to talk through financial decisions with.

Well, I was really trying to do entrepreneurial things because I was like, well, if I had a side hustle, I could do this a lot faster. And the side hustles just weren't panning out. And I was like, you know what? I need to start saving for retirement. And I want to do that.

sometime in the near future so I kind of cut my losses and said I guess it's just gonna be the income that I have and just kind of got after it and was chipping away at it and the past year just got really aggressive and was like I'm just, I'm done.

No, yep.

I think, so I'm really adventurous and I love to travel. So I think it was just putting off travel, putting off driving past restaurants. But really, I think it's just been like wanting to save for retirement, wanting to buy a house and those things and just feeling like I'm in delay.

Like I've been so delayed and just was just ready to be done and get that part of behind me and stop paying interest and start earning interest.

I think just feeling like I'm in delay, like that I'm so far behind. And I just wish that I knew when I was in college, how much of an impact those college loans would have on me.

I don't know if I would say that. Maybe just disappointment for not paying more attention. It's like, you're smarter than this. You're a smart person.

Yeah. Wow.

It was so worth it.

I would say it feels like the opportunities, exponentially more opportunities have opened up to you. And that you just have some emotional peace that you can't really put into words until you get here. And yeah, it just feels like there's so many opportunities that I can take advantage of. And that's really exciting.

38. 38.

So I am almost done with Baby Step 3. I'm going to start saving for a house and plan to be a part of that 30% of people that don't get a mortgage. And because I'm a construction manager, I think I can do that. I think I'm savvy enough to make it happen and just going to save like it depends on me and pray like it depends on God.

Yeah, I actually set up for my direct deposit to be some for just living and everything else is going to my high-yield savings account just for Baby Sub 3. So it's been, I've had about maybe two, One and a half months.

Oh, it's exciting. It's even better that it's automated. I don't have to think about it. I don't have to accidentally not touch it. It just goes to my high yield savings account and I look at it and I'm just like,

Three, two, one. I'm debt-free!