The Liberta Financial Freedom Challenge

I’m joining the Liberta Financial Freedom Challenge, created by Francois at Liberta.  It fits perfectly with our goals, and I like the idea of joining with a community of like-minded people all working to get out of debt and become financially free.  I grew up with a very frugal mindset.  I never had debt of any sort until my husband and I decided to start our own health insurance agency in 2002.  My husband worked on our business for a year while I kept working at my corporate job in order to make ends meet.  In 2003, I joined him full time, and we spent the next year treading water financially.  By early 2004, we had about $40,000 in business start-up debt (including consumer debt that we incurred while our business was making very little money).  By the middle of 2004, we were making progress at paying it back, and we paid off the last of it in August 2007 (and the business is going strong, with very little in the way of expenses these days).  We still have about $153,000 in mortgage debt, which is a big part of our current focus.  We’re working to pay off the house, but we’re also saving for retirement, contributing to our HSA, saving for solar panels, saving for a car that we’ll eventually need when our current ones die, and saving for our son’s education in a 529 plan.   We’re working on lots of fronts to be financially independent, and I think the Liberta Financial Freedom Challenge will only provide more inspiration and motivation.