Debt

One of the best things I did coming out of law school was to pay off my student loans as fast as I could. Doing this gave me a ton of flexibility in the type of money I had to earn. With my loans gone, I didn’t need to work in a job earning a certain amount of money, all so that a portion of it could go out the door to some student loan company. And I could rest easy at night knowing that I didn’t have to keep paying for a piece of paper that I had earned years ago!

Interestingly, even though I knew how much in student loans I had paid off, I had never actually looked at what I had paid over those 2.5 years.

I thought it might be an interesting trip down memory lane to see this information. So a few weeks ago, I requested my payment history from my student loan servicing companies and took a look.

One of the things I always tell people about debt is that there isn’t any secret to paying it off quickly. There’s no magic method that will make your debt disappear. No secret tricks that will crush your loans any faster. And you probably shouldn’t count on someone else paying your debt off for you.

In the end, paying off debt really just comes down to a single basic principle. Live on less than you earn and use what’s left over to pay off your debt. The more you have left over to pay towards your debt, the faster it’ll be gone. It’s basically that simple…

One of the interesting things I find when people share their debt free stories with the mainstream media are the comments that result. Some commenters praise these articles and talk about how they’ve been inspired.

But more often, you notice the negative comments. These are the people who say that the story being shared isn’t possible or that what they’re reading isn’t helpful because most people can’t do the same thing…

One thing that I absolutely HATE is when someone tells me that paying off debt is easy if you’re making a good salary. Maybe I take it too personally, but it feels like a knock on my accomplishment. After all, I paid off $87,000 worth of student loans, but I also had a good salary that allowed me to do it. Was it easier to do than if I had been making less? Of course. But it definitely wasn’t easy.

A recent headline I saw reminded me that a lot of people think paying off debt is just a walk in the park so long as you make a high enough income. Take a look: