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As I sat down in our tax accountant’s office, I looked down at the piece of paper I was holding in my hands. It was an important document that reflected what I’d paid in interest toward my student debt that year. 

I couldn’t believe the figure in front of my face, yet it was right there. 

In just one year, I’d paid roughly $3,000 of interest into my student loans. And that was only the interest for one year. It didn’t account for the amount I’d paid into the principal balances, or what my husband had paid into his student loans either. 

That $3,000 was all I was allowed to write off on our taxes.

I had just paid what accounted for a nice cruise vacation into my student debt interest, and it didn’t even help lower the balance. I would have rathered spent the money on that vacation instead, but here I was, holding the piece of paper that proved I’d done otherwise. 

That money was gone, wasted.

I shook my head before I handed the document over to the accountant.

The Beginning of a Journey

It was at that moment that I realized I no longer wanted to be a slave to my student debt. It had cost me dearly over the years, and I was ready to start spending that money on a nice vacation instead.

So my husband and I committed to paying off our student debt, knowing it would take a lot of personal sacrifices to succeed in our journey. 

This article will tell you how we succeeded in paying off $85K in student debt in just 18 months.

How the Journey to Pay Off Our Student Debt Began

By the time I finished grad school, I’d acquired nearly $100,000 of student debt by myself. My husband was still paying off his own student loans, so combined, our balance was roughly $135,000. It felt like an abysmal amount.

In the early years of our relationship, we made small dents in our total balances, but it would be years before we made significant progress toward paying off our student debt. At first, we could only afford the minimum payment.

We eventually consolidated and refinanced our student loans. In so doing, we managed to lower our interest.

Prior to consolidating, our student loan interest varied from 5-10%, at an average of about 6.9%. After we consolidated, our interest lowered to roughly 3 and 4%.

It wasn’t until after we refinanced that we were truly able to make large dents into paying off our student debt.

The Journey to Eliminate Our Student Debt Continues

My income increased substantially when I started a new job in 2015, though it wasn’t until 2017 or 2018 that we refinanced our student loans.

In 2019, we each took on an additional job, committing to increasing our income as much as possible in order to save and pay off our student loans.

We hustled like crazy, even after our oldest was born.

It paid off financially, though it did take a mental and physical toll on both of us.

The Motivation We Needed

Two years before we paid off our student debt once and for all, we started a chart that showed our progress month by month. Truthfully, it wasn’t until this point that we began making significant dents toward our balances.

As you can see, our chart isn’t fancy. In fact, it’s pretty atrocious, but it did provide exactly the motivation we needed to keep going. We started this chart when our total student loan balance hovered around $100K.

After we started the chart, we put a large amount of our savings toward our loans. In subsequent months we put an extra $100 a month each into our student loans, quickly increasing that to $200 and then beyond.

We put absolutely everything we could into our student loans in the following months, cutting back on spending. We also invested and saved any excess. 

When the pandemic hit in 2020 it became easier to cut back on spending. After all, we weren’t going anywhere or doing much of anything.

We started off slow, but we picked up steam toward the end. We nearly eliminated our savings and liquidated some of our investments to blast the last of our student debt into oblivion in mid-2021.

It was tough, but it was a victory. We paid off our student loans years before they were due, saving an immense amount of money that would have otherwise been wasted on interest.

And yes, I got my cruise money after that.

Lessons Learned

In reflecting on our journey to pay off our student debt, I learned a few key things that helped us be successful. There are also a few things I would do a bit differently.

Are you committed to paying off your student debt like we did? If so, I’d recommend doing a few things:

Create a chart or other visual to track your progress

We didn’t start making much progress toward paying off our student debt until we created the chart.

In fact, that chart was so motivating, that I would give it considerable credit for keeping us motivated. I think it was the thing that made me want to put that much more into our shared debt.

I’ve found few things more motivating than a chart like we had.

But if I had to do it over again, I’d definitely use ClickUp to monitor the progress I was making toward my goals.

Refinance your student debt when it makes sense

When we refinanced, we were able to cut our interest essentially in half, which meant more of our payment went into the principal, rather than the interest. It saved us a lot of money in the long run.

It meant that our student debt went down substantially faster than it otherwise would have if we hadn’t refinanced.

Decide how you’re going to spend the money you’re saving

It was a pivotal moment when I discovered we could cruise every year with the money I was putting toward the interest on my student loans.

That realization was painful, but it was that pain that spurred me to make a change.

Consider what ways you could better spend your money and make a commitment to yourself to pay off your debt. Then you’ll be able to buy something nice for yourself instead. 

Maybe for you, that’s a yearly vacation, or maybe it’s something else entirely.

Don’t forget your health

While we’re proud of our accomplishments, my partner and I both suffered mentally and physically in the years leading up to and after paying off our student debt.

We were balancing parenting with extra jobs. We also pressured ourselves immensely to pay off the debt. 

The stress became an immense burden, and two years later, we’re still recovering from it.

Granted, we paid off our student debt during COVID, which took a toll all on its own, but it’s still a point worth making.

A note of caution from our experiences; don’t be afraid to take risks and push yourself when it makes sense, but don’t do so at the cost of your health. 

Conclusion

We knew that to achieve a FIRE lifestyle and achieve financial freedom, we would need to live below our means. That also meant that we would need to pay off our student debt.

Now that we’ve paid off our student debt, we have more financial flexibility. We are no longer committed to paying a monthly student loan payment. 

We have enough flexibility that we only need one of our incomes, but realistically, I’d like to give us both the opportunity to choose work or not. So we are still building our way to FIRE, though we’ve made IMMENSE progress on our journey.

Does a FIRE lifestyle matter to you? What does financial flexibility mean to you? Let me know in the comments below.

Good luck to you on your journey!

Think paying off your student debt will help you FIRE Your Career? Check out the posts page for more ways you can FIRE Your Career and achieve financial freedom.

FIRE Your Career: Achieve Financial Freedom Through Your Career & Spend MORE Time Doing What You Love.

Tools I recommend in this article:

ClickUp (my recommended goal-tracking and project management tool)