Paid in Full

I've admitted it before and I'll admit it again; I'm frugal to a fault. I've never been a big spender. In fact, I don't much like to spend money at all. Even when I receive gift cards, I painstakingly contemplate the best way to spend them and how to get the most mileage out of them. Typically, I don't even use them to buy anything fun for myself. To me, just about everything is a want rather than a need. Even toilet paper is a want right up until the point of desperation. Down to the last roll? No problem, it can be shared amongst all three bathrooms. I kid, I kid. Sort of.
I don't know when I became so thrifty, whether it was a learned habit or an inherited one, though I'm far more thrifty than my parents. And let's be honest, when I say thrifty, I really mean cheap. I'm cheap and that's never really been embarrassing to me. For at least the first 4 years of our marriage, Paul and I lived a very minimalist existence. Even after he got his first real job out of college and we bought our first house, we had almost no décor and nearly as little furniture. It wasn't until we bought our second house (the one in which we now live) that we got a kitchen table. In our first home we ate on a $40 card table which we thought of as a major purchase during our days in Provo. We shared one car until about the time we bought our second house, as well.
I'm proud of these things. I have never been ashamed of having lived that way. We were living within our means. It has never bothered me to do so. Though I will admit that during one period it became evident to me that a group of people at church must have assumed we were a charity case. I have never been poor. Never once. Not even when Paul was in school and I was the only breadwinner, averaging about $8.50 an hour (I've never made more than $12 an hour in my life) were we poor. Even then, we saved money.
Today, we live in a humble home. It's nothing fancy. It's just a regular house. But I love my house. Oh sure, there are things I HATE about it, but at the end of the day, it is more than just a house. It is the place to which we brought home two babies from the hospital. It is the place my children play, and laugh, and most of the time sometimes yell and fight. This house is where Sam learned to ride his bike, where Paul and Chris built a playground in the backyard, where Nathanael has spent countless hours playing trains in the playroom, where many play dates and birthday parties have occurred. This home is where my kids are happy.
In the last few months, we have had a couple opportunities to move away from our sweet home. Paul was offered a quite tempting job opportunity in North Carolina. We labored over the decision but ultimately I just couldn't let go of living near my sister and my comfortable life, including my home. We've grown attached to this house.
So we made the decision to settle in for the long haul. Right here. In this house that sometimes feels too small. Today is a historical day for us. A day that I am writing about so that, one day, we can look back and remember when it happened. It's a day I feel proud of and a day that grants us a great amount of financial freedom. Today we have made our final mortgage payment. Today this house is ours.