THREAD. Four years ago, my wife and I made the final payment on a collection of debts that were sizable. It took us 22 months of intense focus. It was, in retrospect, perhaps the most valuable thing we’ve ever done for our marriage. #DebtFree #TBT #babysteps #ThursdayMotivation
The vast majority of this debt was student loan debt, potentially dischargeable through public service debt forgiveness. When I began telling people that we had decided just to pay it all off, some people thought it crazy to NOT coast for ten years and then watch it go away.
In retrospect, I believe we made the right choice. My wife’s dealings with her loan servicer were a regular pain. Payments were often not applied correctly, and even as we were making double/triple payments, dealing with them was a regular annoyance.
The other calculation we made was this: What if my wife didn’t want to work for government or a nonprofit for ten full years? What’s the option value of those years. We decided it was worth more than the promise of debt forgiveness.
More recently, it appears that the promise of student loan debt forgiveness was, at best, oversold. I suspect the promise of it actually encouraged lots of young people to borrow money they would otherwise never borrowed. cnbc.com/2018/10/29/thi…
More than that, we did this as a team, and there’s not much greater satisfaction than achieving a big goal with your best friend.
So, anyway, four years ago today we had a big party, invited just about everyone. My boss bought us a bottle of Johnny Walker Black. Because we were finally in the black. Get it? Do you get my joke? #BojackHorseman
And before we’d even gotten to zero, we’d posted on social media about our progress and friends started to come out of the woodwork to learn more. More on that in a moment. #FinancialIndependence #DebtFree
We scrapped eating out in favor of having friends over to watch a movie. We brought our lunches with increasing regularity. We got married during this time, so we had a big, cheap wedding. We used almost all of the gifted money to apply to the debt. #TBT
“You brought your lunch? *That’s* your solution???” I get it. I get it. That’s not all we did, but bringing your lunch in Washington, D.C. adds up to between $2500 and $5000 a year. (240 work days @ between 10 and 20 bucks a day) #bringyourlunch
We budgeted scrupulously the whole time, scrapping bits and pieces of our budget because every choice to consume was a choice *not* to pay off an equivalent amount of debt. We stopped contributing to 401Ks. #BabyStep2
We traveled less. We SOLD MY CAR! AUGH! We planned meals better. Every few weeks, we’d discover some new way to save a few bucks. Cheaper phone plans, stricter grocery budgets, cutting the cord, and entertaining ourselves more cheaply in general.
The point is that we kinda evolved into saving thousands of dollars each month and throwing it at the beast. It got easier because we had a very clear idea *why* we were doing it, and we got crazier about getting to zero faster.
As our target date approached (the day we thought we’d eventually get to zero moved around quite a bit), we started deciding that, yes, we could go without this or that little indulgence. After all, the pain was temporary and we *had a goal* to hit.
The fact that we’d both grown up in low-income households actually was a pretty big help to us, too. Going without some small luxuries on purpose is easier when you grew up without them.
It’s maddening to me that many otherwise well-heeled people fail to or are unable to distinguish between needs and wants. Obvious example: wealthsimple.com/en-us/magazine…
Our biggest inspiration was Financial Peace University from @DaveRamsey. I honestly can’t recommend that program enough and if I know a young person about to get married, I tend to buy it for them immediately. It provided an extremely solid foundation for us to slay the beast.
Google “Dave Ramsey Baby Steps” and you will have the basic gist of the program.
The Personal Finance subreddit was also pretty valuable. It showed us how other people solved the saving/spending problems that had vexed us. Read the FAQ.
Our biggest cheerleader was my friend @asymmetricinfo. As the debt declined, I regularly delighted in telling her about every BIG ROUND NUMBER we hit along the way. She’d cheer us on and then had us over for some big ol’ steaks after we’d finished the payoff.
We’ve also been very fortunate that friends have actually TAKEN OUR ADVICE about how to do this. It’s been incredibly rewarding for us to watch people we know and like get control, get a plan, and get to work. I hope their experience mirrors our own.
As always, feel free to AMA about it.
And one more thing: We ALWAYS kept a 3x5 index card in a prominent location to remind us of how far we’ve come (bottom) and how far we had left to go (top). This is the last one. #TBT 
