Today is Josh’s 30th birthday!!!!  He’s a pretty amazing guy, so I thought I’d celebrate today by sharing one of the most selfless, amazing things he’s ever done.  He sold his truck.

What?  How is that selfless?  He sold a truck.  Big whoop.

Except there’s so much more to it.  Seven years ago we were starting our journey to become debt free.  We were barely making ends meet & had $45,000 in debt.  Forty-five THOUSAND.  Dollars!!  And one of us wasn’t even the legal drinking age yet!  It was overwhelming to say the least.  We were following Dave Ramsey’s principles (which are AMAZING– we still follow them!) and he always seemed to be telling someone to sell their car.  “You can’t afford it,” he’d say.

If you’ve ever met a man who lives in the country then you know that his truck is basically an extension of who he is.  A man selling his truck is pretty laughable… he’d be giving up one of his most precious possessions!

But that’s exactly what Josh did.  It was even his idea.  He sold the truck, used the money to pay off the bank loan ($10,000 or so), and there was $1,000 left over.  Oh, and we only had one vehicle at that point.  And I went to school an hour away from where he worked, so carpooling wasn’t exactly an option.  That’s when a friend offered us a car that had been sitting in a field for a few years.  Yep.  Abandoned in a field.  He sold that green Geo Storm to us… for $1.  😉  We spent $500 getting it running, and although it was the ugliest car on the block, it worked (Thank you, Scott!!  We are forever grateful!).

Seven years later, he still drives a beat up car.  320,000 miles on that baby.  It was my car when I turned 16.  It doesn’t have air conditioning, and the radio doesn’t work.  The windows work… sometimes.

One day we’ll get him another truck.  It will be an AMAZING day when that happens.  I think he’d even settle for a decent car at this point.  But the point is, he’s incredible.  He has never once asked for a nicer car or insisted that he needed a truck to haul all his music equipment around.  He has certainly defied the laws of physics by packing a full size keyboard, stand, and sound system in a ’97 Nissan Sentra!

He’s put those desires aside for the betterment of our family.  And now we are debt free.  We were able to put a down payment on a house last year, and we’ve built a photography & videography business that we’re proud of.  It may sound extreme to say that he changed the course of our lives… but he did.  Selling his truck was the kick-off to becoming debt free.  It was his way of saying, “I’m in.”  And boy, no way were we going to let ourselves fail if he’d already given up his truck!  It pushed us to stick with the plan and get debt free as quickly as possible.

Thank you, Josh, for your incredibly selfless act.  For giving up something so precious for me.

Thank you.

To end on a lighter note… I wanted to include my two favorite images he’s ever taken as a second shooter!