Zero Down Your Debt. Greg Johnson

Understanding the Problem: Why Debt Sucks

Zero Down Your Debt with a Zero-Sum Budget

       Executing Your Budget and Tracking the Results

       Analyzing Your Spending, Eliminating Waste, and Avoiding Budget Vampires

       When Things Go Wrong: How to Survive the Unexpected

       Two Dangerously Effective Methods for Destroying Debt Fast

       Accelerate Your Plan with a Side Hustle

       Avoiding Action Traps and Squashing Limiting Beliefs

      You’re Debt-Free: Now What?

      CHAPTER 1

Our Story

      Just a decade ago, I spent most of my waking hours in a stressful, thankless job that made me miserable. Chronic back pain didn’t help, either. After two spinal fusions in my early 20s and complications after my first pregnancy, the constant ache consumed both my energy and my life force, making common tasks and even living and breathing a chore.

      When you’re in pain, everything simply seems a whole lot worse. Working 40 to 50 hours a week with young children, a house, and all that jazz is hard enough if you’re healthy. But imagine doing it all with a knife in your back; that’s exactly how I felt.

      Yet, I endured it. What choice did I have? We were earning a nice income but absolutely broke in terms of real wealth. We were going through the motions and bringing in steady paychecks, but simultaneously getting nowhere. We were spending every dollar we earned and then some, making it impossible for me to take a lower-paying job, reduce my hours, or try something new. Simply put, we were stuck – or at least I was.

      In a lot of ways, my husband had it even worse. He worked in the mortuary business for over a decade, and I was by his side for seven of those years. While I slaved away working crazy hours as our admin and senior event coordinator, my husband’s hours were more like 24/7, 365. Yep, as a mortician, he was on call constantly. So, when the phone would ring – at any time of the day or night – he would have to rush out.

      And his hours were brutally inconsistent. Ask anyone in the funeral industry and they’ll tell you it’s either extremely busy or not busy at all. Most of the time, you’re either working a million hours or busy playing Candy Crush Soda Saga.

      Sure, funeral home customers are stressed out by the time they get to the mortuary, but there was something comforting about being their rock. For many years, it was enough to dull my back pain and justify the long hours my husband put in. Even when we were feeling down in the dumps or helpless, we could name 10 people who were having the absolute worst day of their lives. That helped us keep things in perspective.

      Over the years, we heard and saw it all. From families squabbling over money to sad stories of those who died much too soon, we experienced a merry-go-round of teachable and life-changing moments that made us reflect on the way we ourselves were living. We buried people who retired and dropped dead the next day, young parents who were taken in freak auto accidents, and 30-year-olds with terminal cancer. We saw babies hug their dead fathers for the last time and parents drop to their knees at the sight of their departed children. We listened to them cry, and sometimes we cried with them.

      At a certain point, though, we’d had enough. As I mentioned, I was schlepping to work with chronic pain that coupled with constant, utter sadness. And even though my husband, Greg, fared better physically, he had become increasingly frustrated with his long hours and overly demanding schedule.

      But we didn’t have much more than a dollar to our names. Eventually, the reality of our situation hit us.

      As the months passed, and the tragic, unforgettable moments piled up, we started to wonder, “Should we be doing things differently?”

      We spent our days listening to people’s stories, including their biggest regrets. We woke in the middle of the night to cries and shrieks as people came to terms with what they had lost. We had spent early mornings, late nights, holidays, and weekends sharing people’s sorrows – but were we really listening?

      “What if we died today?” we began to wonder. Would we be happy with what we accomplished? With how we were living?

      Eventually, we started to. And the cosmic shift that took place was nothing short of life-changing. Instead of seeing our customers and thinking to ourselves, “We’re so glad it’s not us,” we began asking a different question: “What if it were?”

      “What if we died today?” we began to wonder. Would we be happy with what we accomplished? With how we were living?

      Would we be proud? Would we look back and think we had done some amazing things? Would we have no regrets? Was there nothing we would change?

      Once we started thinking in these terms, we realized our lives were nothing close to what we wanted them to be. We had no money saved, and thus we had no freedom. We had jobs, but we merely tolerated them. We had debt that weighed us down, yet we weren’t doing anything about it. Simply put, we were neglecting ourselves and our dreams.

      Working in the funeral industry meant watching people die every day; it meant being painfully aware of our own mortality. We watched as people lived out their worst nightmares, unable to do anything but help them plan their final goodbye.

      One would think that if we learned anything from the experience, it might be that nothing matters. We’re all gonna die, right? So, what’s the point in doing things differently, or changing our lives in uncomfortable ways? What’s the point of trying something new or taking a risk? If the end result is always death, what does any of it matter?

      Crazy enough, that’s not what we learned at all. Instead, we learned that everything matters.

      We saw how small amounts of money saved over time could lead to real wealth, and that people with modest means but careful plans could live amazing, adventure-filled lives. We learned that young people without a plan grow to be regretful, fearful senior citizens. And we learned that how you treat your parents, how you take care of your body, and how you take care of your money will all matter one day – even if that day seems far, far away.

      Most of all, we learned that we wanted our lives to be different – we wanted something more, something amazing. While we were still here on Earth, we wanted to LIVE.

      “If you wait too long to create the life you want, it will eventually be too late.”

      Once we realized we were wasting some of our best years being miserable, we started thinking about what we really wanted. For me, it was to find a way to leave my job without taking a pay cut and harming my family. I loved working at the mortuary, I really did, but the pain had become unbearable. And at the end of the day, I knew I needed a way out.

      But that’s not all I wanted. Even though my children were just babies, I wanted to pay for their college educations. I wanted to retire early, travel the world, and experience places and things other people only dream of.

      My husband’s goals were similar: He wanted a career with better hours, the ability to earn more money, a home that was paid off, and more control over our spending. For him, that also meant getting out of debt as soon as humanly possible. Once we made the commitment, we were ready to put it all behind us and move on… and that’s exactly what we did.

      Here’s