Debt Archives - the frugal millionaire

How to Start Managing Your Money

This is a sponsored post for PSECU, a not-for-profit credit union. All opinions are my own.

Managing your money is a necessary life skill and really should be taught in schools right alongside math and English. Usually, we make mistakes in our 20s and learn our lessons the hard way. We get into auto loan debt, student loan debt and credit card debt, then are left wondering how the heck we’re going to pay all this off.

If you’re just starting out with learning to manage your money, or if you’re knee-deep in debt and are trying to dig yourself out of a seemingly endless hole, this post is for you. Here is how to start managing your money in an easy-to-understand, step-by-step format.

3 Ways We Paid Off All of Our Debt

Ready to learn how to pay off debt?

I’m 32 years old and my husband is 35 – and I’m happy to say that outside of our mortgage, we are debt-free. This was not always the case, though. Today, I’m sharing our story of how we paid off all of our debt (car loans, student loans and credit cards) in two years and how you can do the same!

Our Debt

When my husband and I first started dating almost 10 years ago, we both had a good chunk of debt to our names. Let’s look at the numbers:

My Car Loan: $15,000
Husband Student Loans: $16,000
My Credit Card Debt: $1,500
Husband Credit Card Debt: $5,000

We paid all of this off in less than two years ($37,500 total). During this time, I gave birth to our first daughter and quit my job. My husband was running a handyman business. Things were tight, but we were determined to start our marriage and family off debt-free.

How to Pay Off Debt

When my husband and I got married, we decided to get very serious about paying off every single item of debt to our name. This is exactly what we did (during this time, we were newly married and had just found out I was pregnant!).

These are the exact steps we took to pay off our debt:

Moved to a smaller apartment

Our current apartment was $1150/month for a one-bedroom. To help with our debt pay-off goals, we moved into a smaller one-bedroom for $750/month. With a smaller apartment also came cheaper utilities.

Downsizing is not ideal, I totally get that. But if you’re in debt it’s a small sacrifice to make. Home expenses can eat up so much of your income. And, honestly, part of me misses the simplicity of our small-living days!

Lived off of one income

I was making $45,000 per year at my full-time job and my husband was self-employed. We tried to the best of our ability to live strictly off of his income. Within nine months, we saved $17,000 to put toward our first home and had paid off all of our credit card debt and a good chunk of our student loans and car loan.

I’ll totally admit we used my income for extra food and other random items we probably didn’t need (remember, I was pregnant during this time). I really think paying off debt should involve sacrifice but you shouldn’t be miserable. We sacrificed by switching apartments and doing the best that we could with our variable expenses. We weren’t perfect, but paying off debt is a journey – not a race.

Started side hustling

This was key for us in paying off our debt!!! Once we bought our home and had our first baby, I was no longer working. We were living strictly off of my husband’s self-employment income which, at the time, wasn’t much. We definitely had to make a few transfers from savings to get by.

This is when I decided to start freelance writing. Within four months, I was making $1,000 and a few months after that I was consistently making $2,000+ per month.

If you’re interested in freelance writing, check out this post >>

This money supplemented my husband’s income and completed our debt pay-off journey! If I can do this, so you can you!!!

To this day, I am still hustling away. Side hustles are amazing and life-changing. I highly recommend everyone find something they love to bring in extra money. You can use the money you make from your side hustle to:

Pay off debt
Save and invest
Travel
Spend more freely, and more

Side Hustle Ideas: What I Do Now

I was a freelance writer for four years before stopping. If you need money now and can write, I really think you should give this a shot.

My side hustle right now is blogging. Actually, this blog allowed me to quit my full-time job a few months ago because my blog income basically replaced my job income. Crazy!!

So, I now am a SAHM to my three little girls (added two more since paying off our debt!) and I blog when I have the time. We still live off of my husband’s income and use the blog money for savings.

You can read my latest blog income report here >>

If you’re interested in starting a blog, I encourage you to go for it. I started this blog in September 2014 and quit my job after 2 1/2 years. I probably poured 10 hours or less per week into my blog for the first year, and then slowly reduced my time. I now spend about 2-3 hours per week on my blog and am still making over $3,000 a month! That’s the power of passive income!

Get your FREE guide on how to start a profitable blog here >>

Bluehost is offering a discount to my readers: You can start your blog for just $2.95 a month and that includes a FREE domain name. Check to see if your domain name idea is available here:

If blogging isn’t your thing, check out these five ways to make an extra $500 per month.

But really, anyone can have a side hustle! You just have to find something you love to do, make time for it and go for it! Blogging takes time to start making money, but I promise you if you stick with it, you WILL make money.

Are you trying to pay off debt right now? How do you make extra money on the side?

4 Reasons to Refinance Your Student Loans

Average student loan debt is over $30,000 per borrower (you can see your specific state’s student loan debt here). With most interest rates being between 4-7%, that can make for quite the large monthly payment. And, with a high monthly payment, it can be tough to pay extra each month toward your student loans in order to pay them off faster.

If you are looking to pay off your student loans fast and get rid of them once and for all, consider a student loan refinance. Here are four reasons to refinance your student loans.

Why We’re Switching from Debit to Credit for Everyday Purchases

This week, we are switching from only using our debit cards to only using a credit card. Some of you may think we’re crazy and that we’ll wind up in debt.

My husband and I have always been debit users. Don’t spend what you don’t have, right? We would use our credit cards for booking hotel rooms and other large expenses, or if we didn’t have money in our checking account. We paid them off every month, but we viewed the credit cards as “for emergency and big expenses only.”

So, when my husband brought up using credit cards for every single purchase, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t freak out a little. He mentioned the idea to me a few months ago, and I’m finally ready to make the switch. Here are three reasons why I agreed to only use a credit card from here on out.

Why We’re Switching from Debit to Credit for Everyday Purchases

To Earn Cash Back

This is the main reason we are switching from debit to credit – cash back. We are getting the BankAmericard Cash Rewards Credit Card. Just for signing up, you get $100 cash back if you spend $500 in the first 90 days. For expenses, you get 3 percent cash back on gas (which we spend a lot on), 2 percent back at grocery stores, and 1 percent back on everything else.

To Simplify

Right now, we are kind of a mess with our banks and cards. We both bank at Bank of America (joined account), I have a Chase checking and savings, we have an online savings account, John has a credit card through Capital One, and I have a credit card through Chase. With one card that we use for everything, our lives will be simplified.

To Monitor Expenses

We use Mint right now to track our expenses, and while that’s great, there are so many categories and it takes a few days to update. If we only have one credit card that we’re making purchases with, it’ll be super easy to track and monitor our daily, weekly and monthly spending.

How We’ll Make it Work Without Getting in Debt

The fear of overspending on the card is why I’ve waited so long to make the switch. I’ve overspent on credit cards in the past, and certainly didn’t want to make a habit of it and wind up in trouble. The way we’re getting around this is simple – we are paying the credit card off daily.

So, in other words, if we can’t pay it our purchases off that day, we aren’t buying them. It’ll basically be the same as using our debit cards, except we’ll be earning cash back on every single purchase.

Keeping today’s post short and sweet, as I’m preparing for my very first book launch tomorrow! You can pre-order it today or just wait until tomorrow to make the purchase, if you’re interested. I’m also in the process of launching a brand new blog that will be my new brand and business. I’ll still be blogging here, too, but this new blog completely encompasses who I am. I can’t wait to share more details with you! (For those that buy my book, my new domain is in there. For those that don’t purchase my book, I’ll be sharing my new site within a month!)

Do you use a debit card or a credit card for everyday purchases? Why or why not?!

3 Tips for college students on managing their finances

College is supposed to be the time of your life. And for most people, it is. However, in between socializing, studying and dating, now is really the time to start paying attention to your finances. Mistakes you make now could have a huge effect on your future. I’m going to give you two honest examples of my husband and I’s college experience regarding our finances.

How to mentally prepare yourself to get out of debt

I’m going to take a guess here and say that 100 percent of people that are in debt wish they could be out of debt. Because, let’s face it, who actually wants to be in debt?

I’ll use myself as an example first. When my husband and I were dating, we each had credit cards totaling more than $7,000. John had student loans and I had a car loan. We didn’t like being in debt, but it wasn’t until we made a conscious decision to get out of it that things started to change. We paid off our credit cards within a few months and started living off of one income. Living off of one income for a year allowed me to stay home with our baby girl when she was born. I started freelancing, and any extra money we made went straight to our student loans and car loan. Within two years, we were debt-free, and it felt incredible.