Rob & Melissa Stephenson interview Rebekah Burton about how her family of eight paid off $56,000 in 13 months.
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How Reselling Helped This Family Pay Off $56K In 13 Months
Rob: All right guys, today we are super stoked, super excited to be joined by Rebekah who has paid off some crazy debt. And we are very excited to talk to her and get some, inside views on how she actually was able to do this.
Melissa: Yeah, we're really passionate about helping people pay off debt and paying off debt in general.
And she was able to use her flipping side hustle to help that happen. So we're gonna dive in to talk to her and see what she did.
Rob: Rebekah, thank you so much for jumping on here, joining us. We're so excited to talk to you. So, let's dive in, let's get some of these answers and hopefully, help some of you guys who are struggling with debt, figure out how Rebekah did it.
And maybe you guys can use some of the same tools she did to be able to help yourselves do it.
Melissa: So to start, what was the turning point where you decided to get out of debt?
Rebekah: Well, I've always wanted to kind of get outta debt and way back when like 15, 20 years ago, I learned about the Dave Ramsey and took one of the little mini courses at the local library.
And at that time I think I had like, $10,000 in debt. And I thought it was terrible, but you know, over the many years since then, I had amassed a huge amount, getting married, kids, everything like that. And so, during COVID, right at the beginning of COVID when I decided that we can't do this, the kids are out of daycare, so we're not shelling out money for daycare.
And I just said now's the time we gotta do this. We're at home a lot. I was still fortunate to be working. And so I knew that we really needed to just get rid of all of our debt. And so we just kind of set up a budget and got started and just had to, you know, take the plunge to get, you know, it's like cold turkey and jump right on in with both feet.
Melissa: Yeah.
Rob: That's awesome. And we, we know too it, debt can creep up on you before you know it, and it just starts climbing and climbing and then you're swallowed with payments of interest payments. So we totally get that. And we totally applaud you. For taking control of that and actually going forward with it. So yeah, that that's great job and super, super excited where you're at now.
Melissa: I was gonna add, let everybody know how many kids you have. Cause there's a couple.
Rebekah: Oh, okay. so my husband and I have two children together and then, there's four additional stepchildren. So we're a total of six and our age range is 11 to 32, a busy household.
Rob: That's no joke. Lots of kids, for sure.
Rebekah: So, right, right.
Melissa: So how much have you paid off and how long has it taken you?
Rebekah: So we started, April 1st with our budget of 2020. So, by May 31st of this year, so that was 13 months. We paid off $56,807.09.
Rob: Woohoo!
That is awesome.
Great job.
Melissa: That is no small feat.
Rob: Wow. That is not. That is awesome. And you did mention, and I forgot on before you did mention that you were, you are familiar with Dave Ramsey, Melissa and I have done Dave Ramsey's course as well. Absolutely love David. And he gives you some great principles and some great stuff to follow.
So, did he also play a big part in this, you know, following his principles and stuff like that?
Rebekah: Yes cuz we, well, I was, when we were looking at it, I wanted to follow the baby steps. Like we had our, emergency fund, our small one and then baby step two is getting outta debt and I was just, you know, for years I've been looking at it and I never get outta baby step two.
And we just had to kind of change the way we look at money. And, the bottom line for us was setting up a budget and then making sure we stuck to. And then also you have to put your money towards debt and not be embarrassed about putting $4 to debt. It makes a difference cuz I had a mindset where, oh, it doesn't matter.
I'm you know, why would I put these extra $8 to debt? It's not gonna make a difference. Well, you have to change that mindset and make sure that yes, you put every extra dollar to debt. And when you make your budget, I used the electronic, every dollar app to do that. And so when I didn't spend as much on a bill that I was thinking would be $68 and it was $64, those $4 went into debt. And you know, any little windfall. And you have to think of that as, you know, the best way to, you know, get your debt paid off. And yeah, so that's kind of how we started. So baby, step two and, you know, looking forward to getting to the next steps.
Rob: Yeah. That that's awesome. And you make a great point because when you're looking at the total picture of $56,000, when you're thinking $4, $8, $6, That, that looks like there's no way.
And I can relate to that as well. I'm like $6. What's that gonna do towards the total? So, why am I gonna put that towards it? Because I need to throw - it adds up- that's right. It does, but I need to throw out a hundred or a thousand dollars at it before it's gonna make a difference, but you're a hundred percent, right.
You have to start somewhere and you have to get in that mindset of, okay. No matter what it is, we're gonna throw this extra money at it and we're gonna watch the mountain move and we applaud you. That's awesome. That is awesome that you made that decision, and you were able to do that. So great job.
Melissa: That's it's so exciting.
Rob: It is.
And Rebekah is one of our flipper university course members. You can see her shirt, the pro flipper shirt.
Rebekah: Yeah. My pro flipper shirt.
Melissa: For hitting the $1K club that was a little while ago now.
Rob: Awesome.
Rebekah: I think I'm at the $10K now, but I haven't added it up for a little while, so I need to do that and get that sent in.
Melissa: Awesome. Awesome.
So how did your flipping gig help you, on your debt journey?
Rebekah: So one of the things that was really helpful was as I was learning through this group, through the Facebook group and learning about with all your posts and everything, and digging down to try to find more and more things to sell it every time I had a little bit sale, $20, $40, whatever that was just the flipping business was pure debt. And that just really helped me to, you know, I budgeted everything else. And then the extra stuff was just going straight to debt. And that was my flipping business. And there were some months where I was a little bit dry, but I had a really fantastic like October, November, December, and January, I think it was, I participated in the challenges where listing every day makes a huge difference and I'm disappointed in myself because I didn't do well in our May challenge.
And I've only done a few for June, but it listing every day makes a huge difference. And so I was getting those, you know, $20, $40, $60, a hundred dollars and they were just going straight into my debt category on my budget.
Melissa: Awesome. Yeah.
Rob: That is awesome. And yeah, we second that too, when you list every single day, you see the results.
So, and it's awesome that you were able to jump into this new type of, business and be able to donate everything or, or put towards everything that you're making towards the debt, cuz that does it does help a ton. It's a whole other, source of income that you can throw at it. And then once you pile it up, the cool thing is once it's paid off all that, money's going back to you and you're able to make the money and build your account, build your savings account. So that's the exciting part. You know what the potential is, , you're getting better and better at it as you're paying off your debt. So now you just, the sky's the limit.
You can keep going full blast and keep making money and put money in savings. Yeah.
Melissa: Right, right.
Like when you're on this, journey to pay down off your debt it can be really easy to get thrown off course. Stuff happens. Other bills come up or whatever. So what are, what are a couple things that helped you stay on your path?
Rebekah: So the number one thing is budgeting because if you don't have a budget, you don't know where your money was is going. So last April, when I set up our budget and I started looking at my bank account and determining like, where's my money going? Cuz you don't know if you're not budgeting. You don't know how much you're spending on groceries or actually eating out, which I'm embarrassed to say our eating out for prior to April was just outrageous.
Because I get lazy and I don't wanna cook. And so, you know, you have to budget and when you budget one of the key things that I found for myself, I get paid every other week. And so that means I get 26 paychecks a year instead of 24. And if you're budgeting those two extra paychecks, those two months out of last year, where I got an extra paycheck, pure debt because I budgeted for the month instead of budgeted for every other week. And so you get that, it's like a windfall and you have an entire paycheck to just pour right into your debt. And it's easy to go and say, well, I'd rather do this, this and this, but if you're budgeting and you have your categories set, that debt, number's gonna come down really quickly.
And another thing, COVID kind of helped us because we weren't going as many places. So our gas bill went down and we weren't paying, we didn't pay for summer camp last year for the day camp, which gets really expensive. And my boys are aging out of day camp now.
And there was the COVID relief checks, the stimulus checks, we got a couple of those. And so those went all the way to debt immediately. And in the past, when we'd had like maybe a tax return or things like that, we'd think of fun things to spend it on instead of spending it on debt, even though we have debt sitting around and you just, it's a complete change of your mindset.
It's a paradigm shift for how you manage your family and your finances and you gotta have everybody on board with it too.
Melissa: Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. We kind of dove right in and didn't even get a lot of your background. So you have a regular nine to five, right? Like you're working full time?
Rebekah: I do.
Melissa: Okay. Tell us a little bit about kind of your background and yeah, you're tackling this while you're working. You have kids and a side hustle. Yeah.
Rebekah: So I, spent 22 years in the Navy. So I'm retired from the Navy and I'm a registered nurse. And I started working right away when I retired from the military, cuz I knew I wanted to have still work and needed to work in order to support our family.
My husband primarily works evenings and weekends. He's a sports official and he does that full time.
Rob: Cool.
Rebekah: And I work full time as a registered nurse for the department of veterans affairs here in Illinois. And, so after those 22 years, I jumped right into continuing to work. And so I have, I was fortunate to not lose any work once COVID started as so many people were, you know, severely affected in their occupations and things. So since I worked for the government, in a hospital, we weren't shutting down at all, but so that's kind of my background of, you know, working. So I do, I work full time. My boys that are at home with us are 11 and 14, so they just finished fifth grade and eighth grade.
And we're lucky that we're done with daycare. That's a big expense for a lot of people. One of the other things is you have to decide what's important for you for your budget, because you know, like Dave Ramsey, you know, he's on one end of the spectrum and then I'm somewhere kind of in the middle, I think, because we still have Netflix and we still have, Amazon music and Disney Plus, and some of those little things that when people are, you know, you have to decide what's important for you. We still have cable TV. If I turned off the cable TV, I think I'd be heading down the divorce road because we are TV people and my husband loves TV. And so you know, that's important for us.
We still have our cell phones and things like that, but everybody's family is different. You have to sit down with your family and kind of decide where are we gonna cut out our budget? Are we cutting out our Starbucks? Or are we cutting out Netflix or Disney Plus or, and the other thing is you have to look at your salary.
You know, somebody who's making, $35,000 a year is gonna have a very different budget than somebody who's making $80,000 a year. And whether you have two parents working or one parent working. And so it's so individualized, but the bottom line is that you have to stick with it and, you know, follow your budget.
And the reason I used the electronic budget was because I could go in there and say, okay, I'm gonna move this around. Or I had something happen and I need to spend $50 for basketball camp. And so I need to move something around because this app has you budget every single dollar in your income.
And so when you're using your regular income, You're gonna have things that move around, you move things from category to category and you say, okay, well, no more eating out for the rest of the month. You know, we still have a budget for eating out. We have a budget for all the utilities and anything that might be fun.
And over the years I've had a list of things like when I have to renew my registered nurse license that's every other year so that's in the budget there. Christmas gifts some people forget and then in December they go into debt in order to have Christmas. And last year I started, I think in August and I set a budget for the amount of money that I wanted to spend.
And some people, you know, I have friends who spend, you know, a couple thousand dollars, you know, at Christmas, we don't do that, but you know, you have to decide what are you doing and where is that money coming from and how are you gonna get that? So when you're budgeting by every month it's easy to look forward to like December and say, okay, I need to save $300 a month from August to December in order to have the Christmas that we wanna have in our family.
Melissa: Yeah. I think we're the same way. We're kind of in the middle of Dave Ramsey. Like, cause you do have to have those little things and I also wanted to add, thank you so much for your service.
Rebekah: Aw, thank you.
Melissa: But yeah, we've talked about that a lot too. Yeah. Is having the little things, like our thing is when the kids are in school is going out to lunch. Like we don't go out to dinner very much anymore. Yeah. But like, we like to have that time to kind of reflect at what we've done in the morning and then what we still have to do.
And just like, so we go out to lunch, probably more often than we should, but that's kind of one of the things. Yeah. It is what you value.
Rob: So, but it's huge. It's huge that you saw that, that you see you need Netflix, you being cable, you need a couple of these things to stay sane. And it doesn't have to be all or nothing.
It doesn't have to go from one extreme to the next cause $56,000 that's no joke. That's some serious money that you're able to do this with. And you were on this budget, that you did and you stuck to it and you paid it off. So, it's an amazing, amazing feat that you were able to accomplish by that. And you didn't go, you know, rice and beans. You didn't do that, but you did, you know, you scaled down a little bit from your lifestyle, and you're able to pay it off. So that's very, very exciting. That's exciting that you're able to do it. Like some people think you have to give everything up and you can't spend a penny on anything that's important.
And you're living proof that you can, you can make those decisions to do it, and still pay the debt off. So that's very, very exciting. That's awesome.
Melissa: Yeah. So what are your plans now that you are out of debt?
Rebekah: So now that we're out of debt we are moving on to baby step three. So we're saving for our fully funded emergency fund, which is a Dave Ramsey concept.
We didn't take, financial peace university, but I've read all his books and I used to follow on his, online site where they had message boards, which, went away a few years ago. So that's how I kinda learned the concepts and looking online, of course you can find anything online these days.
Yeah. And so once we have our fully funded emergency fund, we need to get going with, making sure that we have money for college for our boys. Because we have a ninth grader already and that's coming quickly. I do have the GI bill, but that's not gonna send both of my kids to college. Yeah. And, and so that's kind of where we're moving forward with our family.
And we've changed kind of how we look at things with what our big purchases, is, you know, we need to save for the next big purchase instead of going into debt in order to have a big purchase is, is always our goal.
Melissa: Yeah, that used to be that years ago. Like every you saved for what you want and then get it.
And now it's like, oh, do you have a credit card? Right. You can get it now and make payments. And then yeah, most people can't handle that.
Rob: And it really is, it's a mind shift. It's a purpose. Right, right. That you have to change that you really have to change that to do it. So, yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome that that's where you're at.
And it's exciting, you know, the potential of flipping, you know, that you can build that three to six months of reserve. And still even start saving for college and being able to do that because you have it at your fingertips. Now you have the experience and you're only gonna get better. That's the best thing about flipping is you only get better the better.
I mean, the more that you do it, the better you get at it. So that's very exciting for you as well.
Melissa: What's something that is helping you stay out of debt now. So you've got to that point and it's sometimes it's easy just to be like, okay, I accomplished that goal now. Like it can start to creep back in. So what are some things just following the principles?
Rebekah: Right.
So, a key thing is just, you've probably seen a lot of people, like maybe on Instagram and they have their little message board that says, you know, how much they had paid off in debt. So I made one of those and I posted it on the wall of our bedroom. so we see it every single day. Anytime we're in the bedroom, we see that it's sitting right there on the wall next to our bed, and it shows, you know, the work that we did in order to pay off our debt.
So that's helpful. And then just the feeling it's such a great feeling, not to have any debt and to be able to move that entire category of money into other things. So right now that flipping money and any other extra income and things goes directly into our fully funded emergency fund until that's grown all the way up and then we'll move on to the next steps.
And, you know, my goal is to you know, reach, where we can start paying off our house. And then once we're done with that, then, you know, baby step seven, which is, you know, wealth building. Yeah. And just living the life that, you know, that's debt free and financial freedom really.
Melissa: That's awesome.
Rebekah: Which is a huge goal of mine.
Melissa: Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. Having that visual is super important. Like I love having visuals. I put like sticky notes places like in the bathroom mirror and I just, I think that's so good having vision boards. I love doing vision boards. I think that's awesome.
Rob: It is. It's awesome.
Melissa: Is there any other words of encouragement you wanted to leave people with?
Rebekah: Well, perseverance, that's the word for this. You have to stick with it and you have to just continue to work on it. And when something happens, you just pick yourself up and move on. So, you know, throughout the year we went through like we decided we needed new a new couch, cuz our couch was literally broken and we needed a new one. And so we were able to pay for that in cash and not go further into debt. And we just delayed a little bit with our debt snowball, so to speak. And so, you know, you just have to keep going and life is up and down and you're gonna hit bumps in your road to paying off your debt.
But as long as you keep going and you don't fall off the wagon and become crushed under the wheels and never get back on, you're gonna do well. And everybody's pace is different. It's not a race. You're gonna get there. You just have to keep at it.
Melissa: Yeah.
Rebekah: And I know this is the, you know, this is the world that we live in right now is like instant gratification. Debt payoff is not instant gratification. It takes hard work and dedication and perseverance. So those are my words of advice for those that are starting the journey. And number one, get that budget set, look back on your bank account and see where your money is going. Personally I use my debit card for everything, cuz I wanna know every penny that goes out and I get annoyed when I have to pay cash, like to get into a basketball game.
I'm like, what, what do you mean I have to pay cash? I don't carry cash. Don't you have Venmo. Something that I can use my debit card. My husband on the other hand is Mr. Cash . So we've had to like kinda meld together and figure things out, but I'm the one that does the budget and we decided to push everything onto my side so we can really see where the money goes all of the time.
And that's not for everybody. Some people like to use cash, but for me, that keeps me accountable. and I make sure that I know where each dollar is going.
Melissa: Yeah.
Rebekah: Instead of like, oh wait, cause when I first started this, I found something called study island, I think. And I'm like, what's that?
And I look back and it's something I'd signed up for my now 11 year old, like two years ago and I was paying $15 a month and he never used it.
Melissa: I'm amazed at the amount I've been the last year, been a lot better on our budget. And I am amazed at the amount of subscriptions that I just have let go. And it's like $5 here, $11 here.
And you just like really it ends up being a couple hundred dollars sometimes. And like, how have we just let it go?
Rebekah: It adds up quickly.
Melissa: Yes. Yeah. We'll link to that app. You use every dollar, right?
Rebekah: Yes, I use every dollar.
Melissa: Okay, awesome. Yeah. And I like the, having the digital as well. He's more cash and like in our nature of business, you do a lot of cash. Yeah. So I have to be like, okay, whatever you spend, write it down for me, cuz I need to know yeah, exactly how much cash you spend. Yeah. So, that it is a little bit of a workaround, but I liked having the digital too.
Rob: For sure. Well, to recap, definitely the two most that I got out of your talk is definitely get on a budget and the second one is perseverance. You're not the exception. Yeah. We're not the exception. You're gonna go through hard times, guys. You have to make that decision that you're gonna persevere through it.
You're gonna get through it. Just be ready for those hard times when they come and know that you're gonna make it through it. Get on a good budget, a budget that you can keep. That is Rebekah's best advice. Like she said, the budget and perseverance is really what you need to take from this, to be able to move the mountain that you have to move.
So, :24:00] Rebekah thank you so much. We are so grateful for you and for you jumping on here and sharing your words of wisdom to people that might be in the same situation you were 13 months ago or 15 months ago, whatever it was, when you jumped in and you're like $56,000, you are outta here we're we are getting rid of you.
So thank you so much for giving those pointers to everybody who's might be facing this.
Melissa: Encouragement, yes, to others.
Rebekah: No problem. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. And I'm so grateful to be part of your group and I'm having a great time and hopefully I can move on into the freight category and get some higher dollar amounts.
Rob: So awesome.
Rebekah: That's my goal.
Rob: Rebekah, you rock. Thank you so much. And we'll talk to you soon.
Melissa: Thank you.
Rebekah: Alright, thank you.