We’ve Paid Off $500,000 of Medical Debt

Welcome to YNAB Money Snapshots—where you see a real picture of someone else’s budget and finances. They’re all anonymous, because sharing money is still a squirrelly topic for many, but we think airing them out in the open makes you better with your own money story.

As you read these budgets, keep in mind that some people make lots of money and some people make a little bit of money, but we know it’s what you do with that money and how you feel about that money means more than any yearly salary.

See how a married couple in Florida making $144,000 a year spent their money in April.

About

• Name: K&K
• Age: 59, 49
• Location: Lighthouse Point, Florida
• Job: Software Consultant and Retail
• Living situation: We’ve been married nearly 30 years and raised 3 beautiful kids. Our son currently lives with us in Florida as he is pursuing going pro in baseball and we have two dogs (one a service dog and the other my son’s dog).

Income: $144,000

• Software consultant: $124,000/year
• Retail: $20,000/year

Savings: $35

At the time of writing, this was our savings balance. With our focus on debt payoff and “getting to broke,” our finances are tighter than usual. But that is a choice we make every day we look at our budget. Not to worry, we also have a business on the side that is exploding. We’ve always been non-conventional when it comes to retirement and are very happy where we are at.

Debt: $23,700

• Auto Loan 1: $6,500
• Auto Loan 2: $10,500
• Credit Card: $3,600
• Taxes: $3,100

April Inflows: $9,350

• Dividend: $2
• R Group Payroll: $7,775
• SOV Payroll: $1,573

We didn’t receive our stimulus check until May 26, so no inflows for that were in April.

April Spending

We use the Paycheck Info category group to give us a fuller picture of our finances, even though those expenses are automatically deducted from our paycheck. I have a tracking account called “Salaries” with repeating paychecks and deductions. When either of us get paid, we tweak the current paycheck (if needed) then clear it. Then we open the budget, select the deduction categories, and set them to $0 which adjusts our “To Be Budgeted” to now reflect the Net pay.

My Savings Categories

Right now my top savings goals are:

1. Getting debt free
2. Saving up one month of expenses

My Month

Other than making a double payment on one of the car loans (walking it back after being a couple weeks late the month before), it was a pretty normal month—finally. We have been struggling a bit after our move to Florida from Colorado 16 months ago. The job situation is different here as I’m still building out a network of clients, and I’ve not been able to get back to being self-employed.

My Story

We’ve been married nearly 30 years and raised three beautiful kids. My dearest wife has a genetic condition we didn’t know about until just a couple of years ago. As a result, she’s had 27 surgeries, some times with no insurance. In that time we’ve paid off over $500,000 just in medical bills.

We sold our house in Colorado 16 months ago so we could move to Florida as it would be kinder to my wife’s genetic condition. With the proceeds from the house, we paid off the last of the medical debt and had almost four months of living expenses set aside for when we landed in Florida—or so we thought. It was gone in two months: we spent a good chunk of the money paying for first, last and deposit on our rental—the equivalent of three months’ rent in one lump-sum payment.

Work took a month longer than expected to get into, so we ended up a full month behind on everything. Thanks to YNAB and our determination, every 4 weeks we paid 4 and 1/8 weeks’ worth of expenses. After 8 months of that, we were caught up and looking forward to another 8 months to be ahead a full month. Then the job vanished.

I’ve been in the new contract for the last five months and we are caught up. As of April, we’re pulling ahead once again. I figure I have another decade to go for “retirement” but we plan to retire much earlier with our business (ad)venture.

My Financial Goals

• 1. Paying off our debts
• 2. Getting to a 30-day cushion

Once the COVID-19 lockdown in our area is lifted, we’re looking forward to getting back to our business to rebuild that. Our five-year goal is to be in the position of transitioning out of any sort of employment.

I would rate my current financial situation: 3/5

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