I earned good grades in high school, which led to ambitious dreams for college. When I got accepted into my dream school, I was sure it was my destiny and I felt like I would have been stupid to have turned down the opportunity. Little did I know that 7 years later I’d still be cursing that decision because of student loan debt. That being said, I loved my college, made great friends and got a great education, but the price was not worth it. Going into college I believed that I would come out of school and have a high paying job lined up. It’s really important for college students to know that in most cases, employers do not care what college you graduated from, just that you graduated.
My story is different because I knew. I made an educated decision when I took out my student loan debt and just truly believed that it would be worth it when I got that high paying job immediately after school. I learned about money very early on. I had a bank account and knew how to make deposits when I was in elementary school. I started working part time as soon as I turned 14 and I had already been babysitting for years. I worked at least 1 job throughout high school and college and have always been a hard worker. My parents had a college advisor meet with me to help with financial aid paperwork and appeal financial aid packages when college application time came around and then when it came down to final decisions, he showed me the projection for how much my education would cost me over the cost of my loan terms. Again, I was not at all phased because I thought this was just what people do. I now realize that I had many other options.
Even though I worked all through college, had a partial scholarship, some financial aid, and made payments to loans throughout school, when I graduated with my Bachelor’s degree in Communication in 2012 I had over $100,000 in student loan debt. In Fall of 2012, I decided to follow my dream and move from Massachusetts to North Carolina. Shortly after, I purchased a townhouse and got a roommate to help pay the mortgage and my student loan debt. The amount owed on my mortgage was less than what I owed on my student loans. At that time I had no other debt and I was aggressively working to pay off my loans, but my student loan debt continued.
Fast forward to 2017 when I married my husband, Rob. He knew going early in our relationship that I had student loan debt and that I was on a mission to get rid of it. By this time I also had a car loan since my previous car became unsafe to drive and I wasn’t able to afford the purchase outright. We are very lucky to both be employed and have no other debt. We did sell the townhouse and upgrade to a single family house with a yard because it was getting very tiring having two dogs and no yard. We are both employed and use a fairly strict budget to live on half of our income. In 2018 we made sacrifices, kept to a strict budget, and got financially creative in any way we could think of and we paid off just over $50,000 in debt in that one year alone. As of February 2019, we have just over $15,000 of student loan debt remaining and we plan to pay them off in 2019.
My top tips for getting out of student loan debt:
1. Make a budget. It’s absolutely necessary to have a written plan.
2. Cut any expense that you can from your budget. Remember that this is just for a season of your life. Try to make it a game. For example, my husband and I will set a spending limit and we’ll each plan a date night and then see whose was more fun. With a little creativity you can find a lot of low or no cost activities for friends and even date night. Make sure to take advantage of free resources like libraries and parks. There are a lot of resources available and prioritizing the cost savings over the convenience can be well worth it.
3. Increase your income. I’ve tutored, babysat, driven for Lyft and Uber, watched dogs, taken surveys, and done retail arbitrage to make more money. All of these things were while I had a “real job”. It’s not fun to wake up, go to work and then work some more, but to pay off my debt quicker it has been completely worth it.
4. Seek motivation. When I succeed in paying my student loan debt off in 2019 I will have been working on them for at least 7 years (technically more since I made some small payments while in school). Be sure to set smaller goals to track your progress as you move towards the big goal of debt freedom. Listen to money podcasts or read financial books. Anything that makes you excited to keep going.
5. Know your why. Why do you want to achieve this huge financial goal? Why do you want the debt gone? When budgeting is hard for so long you need to make sure to keep that big picture view and remind yourself how worth it it is to keep going. What’s going to be different when you achieve your goal. Keeping an eye on the prize helps you remind yourself that it’s worth the temporary sacrifice.
6. Know that just because others are spending doesn’t mean you should. According to Jim Rohn, you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. If your friends are pressuring you to spend money that you don’t have, start saying no. Suggest that your friends come over for a potluck dinner at your house. You can pick a theme such as taco night, or wine & cheese, or desserts and make a potentially expensive night out a much less expensive night in with friends.
7. Persevere. I won’t lie. It’s tough to keep going. Sometimes it just feels like you will never be able to get out of debt. Here’s the thing though. One step at a time you will get closer to your dreams. If you don’t start today you’ll be in the same place a year from now. If you make progress now, you’ll be that much closer with each payment.
8. Get help or support. This can take a lot of forms. Financial distress like debt causes a lot of stress overall in your life. For some people getting help could take the form of talking to a therapist. For some it could be talking about money with your friends or family. I know that’s a little taboo, but I don’t think it should be. I think people need to talk about what’s happening in their money lives because there are a lot of other people who are in the same situation as you. I think another good resource for getting help is to meet with a financial coach. This could be individually or in a group session, but financial coaches are non-judgmental, empathetic, and supportive because usually they’ve been there and have felt the financial stress and they want you to win.
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