Trial After Trial, They Kept Moving Forward

Eloy and Vanessa went through the ringer on their way to becoming debt-free.

"We’ve taken this journey—it’s been a crazy one, but it’s been an unbelievable story," Eloy said.

When Eloy and Vanessa got married, Eloy brought his defaulted debt with him. He knew he needed to be responsible with his finances, but never thought he was ready to face it head on.

Eloy even had his identity stolen, which made things even more complicated. They started budgeting after Vanessa went with her mom to one of Dave’s live events. Shortly after, Eloy and Vanessa decided to attend Financial Peace University together.

"It was so overwhelming when we saw we had over $200,000 in debt," Vanessa said. "We thought, How are we going to do this? We barely make any money."

But going through FPU gave them the tools they needed to get rid of their debt. They made the choice to stop adding debt to their lives. They tackled their debt slowly by changing jobs and getting pay increases. But little did they know the many challenges about to come their way.

Eloy unexpectedly lost his job just as they were making progress. And when it seemed things couldn’t get any worse, Vanessa’s car ran over her as she was getting out of it! With Eloy out of a job and Vanessa at home healing from the incident, they didn’t have any income.

"We lived on a budget and went through those hardships with no money coming in," Eloy said.

After finding a new job, they suffered job loss again. Eloy and Vanessa survived off one income while he was unemployed for seven months.

"Life hit us really hard," Eloy said. "But life is not bigger than God."

After seven trying years, this Texas couple paid off $207,000 in debt! They persevered through identity theft, multiple job losses, medical issues, and cars being totaled on their debt-free journey. If they can press on and achieve their goal, you can too!

Stay inspired on your journey to financial peace by watching more stories on The Dave Ramsey Show.