When my husband told me he wanted to buy a home with cash, I thought he was crazy.
I clearly remember thinking, “No one in this house, is paying cash for a house. It’s impossible!”
Yet here I am, 8 years later, eating crow because last month, we bought a house and paid cash.
I was almost hesitant to share this with you guys, for two main reasons.
- This is a frugal food and natural living blog, not a finance blog. But the reason we’re frugal and make things from scratch in the first place is because we were once in an obscene amount of debt… so while the blog contains much of one side, they are one and the same in our home.
- I didn’t want you to think I was bragging. You might never aspire to buy a home with cash. You might want to finish college or compete in an athletic event or even just climb out of debt. For us though, paying cash for a house was our “one day” dream. And the fact that we did this is a VERY BIG DEAL to us. There is not a single day that goes by that I am not in awe at the mere fact we did this, and it’s incredibly hard to convey this in words without sounding pompous or prideful.
On the flip side, I AM sharing this with you guys because:
You asked me to.
I first shared the news on Instagram and y’all wanted to know the story. So here I am, sharing.
Y’all inspire me.
You followed us across the country and offered your homes as a place of refuge along the way. When I had to come up with 3 meals a day using one pot, one skillet and a pair of tongs, you said “You can do it, and hang in there, because this too shall pass.”
I want to encourage you.
Eight years ago when my husband said we’d never have a mortgage I thought my dreams of one day owning a home were over. We were good at saving, but for a whole house?! There was no way. I was full of doubt and had no faith that we’d ever come remotely close.
But we tried anyway.
We sacrificed and saved. We worked hard and gave up so much in hopes of one day – ONE DAY – we might reach our incredibly big and seemingly impossible goal.
And we did it. Which means whatever your “one day“ dream is, you can reach it too.
I’m a very practical person, which means this is a very practical blog. I won’t ever tell you to do something without explaining how, and this post is no exception.
There’s no magical formula for how we saved up enough money to buy a home with cash, but we did use a few “strategies” along the way.
It’s important to note though, that not any one of these ideas can be attributed for meeting this goal. And none of them are a one-time use.
It was the culmination of all of these techniques, every week, for 8 years.
Of course there were obstacles and setbacks, but our eyes were on the prize. We were in it for the long haul.
Just a heads up – this is a long post. You might want to fill up your coffee mug now.
How We Saved Up Enough Money to Buy a Home with Cash
We got out of debt, and stayed out.
I’ve written about how we did this before. In short, we cut our expenses in half early on so we could live off of my husband’s income while I stayed home to raise my son. We stopped using our credit cards and every single last penny we had went towards debt.
Once the debt was gone, it was gone for good. There was no way we were going into debt again – not for a car, not for gifts, not even for flights to see family across the country. If there was something to pay for, we found a way to pay for it outright.
We increased our income.
A few months after we cut our expenses, it became clear that interest was compounding at a faster rate than we could pay it off. To bring in extra income, I started my own business making wooden nursery letters at home. I didn’t make much, but it was enough to turn the table so that the ball was rolling in our favor.
We lived below our means.
When my son was 8 months old, we moved from a 3 bedroom house in Texas to an 800 square foot apartment in California. We could have lived some place bigger, but that would mean paying more in rent and saving less.
We did the same thing when we moved to Georgia, choosing to live in a small one bedroom apartment while we found a house to rent.
Even while searching for a house, we could have chosen a house that was bigger with a nicer neighborhood, but we didn’t because that would mean saving less each month.
I learned to coupon to save more.
A couple of months before our second child was born, I stopped taking orders for letters and learned to coupon. It was about the time when extreme couponing was the trend and I was reading stories of people saving more than I was making, and they had tangible goods – food, shampoo, soap – to show for it.
My husband’s job brought money in, but I learned the drugstore game and made it my job to keep as much of that money as possible from leaving.
A few years later, I got tired of the game and the stress that came with it and quit couponing. I set aside what I thought we would use for one year and sold the rest.
Six months later, when I realized we weren’t going through soap and shampoo at the rate I thought we would, I set aside half and had another stockpile sale.
Profits from both sales went straight to the savings account.
We made sacrifices most families wouldn’t make.
We didn’t see a movie in the theater for over 5 years. There weren’t birthday, anniversary or Christmas gifts for each other unless we had a gift card to pay for them. We set a budget for every event, every gift and every single person for every single holiday.
When my husband realized he could carpool with a co-worker, we sold his car. When this co-worker went on vacation and we needed a back-up plan so my husband could get to work, he rode his bike.
For two years I carried every load of laundry ¼ mile and washed it at my dad’s house so we didn’t have to pay 75¢ per wash and per dry at the apartment’s facilities. When my pregnant belly made it hard to carry both laundry and my infant son at the same time, I rigged up a stroller to make it work.
If I wasn’t able to get the laundry done in time, or the weather didn’t cooperate, my husband did it when he got home from work.
We never took on additional expenses without additional income.
My daughter slept in my son’s hand-me-down pack-n-play in the living room of our 800 square foot apartment until she was 9 months old. When she started walking, we started looking for a bigger place to live.
We ended up moving into the cheapest 3 bedroom townhouse in town, setting us back an additional $600 more in rent each month.
To offset this, I taught two nights a week at a local college. We saved a little from my part-time job, but more importantly, we didn’t save any less, despite our expenses going up.
We never paid full price for anything.
Shoes, clothes, food, cars, bikes, toys – you name it. We searched high and low for coupons, deals and rebates in order to get the absolute most out of every purchase.
When we bought something it either on sale or we had a coupon or there was a rebate. The majority of the time, it was all three.
We accepted help and gifts.
When we first arrived in California, a neighbor gave us a 10 year old sofa, chair and ottoman. My parents bought a new dining room table and they gave us their old one. When they bought new bedroom furniture, their old furniture went to the guest room and the guest room furniture – including the mattress – became ours.
All of my kids’ furniture – from their cribs and changing table to their dressers and the bunk beds – were birthday and/or Christmas gifts.
My dad and step-mom hosted family dinner every Sunday night. I often brought dessert, but they intentionally cooked big so they could send us home with leftovers.
When the manager of our townhouse offered $300 off our rent in exchange for a few minor responsibilities each month, we happily said yes.
My step-mom and grandma gifted us a CSA subscription each year, which allowed us to save another $100 each month on groceries.
We sought out better jobs and took on more hours.
We were beyond thankful for my husband’s job that moved us from Texas to California, but we realized after a couple of years that there wasn’t room for long-term growth.
My husband used education reimbursement to take classes at the local college to qualify for more advanced positions. Job openings didn’t happen often in our small community, but when they did, he diligently applied. When he got an offer for a more advanced position, he took it.
When the college I was teaching at offered me additional classes that fit into the schedule I was already teaching, I said yes.
We made a minimum savings goal every month.
Just like we had spending caps on our groceries, we had saving minimums. Every expense and purchase was weighed against whether or not we would meet our saving goal for the month. If we couldn’t meet the goal, we postponed the purchase.
We saved 100% of every “extra” paycheck.
My husband got a paycheck every 2 weeks, and we built our monthly budget around those two Fridays. So then, when there was an “extra” paycheck every 3 months, we were able to save the whole thing.
We reviewed receipts and bills religiously.
In a time when every single penny counted, we always reviewed receipts and bills in case there were errors.
I once fought insurance and the hospital for 9 months because of a dispute over an ultrasound. That determination and perseverance saved us $5000.
I started a blog.
I started blogging while I was teaching as a way to share my frugal endeavors with other people. At the time, I had no idea you could even make money on the internet. Eighteen months later I used my first affiliate link and at the end of the month, I made $4.
Soon after this, I realized that the same amount of time I was spending away from my family, working for someone else, according to their schedule, could be spent at home with my family working for myself on my own schedule.
I also realized that with hard work, I could earn the same amount of money, if not more. On top of this, the long-term potential was much greater, the work was much more rewarding and the flexible hours meant I would be able to blog while homeschooling my kids too.
I quit teaching six months later.
I learned to cook and make things from scratch.
And this is how my blog evolved from a general brain dump into something that would actually help other families in a similar situation as ours. From homemade chicken stock to yogurt to dried beans to natural toothpaste to even ketchup. I spent my days in the kitchen, trying do as much as I could myself so that I didn’t have to spend money on it at the store.
We gave as generously as we could.
Most of our gifts were homemade, from a drugstore or goody baskets put together with products I already had at home. Despite the fact we didn’t have much money to spend on gifts, we gave generously from our hearts.
We moved.
One of the reasons we left California was the cost of living. It was quite possibly one of the most difficult decisions we have ever made, but we knew that our dreams would never become a reality if we stayed.
What else?
I’m sure we did other things too, but these are the majority of them. Besides, it wasn’t necessarily the things we did that helped make our dream of paying cash for a house a reality, it was our state of minds.
Also remember that it took us 8 years to do this. That’s 96 monthly budget meetings, 208 paydays to divvy up between bills and the savings account, 2912 days where at least once we’d have to say no to something in order to say yes to our “one day” dream.
Was it hard? Absolutely. But I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world because now that we’re on the other side, it feels so, SO good!!
Elena
Congrats! Your house looks beautiful!
Tiffany
Thank you Elena!
Meg
Congratulations Tiffany!! I’ve been following you since you recommended Republic Wireless for phone service (I’m typing from my Motorola now!). It is so wonderful to read about your success after so much hard work.
My one dau goal is to be able to work and do ministry from home with multiple sources of revenue. I’m not sure how God wants to do everything, but I am working on what I know!!
Tiffany
Thanks so much Meg! Glad you like the phone (isn’t it AWESOME?!), and I love how your plans are in God’s hands. Blessings to you!
Dana
Welcome home! It’s simply beautiful!
Tiffany
Thank you Dana! 🙂
Allyson
I enjoyed reading your story. You set a goal and you made it a reality. Your blog has made me look at our monthly expenses with a much closer eye, I’m now saving $100 more a month on my set monthly bills and even more on my groceries and eating out. I get now that a budget is supposed to have a squeeze feel and if you don’t have that your probably not doing it right. Thanks for all your efforts!
Tiffany
You’re so welcome Allyson! You’re right – a budget should have a slight squeeze, but not so much that you can’t breathe or function. Keep up the great work!!
Donna
Congratulations! We had that opportunity handed in our lap and blew it but have a meeting tomorrow to hopefully see if we can rectify it at all but have a question – what credentials do you have that allowed you to teach in the first place? thanks
Tiffany
Hi Donna – I have a bachelor’s degree in Criminology and Criminal Justice, so I can teach up to the associate’s degree level. If I only knew back then I’d be a food blogger, I would have studied something else! 😉
Jen@FrugalSteppingStones
We would like to pay off our mortgage early ourselves. We also want me to be home until our children are grown. My husband didn’t think it was possible, but we paid off my last student loan and our new minivan within 16 months,and I dropped to part time 18 months ago. I am getting my master’s in nursing education,and we have paid cash for school using only the income I bring in. Our last payment is end of December,and I am leaving my job then. We are doing everything to watch every penny so we stay within budget and hopefully have extra to save. I get a tiny bit from my blog and hope to be able to teach online one course at a time to earn enough to pay extra on the mortgage and max my Roth. I love hearing stories like this, because it seems like it can be forever before we hit that goal.
Tiffany
This is SO awesome Jen! Congratulations on all your financial goals and for sticking it out day in and day out. I’m glad our story was able to inspire you. 🙂 Keep it up girl!
Nancy
Wonderful post! Way to go! Very inspirational.
Tiffany
Thanks Nancy!
heidi
Congratulations! So what is next? will you continue to live that way or take a break and enjoy the fruits of your labor?
Tiffany
Thanks Heidi! We’re currently doing a combination of both. Being frugal is too ingrained in our nature to not be, but we’re now able to take what has been rent and what would be a mortgage and put it towards other things… like a few house repairs, LOL! After a couple months though, we’ll be back to our regular habits. We’re already discussing the next big “one day” goal!
Heidi
Awesome! May I offer a suggestion, one I’m sure you have discussed together but being in the season that I am in I can’t stress enough of preparing to pay for college for those kiddos! It sneaks up on you before you know it and your thinking to yourself ‘how did we get here so fast’!
Blessings!
Nikki
Congratulations Crumbs Family! What an amazing accomplishment! I love the budgeting and frugal part of your blog just as much as the real food. Please keep sharing!
Tiffany
Thank you so much Nikki! It’s good to hear you like this sort of post. I’ll give it some thought for the new year!
Floyd
How wonderful to hear your story, Tiffany! And why would you think sharing your success with the world as bragging? You are leading by example how to take proactive action in your life and it’s fantastic! Others just whine, whinge and complain how luck has passed them by and how the world has done them wrong. Besides, the faithful readers who regularly follow your blog know you well enough that bragging is not in your nature.
Again, well done and keep on doing what you’re doing.
Love, Floyd
Tiffany
You’re so sweet Floyd – it’s good to “see” you on the blog! People aren’t always nice on the internet (as I’m sure you’ve seen), so there’s always hesitancy with sharing something like this. In the end, you are right – faithful readers will know I’m not bragging. Thank you so much for the encouragement Floyd – blessings to you!!
Jaime
Looking forward to being debt free someday. Took advantage of a lot of overtime and paid off 2bills.. Now paying cash for things ( like new tires next week). The extra paydays weren’t something I had thought of. I’ve usedmine last payday to get ahead in bills. Have our emergency fund, now to buckle down
Tiffany
You can do it Jaime – keep up the hard work!!
Rebecca Morgan
Such an inspiring story!! Thank you for being so open and sharing your journey with all of us! It helps someone who is in the journey to get debt free see that there really is an end and it really can be achieved!!
Tiffany
This is one of the reasons I wanted to share with you guys Rebecca, for the massive encouragement I know it could bring. Thank you so much for reaffirming this for me!!
Loretta
Awesome job! I was thinking to myself as I read your story, gee, I wish I had done that when I was at her stage in life…but then I remembered the saying: “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago; the next best time to plant one is today.”
Keep up the good work, and God bless your family!
Tiffany
Thank you Loretta!
Alison
I just have to say Tiffany, I have been following your blog for a couple of years now as well as on FB. You have inspired me to adopt some of your saving techniques. In about two weeks I will be mortgage free and completely debt free! I recently moved to a smaller less expensive house to pay down debt. I sold a lot of personal stuff and even put items like clothing and costume jewellry on consignment. I can my own food (beans, vegetables, soup etc.) and make and cook from scratch. I lost my husband to cancer almost ten years ago and have been working on becoming debt free ever since. Soon my dream will become a reality. I commend you and Mr. Crumbs for a job well done and I’m sure your children will have been taught a very valuable life lesson that will serve them in their future. I bet you’ll find that some of the saving traits will have been ingrained in you and will continue to save. All the best for you and your family in your new home. Enjoy your new life.
Tiffany
Holy smokes Alison – CONGRATULATIONS!! How exciting to pay off your mortgage and be 100% debt free! I’m SO happy for you, and I wish you all the best in your NO DEBT home!!
NursePKJ
My Goodness! Congratulations on your amazing and informative blog! I truly appreciate all that you share on your blog about saving and spending less on groceries. Your meal planning has inspired me to be more creative and save more to enjoy an early retirement. Your hard work and commitment to living well has clearly paid dividends!! Blessings on your new home, may you create many new joyful memories there, with your family and friends!
Tiffany
Hi NursePKJ – Thank you SO much for sharing this with me! Blessings to you and your family!
Mary Katherine
Tiffany,
What an encouraging story! You and your husband made GREAT decisions, early on in your marriage, in order to get yourself on a solid financial footing. Not only will this eliminate financial stress in your marriage, but it will free you up to do more for you and your children as time goes on. Not to mention, contribute more towards retirement.
Question: This might be a little personal, but I have to ask… Did your family tithe to any ministries/churches? We put a lot of emphasis on this in our household and I’m wondering if this was a priority for your family (not judging, just asking).
Gotta say, I’m amazed. You guys definitely walk to the walk, and it’s awesome to see your hard work FINALLY pay off! Congrats!
Tiffany
Hi Mary Katherine – We did tithe as we were saving. Giving to ministries is something important to us, so we simply budgeted for it along with all of our other expenses. Thank you for your encouragement!!
Deni
Wow Tiffany, this is an amazing accomplishment! I am so inspired by your story, your focus and determination. Such a beautiful home for a well deserving family. I am so happy for you guys! I would love to learn more about how you stayed so focused and didn’t give into all of the temptations in this world. We are on a journey to becoming debt free (x2) but have a ways to go. We are also faced with some unknowns with my husbands job and are considering a new path. Thanks for sharing your story, it gives me hope 🙂
Tiffany
Thank you so much Deni! Keep up the hard work – I promise that it WILL pay off!
Jennifer O
What an amazing accomplishment. We are seeing the end in sight of paying off our mortgage and thought we were doing well. Congratulations!
Tiffany
You ARE doing well Jennifer! We all have our own goals!
Brooke
Congrats!!! So inspiring to hear your story…thanks for sharing it!
Tiffany
Thanks Brooke!
Marthea
Well done !!!!
Worth the effort to own your home and be debt free.
A great post too.
TFS
Tiffany
Thank you Marthea! 🙂