My debt payoff story begins with a 1998 Ford Bronco with a custom stereo system and a lift kit.
That was the first thing I went into debt for. I was 18 years old and pretty stupid.
Honestly, the loan wasn’t much. But, it was enough for me to realize I didn’t have an option to NOT work my senior year of high school.
So, I worked. A lot. Because I had to.
At first, it was fun. My favorite part of my day was driving to and from my job. A 30 minute commute. Windows down. CD player blazing.
It had to be loud because the custom muffler was also noisy and the hum from the oversized tires made the inside of my car anything but low decibel.
Here’s the thing though, pretty soon, the glory of the drive to and from work began to wear off.
Pretty soon, I realized my friends were out doing things normal kids do their senior year of high school and I was working 40 hours a week at a Starbucks in addition to a full school day.
Pretty soon, I hated my Ford Bronco and I hated the debt that chained me to making coffee for picky customers that got mad at me for really stupid things concerning an 18 ounce drink.
I vowed to never go into debt again. And, I kept that vow…for a long time, at least.
Fast Forward to My Late 30s
Time goes on and you tend to forget the pain of a past season long enough to be dumb again.
So,I found myself in debt…again. This time it was a lot more than a small car loan. $37,000 bigger than the loan on my old Ford Bronco.
It was more than a single job would take care of because now I had other bills to pay.
3 kids and a wife kind of bills. If we just kept paying minimum payments on our loans we would be in debt for the next 20 years.
If we were going to get out of debt again we had to figure out something else.
My Debt Payoff Solution
Thankfully, a few years before I had started to freelance as a web designer.
When I first started I had absolutely no background. I knew nothing about development and very little about design. But, I needed to make extra money for my family.
I took a few free online courses and I started telling people I was a web designer. I wasn’t much of one but thankfully people gave me a shot.
Eventually, I was making decent money with a web design side hustle. 18 months in and I had doubled the income of my full-time job only working about 18 – 20 extra hours a week on nights and weekends.
Our Debt Payoff Game Plan
My wife and I decided we wanted to be done with this debt as soon as we possibly could. So, we came up with a plan.
It wasn’t enough to just make more money. If we spent the money as soon as it came in we wouldn’t make any traction. So, we came up with a budget. Then we tightened it. Then we tightened it a bit more.
The sting of debt was pretty motivating.
We also looked at everything we owned and figured out what we could sell. We’d take the money and throw it at the debt.
My day job was the equivalent of a full-time musician. So, over the years I had amassed a decent amount of audio equipment. Being preoccupied building websites in my free time left me little extra to use the equipment I once played with all the time.
So, I sold things. A lot of things. Some of it hurt. But, not nearly as much as it hurt making car and student loan payments.
My wife sold her car.
It was a big sacrifice. She loved her Jeep Cheroke and honestly it wasn’t a super elegant vehicle. But, there was debt on it and we wanted to be done with that season of our lives.
That took away some of the loan immediately. But, we had sold the car for less than the amount of the loan. So, it didn’t completely take care of the debt we owed on the vehicle.
The Side Hustle
We still had about $23,000 left on our loan after we sold literally everything we could and got our budget down to the absolute bare minimum.
That’s where the web design side hustle came in.
We decided that for a season I would pick up extra projects while my wife would pick up my slack at the house.
It was tough…for a season.
I missed out being able to do things with friends. We said no to a lot of double dates and get togethers. We had to tell our kids they couldn’t buy books from the book fair and other things that are perfectly reasonable for a kid to want.
But, it didn’t last forever.
The Day We Paid Off Our Last Loan
One day, when I was doing the budget, I realized we had more money in our bank account than we needed to cover the next month’s bills AND the rest of the student loan debt.
It honestly came as a shock. We thought that it would take us at least 2 years BUT it had only been 8 months.
So, we logged into our student loan account, entered the total amount of the bill and pressed the button on what would be the last consumer debt loan we’d ever pay for again.
It was an awesome feeling. One that we reached well before we thought we would have.
But, here’s the thing, I’ve been here before. I’ve gotten out of debt only to go right back in.
This time I want to make it last.
What I Learned from Going into Debt…Again
I learned some things this time around that I didn’t when I was a teenager.
Let’s be honest, most of us probably miss or completely forget the lessons we learned when we were younger only to repeat them again when we’re older.
1. You Don’t Need Nearly as Much Money As You Think You Do.
To this day my wife and I only have 1 car. I’m not sure I ever want that to change. We make enough money to have 2 vehicles. But, to be honest, it feels like a waste.
I live 4 miles away from the office I work at and my wife stays at home with our new baby boy (all because we got out of debt and she doesn’t need to work anymore) So, I bike to work. It only takes me 7 minutes longer to bike than it does to drive.
When you are on a budget you learn to really appreciate those special moments in life like going out to eat as a family or drinking coffee made by someone other than yourself.
Now I get to be picky to the Starbucks workers 🤣. When you’re spending money like crazy without even thinking about it you don’t appreciate those moments as much and they’re not nearly as special.I’m thankful I was forced to really tighten down on the budget because now I honestly enjoy when I get to spend on frivolous things much more.
2. It’s Easier to Make Extra Money Than You Think It Is
The gig economy has opened up so many opportunities to make extra money. When I was a teenager if you wanted to make extra you had to work more at a physical job.
Now, I can make money from my couch while my kids sleep in their beds. Plus, if you want to learn something there are tons of free online courses for you to learn absolutely anything.<
Digital marketing? There’s a course for that. Want to be a Virtual Assistant? There are great affordable courses for that too. Check out Kayla Sloan’s 10K VA Course.
The world of education is literally at your fingertips.You won’t ever make enough money if you don’t budget.
At the time I found myself in debt again I made more money than I ever had. But, it still wasn’t enough to get us out of debt. I’m a Dave Ramsey fan. One thing he says that really rang true to me is that “you can’t out earn your own stupidity.”
I know what it’s like to think, “Man, if I just made X amount of dollars, then it wouldn’t be so tough financially.” But, you know what happened? I got a raise and started earning X amount of dollars AND IT WASN’T ANY EASIER.
You can’t outpace overspending. No matter how much money you make, if you don’t have a budget you will always wonder where your money went. So, you have to be intentional every week about keeping track of your spending.
My wife and I have weekly meetings to talk about how our spending was. If we need to make adjustments based on something that week we do it. But, we do it intentionally.
3. If You’re Not Careful, You’ll Go Right Back Into Debt.
This lesson stings a little bit.
After my wife quit her job we didn’t have as much cushion as we once did. We found ourselves going into bad habits because we could. Soon we were overspending in certain areas and couldn’t save for certain things like we had once planned to.
I think this is true for everybody. If you’re not careful, you find yourself slipping right back into bad habits. You forget the pain that got you out of debt in the first place.
So, we had to figure out another way to stay motivated. Ours was a family goal. We promised our kids that if we went 12 months staying on budget as a family, we’d take them to Disneyland for a day.
Let’s be honest. It wasn’t my kids fault we were going over budget. But, when my youngest daughter started coming up with a game plan to use dress up outfits she already owned so we didn’t have to spend extra money for Halloween next year, that was all the accountability I needed to stay on track.<
We’re two months in and we are going strong.
You Don’t Get Out of Debt By Accident.
Good things in life hardly ever happen by accident. But, they certainly aren’t impossible. It takes grit and patience but it’s definitely doable.
This past year I stopped freelancing as much as I once was. It’s cool what you can do when you don’t HAVE to spend all of your free time making money.
Instead, I started building a platform to help people just like me that want to learn web design. About a month ago someone reached out to me. He and his wife are in debt and he was looking to learn web design so he could freelance on the side and get out of debt quicker.
Sound familiar?
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