If you’ve ever felt stuck living paycheck to paycheck, I’ve been there too. At 35 years old, my husband and I were earning about 225,000 a year and we were living paycheck to paycheck. After a significant family issue, we knew things had to change. We quickly realized the problem wasn’t our income; it was our debt.
We had credit cards, a car loan, and a mortgage holding us back. Once we got serious about tackling it, we paid off $267,000 in total debt—and it completely changed our lives. Today, I want to share the 10 steps that worked for us (without requiring us to sacrifice everything we loved). At the end, I’ll also share the one big, bold move that helped us achieve financial independence.
Our Debt-Free Journey
From the moment we decided to pay off our debt, we were all in. I saw the mountain of debt as a challenge we were ready to conquer. With determination and focus, we broke it down step by step and found that small changes made a huge difference. All were practical and pretty easy to live with by comparison to feeling trapped by debt. Some even led to developing unexpected skills—like meal planning (and yes, cooking lasagna).
Here’s exactly what we did to turn things around.
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Write Down Your Debt Plan (Every Single Month)
This might sound simple, but writing down our debt repayment plan every month was a game changer. I updated the balances regularly, and seeing how much progress we made kept me motivated—even though I knew this would be a multi-year journey.
At first, our plan was just to pay off the credit cards and my car. But once those were gone, we thought, Why stop there? Let’s keep going! That momentum kept us pushing forward until we eventually paid off the house too.
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Adjust Your Paychecks
We wanted to throw as much money at our debt as possible, so we reduced our 401(k) contributions from 12% to 6%—just enough to get our company match. I’ll admit, I was tempted to drop it to zero just to speed things up, but my husband convinced me to stick with the match. It was an area of compromise for us, and I’m glad we took advantage of the fee money.
If your employer offers a match, consider reducing contributions to the minimum level to free up more cash for debt payments.
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Use Your Savings Strategically
We realized we were stashing money in multiple accounts but weren’t using it wisely. So, we pooled everything together, kept two months’ worth of expenses for emergencies, and used the rest to make a $12,000 lump-sum payment. That single payment wiped out our credit card debt for good!
Once we were debt-free, rebuilding our emergency fund became a priority. And guess what? It only took three months to get it back where we wanted since our monthly expenses no longer included credit card or car payments.
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Cut Back on Dining Out
This was a tough one for us. We loved eating out, but we committed to limiting it to once per pay period—so only twice a month. If you’re eating out multiple times a week, I’d suggest starting small. Cut it in half and see how it feels.
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Plan Your Meals
During our debt-free journey, I learned how to cook (I mean, really cook). My chicken piccata and lasagna are now family favorites! I also got into the habit of planning meals weekly.
Here’s how it worked: Every Saturday, I’d sit down and plan the meals for the week. Then I’d shop in the afternoon—always with a list in hand. I made sure to buy only the ingredients I needed for the week’s meals and avoided random splurges. The list also kept me from having to run back to the store mid-week which led to buying few random finds.
Pro tip: If you have little kids, shop solo if you can. Saying “no” to candy and toys at the end caps gets exhausting fast!
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Cancel Cable
I was hesitant about cutting cable at first, but we switched to just Netflix and Prime—and guess what? We didn’t miss cable at all. It ended up being one of the easiest changes we made.
Sometimes, you just have to ask yourself, Do I really need this? You might be surprised at how easy it is to let certain things go.
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Use Windfalls Wisely
Whenever we received unexpected money—bonuses, gifts, or even a win on a lotto scratcher—we had a rule:
- One-third went toward something fun (like a family outing or a material splurge).
- Two-thirds went straight to debt.
This approach sped of the debt repayment and gave us permission to enjoy life. Using this approach, we managed to save for a trip to Europe during our debt repayment period. That’s right—we paid for the trip in cash and still stayed on track with our financial goals.
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Start a Side Hustle
We picked up side gigs to speed up the process. My husband drove for Uber and helped with drywall projects, while I tried retail arbitrage (buying items at a discount and reselling them online). It wasn’t glamorous, but every extra dollar helped us knock out our debt faster.
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Shop Secondhand
I’ve always loved designer handbags, but during this time, I switched to buying them consignment. I found some amazing deals online and even consigned a few bags I no longer loved.
We also used platforms like Facebook Marketplace to buy tools, exercise equipment, and even sold some of our kids’ clothing on Poshmark. Exploring secondhand saved us hundreds—and in some cases, made us a few bucks.
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Repair and Maintain Instead of Replacing
We became big believers in buying high-quality items and taking care of them. Whether it was repairing appliances or maintaining tools, this mindset saved us a lot of money in the long run. During our debt repayment journey we repaired our dryer and a lawn mower. Since then we’ve opted to do our research and fix our fried and our oven when they were malfunctioning. This saved us thousands. All of the fixes we’ve done so far have cost about $100 and some time to figure out how to do the repair and then actually do it.
The Extreme Step That Changed Everything
After we were debt free, we wanted to go even further in our financial independence journey. Our home in Colorado had appreciated a ton in the time that we lived there, so we decided to move. We left Colorado, a high-cost-of-living area, for Missouri, where the cost of living was much lower.
Selling our house in Colorado allowed us to buy a home outright in Missouri. On top of that, we had enough left over to put a down payment on our first investment property. This move was a game changer for our financial future.
The Big Picture Workbook
In the end, we paid off $267,000 in debt—credit cards, car loans, and even our house. The journey wasn’t always easy, but our determination to succeed kept us going. It taught us so much about what we value and how to align our spending with our goals.
If you’re ready to tackle your debt, I’ve created a Big Picture Workbook to help you get started. It covers debt repayment strategies, and much more like crafting a vision and capturing your values so that you can budget wisely!
Remember: Financial freedom is possible. You don’t have to sacrifice everything to get there—you just have to focus on the things that matter most.
Click here to see the corresponding YouTube video: https://youtu.be/DVK_0kNTFYU?si=1kBiRxSqIuqet7Wj
