Debt Archives - Making Sense Of Cents

How We Paid Off $70,000 of Debt in 7 Months

Last Updated: July 18, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 3 Comments

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Today, I have a great debt payoff story to share from a reader, Samantha Brandon. This is how her family paid off $70,000 in debt in 7 months.

Like everyone else, the pandemic made us take a pause and reassess our lives.

We were lucky. We had great jobs making respectable salaries (I’m a pharmacist and my husband is a maintenance manager). We were so lucky to have purchased a home at the end of 2019 RIGHT before the market hike.

Yet, we were living paycheck to paycheck.

And I know what some of you may be thinking. How can you make six figure salaries and still be living paycheck to paycheck?

Easy. It’s called daycare for two children, student loans, and some miscellaneous debt living in a sunbelt city where living costs suddenly exploded.

And sorry, but no. I’m not moving to another city with a low cost of living, away from all of my family and friends to save money.

So, there we were. Six figure incomes but living paycheck to paycheck despite having a 15 year-old truck, 7-year-old Nissan Murano, a home WELL below our “means”, but still broke.

I’m a firm believer in taking control of your future, so we made some drastic decisions and got to work. [Read more…]

How We Paid Off $80,000 Of Debt In 6 Years

Last Updated: July 18, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 12 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Hello! Today, I have a great personal finance story to share from a reader, Lisa. Lisa and her husband paid off $80,000 in debt and saved 20% for a down payment on a home in just 6 years. Enjoy!

This is our story of how my husband and I managed to pay off $80,000 of debt and save enough money to put 20% down on our family home.

It took us a total of 6 years to do it. As you will read in my story below, the first couple of those 6 years were actually spent accumulating more debt than paying it off.

There was definitely a large learning curve for us with managing our money. But, as we started to figure things out, our debt payoff efforts snowballed quite quickly.

Today I want to share the techniques and strategies that worked for us when paying down our massive amount of debt because I hope that some of them could work for your situation.

Related content:

[Read more…]

How We Paid Off $162,000 In Debt

Last Updated: July 18, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 7 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Hello! Today, I have a great debt payoff story from a reader, Ashlee Binderim. This is how she paid off $162,000 in debt. Enjoy!

When you get married, you’re supposed to ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after, right?

Well, not for us. That “honeymoon phase” came to a screeching halt when we quickly realized our financial situation wasn’t ideal (to say the least).

Let me set the stage for you – we were in our early twenties, still going to college full-time, and working part-time jobs when we said “I do”.

We were barely making ends meet and money was really tight.

We knew that we were walking into this marriage with debt, but we didn’t actually know how that would impact our financial future.

My husband was in that sweet spot where his parents made too little money to send him to college but too much money to qualify for financial aid. This resulted in him taking out $150,000 in student loans.

During his time in college his student loans accrued $15,000 in interest. Bringing his grand total to $175,000 in student loans. [Read more…]

How Side Hustles Are Helping This Grad Pay Off $575,000 in Student Debt While Living the Life of Her Dreams

Last Updated: July 18, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 4 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Hello! Today, I have a personal debt story to share from Samantha on how to pay off dental student loans. Enjoy!

Hi there! Before we get into the side-hustling, let me introduce myself. My name is Samantha and I graduated from dental school with more than $575,000 in student debt when I was 26 years old.

It may seem like a big number, but this is actually the normal cost of going to dental school (and rising!).

It takes 4 years of undergraduate school and 4 years of dental school in total.

Keep in mind, this is just for a general dentist degree. Those who wish to specialize come out of school with close to a million dollars in student debt!

On graduation day, I knew two things for sure. First, I realized that I was too creative of a person to enjoy a 40-hour, Monday to Friday, 9-5 job. Secondly, I realized that I wasn’t wholly passionate about my career choice.

While I enjoy dentistry, I didn’t LOVE it. I loved doing other things way more.

After these two realizations, I started to fear the following: boredom at work, regret in my career choice, and standing still in the hamster wheel we call life.

I did a bit of brainstorming and decided I want to create a lifestyle around my passions and hobbies. However, graduating from dental school meant I had loans to pay back. [Read more…]

How We Saved Over $100,000 By Age 26

Last Updated: November 9, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 15 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Hey everyone! Today, I have a great savings story to share from a reader named Nichole. She will be talking about how she went from -$20,000 to a six-figure savings by 26 years old.

The following will be outlining my experience getting scammed and how it catapulted me into learning about how money works. I will divulge all the things I’ve done to earn a six-figure savings, pay off over $20,000 in debt and stay consistent with saving for a home to pay cash. I will go over the importance of knowing your “why” and how it has a large part in saving money. I believe we all have the ability to be successful with our finances and sharing my story hopefully encourages you to stay motivated during your own journey.

Since I was a little girl I’ve always yearned for independence and responsibility. My mother tells the story like this:

“It was your first week of kindergarten and I walked you to the bus stop to drop you off. You didn’t even let me drive you that first day! When I met you at the bus stop after school at 2pm you look at me and say “mom, you don’t need to pick me up from the bus stop, I can walk home without you”. I had to explain to you that wasn’t allowed because you were only five years old and the school didn’t allow that.”

The moral of the story is, if I could do it on my own I did. This included making money so I could buy my own stuff.

Throughout elementary and middle school I sold things to make money: lanyards, bracelets, candy, even offered to do peoples homework for $5 in 6^th grade!

Earning money gave me more independence to pay for the things I wanted, so I always stayed motivated. [Read more…]

How (And Why) We Paid Off $240,000 Of Debt In 27 Months

Last Updated: March 18, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 1 Comment

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Today, I have a great article from Neiko Johnson on how he and his wife Alexis paid off $240,000 in just 27 months. They share their finance knowledge and debt-free journey on their blog Secret to Finance. The primary focus of their blog talks about budgeting, paying off debt, and building generational wealth by investing.

My wife Alexis and I have been married since 2018 and both brought a lot of debt into our marriage. We thought we were living a normal life but quickly realized what we were doing wasn’t going to work in the long run.

Like most people, we got into a routine that could lead us down the wrong path of ending up broke. We were simply enjoying life and didn’t have a good financial plan to build wealth.

There’s not an easy path to wealth but in this article, I will outline the steps my wife and I took to pay off $240,000 in 27 months and create a path to wealth.

I hope our story inspires you to take action on your financial journey and teach you some helpful tips that we use.

Our Background – Who We Are and What We Do

We’re Neiko (33) and Alexis (31) from Atlanta, GA. Neiko was born and raised in Atlanta and Alexis was born in Miami and raised in Anchorage, Alaska. Neiko works in Cybersecurity and Alexis is a general dentist.

About 4 years ago we set a goal to both retire by the age of 50. So, to reach this goal we had to make some financial changes and focus on how to pay off debt and create passive income. [Read more…]

How I Changed My Financial Future And Made $50,000 Writing From Home

Last Updated: June 6, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 16 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Hello! Today, I have a great article to share from a reader of Making Sense of Cents. Kate earned $50,000 from writing novels in 2020. This all started when her car was repossessed in early 2020, and her and her husband ended up living in their vehicle. By August of 2020, they were able to rent a brand new townhome and buy a car in cash, all without her husband having to return to work. Below is her story of how she changed her financial future. Enjoy!

In January of 2020, I was forced to quit my job as a graphic artist for a local firm. The pay was decent, as were the hours, but my health issues were worsened by the stress of a “real” work environment.

I had published a few books in 2019 with little success, but I assured my husband, Jacob, that I would do better in 2020 with a rapid release schedule, which is releasing a book every thirty days or so to combat Amazon’s algorithm.

My highest royalty month to that point had been December, and I made $88 from my Young Adult books.

Still, I had hope.

I’d just discovered an extremely niche genre of romance, and readers were hungry for more. I wasn’t sure if I could write the steamy scenes I saw in many of the books I test-read, and I didn’t know if I’d hit the other tropes well enough. [Read more…]