Own Your Loans: My Journey to Debt Freedom

As of 2018, Americans owe $1.48 trillion in student loans.

That's enough to pay Lebron James' salary for the next 75,000 years. It's enough to buy every single American citizen Amazon Prime for 60 years. You could get 55 million Ford F-150s if you had a big enough place to put them. Or, you could just spend $1 million per day, every day, for the next 4,050 years.

Society says it's normal. I say it's a problem.

High school seniors have to ask permission to go to the restroom but are allowed, and often encouraged, to make the decision to borrow thousands of dollars from the government. I challenge you to say that out loud and see if it sounds smart.

But complaining about the system is a topic for a different day on a different blog. I didn't decide to write this to give anyone an excuse to play the victim. I simply want you to acknowledge how big of a problem student loans truly are. I also want to provide a solution if you are one of the 40 million Americans who have them.

I made it out, and for the first time since freshman orientation, I'M DEBT FREE! I'm no longer a part of those outrageous statistics. Sorry immortal Lebron, but you aren't getting my money.

I don't expect you to be excited for me. Why should you? I mean, I didn't pay your loans off. None of this fixes your problem.

As a matter of fact, ever since I posted a picture of my final payment on Facebook, people congratulating me seems so much less important than I thought it would. It feels more like formality than sincerity. It's like when someone writes "happy birthday" on your wall with nary an exclamation point.

What does seem real to me are the numerous messages I get from people who genuinely want to know how I did it. These often come from people who feel trapped and are looking for hope. They just graduated, never looked at the actual numbers until now, and are starting do the math on how long it's going to take to pay it off. Or sometimes they have been out of college for a while and are sick and tired of making payments that barely move the needle.

This post is for you.

Here is my best shot at explaining how you can pay off your loans, in no particular order. These are the steps I took that allowed me to pay off my student loans on a teacher's salary.

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Set Goals

What would you do if you had no payments? Where would you travel? What career risks could you take? Who could you be able to bless?

Seriously. Imagine how great it would be to be free from all the stuff eating away at your paycheck every month. You could buy those jeans for yourself. You could finally go on that cruise. You could get your mom the best birthday gift ever and still be ready for any emergency car repairs.

In order to know how to get to a destination, you have to actually know where you're going.

Here were some of my "imagine if" goals: visit new baseball stadiums, go somewhere tropical, be debt-free before getting married, pay cash for a Jeep.

Once you have your ideas, visualize them. Put pictures on your mirror, start a Pinterest board, or even start a countdown.

Learn to Hate Debt

"You need to build your credit."

"You're always gonna have a car payment."

"If you don't get your Master's now, you never will."

"Mr. So-and-So puts everything on a credit card and just pays it off every month. They used their rewards points to fly to Detroit the other day for free!"

Sound familiar? These are the fallacies everyone tries to pass off as universal truths that keep you thinking debt is fine, or better yet, a good idea.

To get out of debt, I had to make myself hate it. I had to change the way I thought about loans and payments. You have to approach it with the mindset of "I don't care what my broke friend who took a business class thinks; debt is stupid."

Like anything that is stupid, you probably shouldn't flirt with it, or even in my case, be jealous of it. So many times, I found myself looking at my 260,000 mile truck and wishing it were a nice Jeep Wrangler or fuel-efficient hybrid. I would even spend hours on Craigslist trying to find an incredible deal on something.

When I got serious about it, my perception changed. Instead of thinking, "Man, this truck is going to die any day; I need to buy something else..." I would tell myself "Yo, if I get this truck to 300,000 miles, people are gonna be so impressed and think I'm a man and a half." Now, when I see a 19-year-old college student post a picture of a brand new Hyundai Sonata with the caption "so i did a thing! first big girl purchase!" my immediate thought is happy five-to-seven years of being a slave to the lender.

It's nearly impossible to get serious about paying down student loans if you are flirting with adding more debt. Hate it like the disease it is.

(Update: The truck didn't make it to 300,000 miles, but "I did a thing" and saved to pay cash for a $4,500 2012 car that's great on gas.)

Budget like a Grown-Up

You just think you don't know how to budget.

If I offered you $100,000 to set up a detailed, big-boy budget for me, you would figure it out in a heartbeat. So it's not a matter of can or can't; it's a matter of will or won't.

In a nutshell, you just put your income at the top of a page and list all your expenses beginning with the constants/necessities. Everything else (restaurants, clothes, gifts, etc.) will be a little more flexible and often month-specific. Then you can then squeeze as much as you can out of it and add it to your loan payments.

Personally, I use a budget app called EveryDollar. It's free and user-friendly, and I always have it with me when I spend money. The minute I swipe my debit card, I open the app and add it to that specific category.

It'll take a few months to come up with a good, strong budget, but once you do, stick to it like a contract.

If you're like me, you might have a hard time saying no to something like going to get Mexican food with friends when you're out of restaurant money. Just keep your goals in mind.

Get on a Plan

Dave Ramsey is your friend.

Whether you agree with everything he says or not, there's one thing no one can argue--Dave Ramsey's system works. I challenge you to find someone who has helped more people get out of debt and start winning with money.

Personally, I consumed all of his material I could find. I took his Financial Peace University class, I read articles on his website, and I listened to his free podcast all the time. Of course, it's great to have constant reminders and advice when working on your finances, but all of this started to become so interesting to me that it was never really a chore to think about.

Dave Ramsey teaches a process called the "Baby Steps," which are simply:

Baby Step 1 should happen as quickly as possible. Keeping $1000 as an emergency fund sounds like a lot to some people and almost nothing to others. It's just a starter emergency fund to help you when a rock hits your windshield or you get a nail in your tire. You could keep more in it, but it's supposed to make you feel uneasy and keep you from camping out in Baby Step 2 your whole life.

When it comes to Baby Step 2, Dave teaches a system called the "debt snowball." Essentially, you just list your debts smallest-to-largest, regardless of interest rate, and pay minimum payments on all but the little one. Squeeze any extra money you can out of your budget and throw it at the smallest debt. Once you pay that off, carry how much you were paying on the first one onto what you are already paying on the second-smallest debt. Doing this builds momentum and keeps you motivated, all while allowing your payments to get bigger and bigger as you go.

I can't attest to any other financial program, but if you find one that's proven, go for it. Whatever you do, do it on purpose. You can't get out of debt on accident.

Find a Friend

This final tip has nothing to do with math and everything to do with motivation.

I'm a people person, so if I'm doing something I think is important, I have to tell people about it. The only problem is people sometimes get uncomfortable, or even defensive, when you start talking about things they haven't already bought in on.

When I started my journey to debt freedom, I didn't know a whole lot of people who were doing it, but before I knew it, more and more people caught on and started it themselves. My parents were the first, then my sister and her husband, and it has only spread from there. Now, no one in my family has a car payment! It was nothing I specifically did or said that convinced them; it's just hard to argue with results from a program that works.

Ignore the people who complain about how rich Dave Ramsey is, the people who worship their 1% cash back on credit cards, and those who keep trying to get you to splurge even though they know you're working hard on your debt snowball.

Find someone who has a common goal.

If they have already bought in with you or are willing to hear you out, have them hold you accountable. Walk through your budget with them and text them when you make a big loan payment. Have them remind you of your goals when you want to buy a new car or another set of concert tickets. You will have loads of negativity from normal people, but one cheerleader can make all the difference.

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It ultimately doesn't matter if you are great at handling money or you're just now learning. Anyone can be good with money if they change their mindset and get on a plan.

I am by no means a financial expert. In fact, I'm naturally much more of a free spirit than a saver, and I love spending money. One day I just decided I was no longer going to accept the burden of student loans, the normalcy of a car payment, or the stressful life that comes with living paycheck to paycheck.

If you made it this far in the article, I hope you have found at least a little bit of motivation to get serious about your debt. No one will do it for you--not a friend, not a political man in a suit. The only person who will help you is you.

And perhaps Dave Ramsey.