About

“But godliness with contentment is great gain.” I Timothy 6:6

Welcome to Debt Free Adventure!

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The premise of DFA is simple – I have debt and I want to get rid of it!  Because the financial wisdom of the bible is greater than the financial wisdom of Matt Jabs… I am tackling this awesome task using biblical principles.

A little about me…

Above is a shot of me with my beautiful wife Betsy… anything good I accomplish will have her behind it!  She is the love of my life.

For all intents and purposes… I am a modern day freedom fighter.  In our present-day, the biggest threat to true individual independence… is personal consumer debt.  I aim to stand in the gap and fight that debt – at all costs.

I am 34 years old.  I live in Lansing, MI.  I work as an Information Technology Manager by day, and moonlight as a personal finance guru and professional blogger.  I am a Christian first, a husband second, a son and brother third, and a friend and colleague fourth.

My passions and goals for DebtFreeAdventure.com are:

• Reach complete freedom from all forms of debt as soon as possible – the race is on!
• Help other people break the bondage of debt & work toward financial freedom.
• Do all of the above using the wisdom of biblical principles.

In less than a year I have:  lost 40 pounds, defined my passions and long term goals, slashed my expenses, paid off over $6,000 in debt, saved over $3,000, created a lucrative side business – which you are reading at this very moment, and renewed my faith and commitment to being a good steward of what I have been given.

My Faith

I am a Christian who labors not to judge or push my faith on others.  Instead I intend to:

• strive to live a transparent life.
• strive to be a blameless example of true love and true Christianity for all to see, appreciate, and honestly inquire of.
• strive not judge anyone but myself.

As much as possible I deliver the content here through the point-of-view you just read.  I only hope it will be a blessing to you.  I will pray for you and your loved ones if you ask, so please do ask!

My Debt Story…

It may not be as sensational as others you’ve read, but it does stand to deliver value to a greater number of people than those grandiose debt cliffhangers.  Why?  Because it is the story of millions of other middle class Americans.  It is my story, and it may very well be your story too!  The power of my debt adventure is that… you can relate.

After high school I entered college wide eyed and bushy tailed… ready to tear the world a new one!  It was only a matter of time before I ran into one of those finance smut peddlers at the Student Activity Center.  You know the ones I mean… “Get this free T-shirt by applying for your very own credit card!”  Because I lacked financial wisdom, experience, and training – I walked out of the SAC with a new (cheap) t-shirt and the promise of free plastic money… soon to arrive at my doorstep via first class mail.

Once part of the credit crowd, I did not spend as rampantly as a lot of my friends, but I did spend nonetheless.  My credit card spending went in spurts.  I almost always had employment, and lived on the proceeds earned from such.  The real killer for me were my lapses in employment.  Though few and far between, when they hit… they hit hard.

The first real credit hole I dug followed the end of my junior year.  I was unemployed for the first part of the summer with no savings.  I lived on two credit cards until both were fully maxed out – the damage tallied up to about $4,500.  I carried that debt all the way through college and was not able to pay it off until two years after graduation.  Then I did it all over again just a few years back!

The second time I let credit cards get a hold of me was a little different.  We were in our 2nd year of marriage when my wife was suddenly laid off from her job.  Once her income stopped rolling in, mine was all we had for about 7 months – and the sudden move to one income put us a little further in the red each month.  Add to that my auto loan of $6,000+ and a $3,000+ credit card balance my wife was carrying and we had ourselves a nice little chunk of enslavement to the order of $15,000.

Use these links to follow my Starting Debt Amounts, the pretty progress bars in my sidebars, and my Monthly Debt Reduction and Savings Statements to stay abreast my debt free adventure.

In Closing…

I started Debt Free Adventure not only for the benefit of me & my family, but also for YOU.  Journaling intimate experiences, successes, and failures on my road to debt free living will help me stay the course and ultimately help outline a path for future readers for years to come.

My prayer for this website is that the Lord will lead me in my efforts, will work through me to help me, my family, and my readers.

I hope you enjoy your visit and come back often!

Don’t forget the 3 free and easy ways to join the community and follow the progress – Sign up for email updates, Subscribe to my RSS feed, And/or follow me on Twitter.

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