This article was written by Robby Davis. Robby is a school teacher and graduate student. He and his wife, Megan, live in Tulsa, OK. He is a big sports fan and is known for being the life of the party. Robby hopes to be able to help others find financial freedom by sharing what he has learned throughout his journey.

When I graduated from college I had the same kind of debt typical of most college students. Between the car payment and the student loan debt I was about $20,000 in the hole. Luckily, I had a wife that was debt free to help us in the fight of getting out of this hole. We attacked the debt pretty aggressively and within 18 months of graduating from college we were debt free! For some strange reason, after getting out of debt we decided to finance a new car. Although we were able to do it at 0% interest, I still hated the feeling of having the debt around our neck. We now have a mortgage payment, but other than that we are completely debt free.

Based on this first paragraph it is probably easy to tell that I am not a big fan of debt. I know that some people talk about "good debt" and others assert if you can invest your money at a higher interest rate than the interest rate of your debt than you should go for it. I have a hard time buying into this type of thinking and would never encourage anyone in that direction. My philosophy is that if you cannot pay cash for it, then do not buy it! I recently bought a new (new to me at least) car and it was a great feeling being able to pay for the car with cash!

It may seem as though I have handled everything perfectly financially, but this is certainly not true. Even after nearly four years of marriage, setting the monthly budget can be a source of tension and conflict. I know what it's like to have a budget that makes sense in theory, but proves itself to be very difficult to implement. We all have our weaknesses when it comes to spending money and we have to learn how to balance those things out as we seek to find financial freedom.

I suggest that if you want to win the battle over your debt you must become disciplined in your monthly budget. At the start of every month my wife and I plan out what we are going to do with every dollar of our income. This helps us see where we can cut back to find extra money to go towards savings/paying off debt. Sometimes it is difficult to keep up with this throughout the month, but it has been a great strategy to help keep us out of debt and on a path towards financial success.