By Josh at MoneyLifeWax.com
Hey Cubert! Thanks for allowing me to guest post today. The personal finance / F.I.R.E. blogging community is truly special, as everyone aims to empower, educate and inspire others by sharing both what has worked and what has not!
Who Am I?
Quick background on myself. My name is Josh and professionally I am a teacher, and my wife is a Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT.) Currently, in addition to a few side hustles and a growing writing career, I am the originator of Money Life and The Whole Ball of Wax. A personal finance blog designed to help others G.O.O.D: Get Out of Debt!
A combined 15 years of schooling later and we had over $340,000 in student loans. Granted, we did not meet until 2012, by which point I had already chipped my loans down, while Lauren’s loans would continue to increase until she finished in the winter of 2014.
By age 27, I had been promoted into the Athletic Administration world, where I soon realized the extra money was not even enough to scratch the surface of our growing debt problem. We thought advancing our careers would be the ticket to paying off our debts and living a great life. Our first mistake.
Our Student Loan Debt Journey
With less time and only a tad more income, Lauren and I started reading up on financial literacy. It was like we had a whole new world bestowed on us. Words like MENTOR and DEBT FREE began to appeal to us. During the time leading up to our revival, I had already bought a truck that was costing $800 a month and a piece of real estate in addition to our home.
The truck was my second mistake. Already leveraged to the max, we started discussing how marriage might not be possible. Doing our best to keep up with those pesky Joneses, yet wondering how we were going to pay the bills at the end of each month, we decided action was needed. Great credit scores meant we could get loans, it was engraved in us that if you could afford the payment you could afford it. Third mistake.
How to Get Out of Serious Student Loan Debt
Working in public education for 9 years now, I began to question how schools were shoving college down students’ throats. I am by no means a hater of college, but knowing how much debt my wife took out, starting at age 18 to do something “she loved” (at 18, mind you) did not sit well.
The average graduate came out in 2016 with $37,000 in student loans. With almost zero financial literacy being taught in the formal education system, we had to learn on our own.
So, that led us to our journey. We decided to G.O.O.D. and share with others how we did it. In 18 months, we knocked out $100,000 in debt while paying for a wedding, a car, and creating a four-month savings fund. By the end of 2019, we will be debt-free.
In February of 2016, we decided enough was enough and we were going to take control. That is when our journey started, towards becoming financially independent and debt-free! I had already sold my money pit of a truck a few months earlier and got engaged.
We read about debt being an emergency and got serious. In August of 2017 after the encouragement of some friends and family, I decided to share our journey to improve our finances and life, hence the Whole Ball of Wax blog!
How We Paid off Our Student Loans: February 2016 & Now
| Debt | February 2016 | Currently – September 2017 |
| Josh’s Student Loan | $14,000 | 0 |
| Josh’s Auto Loan | $7,000 | 0 |
| Josh’s Personal Credit Line | $900 | 0 |
| Lauren’s ESCI & Navient Loans | $13,500 | 0 |
| Lauren’s Auto Loan | $6,000 | 0 |
| Our Wedding Costs | $15,000 | 0 |
| Lauren’s Undergrad (combined) | $92,433 | $77,272 |
| Lauren’s Grad School (3 Loans combined) | $155,511.26 | $118,433.60 |
| Totals: | $304,000 | $195,706 |
What We Did to Pay off Our Student Loans
Cash is King. We started actively seeking other ways to earn income. Between renting a room, renting the land we own, and working as independent contractors for an online marketing group we started bringing in over $1500 extra a month.
We created a budget. Some say go with no budget, some say go with a budget. I prefer the latter, and I love spreadsheets. Our budget was our checks and balance and with apps like Mint, tracking was simple. Monitoring our goals was made easy with a budget.
Read More. Reading is essential. Millionaire Next Door, Rich Dad Poor Dad, Slight Edge, and many more became part of our daily habits. Understanding that had we known more about money maybe we would have more; we became interested in financial literacy.
Our financial knowledge was limited to our parent’s financial knowledge, and that was not a good thing.
Open to Ideas. We are always open to learning more. This does not mean we act on everything we read, see or hear. But, in the process of reading up and finding other ways to make money, we became open to new ideas. Everyone has a different situation, but we owned a home that allowed us to use something relatively unknown to most called an acceleration HELOC (home equity line of credit) which has been a life-changer.
Lifestyle changes. Delaying gratification is extremely rewarding. It boils down to 100% behavior. We realized that we could not keep up with all of our friends and go to every birthday party, sporting event, wedding, vacation AND pay off our debt.
It is what it is, and we’ve chosen to put several spendy activities on hiatus for a while. So far it has been well worth it. At our current rate, by our early 30s, we’ll be debt-free and owe less than 100,000 in our house. Shortly thereafter, we will have no mortgage, just in time for our first kid $$$.
Student loans suck, but going for a walk in nature can help you forget about them for a while…
Find Your Financial Mentors
People throw the word “mentor” around too easily these days. I never ask for unsolicited advice, I am a fruit inspector. Never take advice from someone who does not have the proverbial fruit on the tree. I cringe when I hear people in financial destitution give other people financial advice.
When people ask me about investing I tell them “I have no clue: and not pretend to know some magic formula. Broke coworkers telling their broke coworkers how to stay broke is what my financially independent friend/mentor calls it. He is 29, his wife is 27 and they are retired.
They are our exclusive financial mentors. Our friends have helped Lauren and me (and several others) more than we could imagine. Having a mentor also holds us accountable! Find someone with the fruit on the tree to learn from.
One key quote I like to pass along that relates so well to our journey:
“If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always gotten.”
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Very inspiring indeed! If only more young people followed this advice…..
Agree! Josh has the good fortune of friends as mentors – huge advantage.
Great Post Cube!!! Thanks for allowing me to guest post!
My pleasure! And great post indeed, author Josh! Nice work making your “move” in your 20s. It’ll be fun to follow your progress.
You’ve made great progress so far! Looking forward to following your blog, Josh.
Heck yeah! Josh really has his stuff in order at an ideal stage in life. ????
Man, that is a ton of debt to crush in that quick of a time period! I married into a bunch of student loans myself. When my wife and I got married, I’d already paid off my debt, but she’s still got six figures left that we’ll be crushing as fast as we can once we’re a two paycheck household.
Here here! Same boat, FP. We’ve been able to squash the 5% half of the debt, and are happy to let the 2% chunk sit at this point.
Thanks for stopping by – see you tomorrow!
“I am a fruit inspector.” I like that! And different people require different fruit. I would be able to learn something from your young superstar F.I.R.E. mentors, but I learn much more of immediate importance from people who, like me, had a long history of financial head-in-sand before turning things around. Well done with the truck selling and debt slashing! Becoming mortgage-free before baby #1 comes along will give you so much freedom of choice for that stage of your life. All the best.
I’m really impressed by Josh and Lauren as well, Prudence. In fact, I’ve started researching the acceleration method of paying off a mortgage quicker using a HELOC. Fascinating concept. Thanks for stopping by!
Thanks Prudence and thank you Cubert!
Thanks, Josh for such an impressive post!! Your article “Start with a Budget: Free Budget Sheet to Get Out of Debt” is also excellent. It’s true in old days people bought only what they could afford. If they couldn’t afford it, they did not buy it. Now a days people focused on their needs, how can they fulfill those. After fulfillment, people think about how to clear the debt. Following budget is very necessary. It’s a practice. Again want to say you thanks for such amazing posts.
Figured while on AC I would hit this post up with an update. Spoke to our financial wizard last week. In Nov of 2016 we were at $261,000 in principal student loan debt.
As it stands today we are at $123,000 & we are about to drop that by $40,000 with another HELOC cash windfall payment.
On pace to have the loans gone by December 2019!!!
Hope all is well everyone
Killin’ it with the HELOC! I may yet try that on the mortgage just for kicks…