Couple erased $55K student loan debt in 14 months
Andrew and Amanda Argue were both working for public accounting firms in Miami, Florida, when they met. As young, ambitious professionals, they fell right into the hard-charging lifestyle of certified public accountants — where your rapid ascension to partner is determined by the number of hours you rack up. Managing their career trajectories meant that eating out became the norm because, as Amanda put it …
“There was no way I was going to work 80 hours and then come home to cook.”
Amanda Argue
Andrew brought $55,000 of student loan debt to the marriage, which he never thought twice about. Amanda had no debt, and it was only after they were married that she discovered Andrew had his.
[Editor’s correction: Amanda had no debt, and it was only after they were married that she realized what Andrew’s student loan debt would mean for their budget.”]
Andrew explains, “We never considered it important to talk about money before we got married. We were making so much money that we just assumed it would take care of everything.”
There was no thought given to building their savings account balance or keeping a budget. Why should they? They had a healthy stream of income and expected they could just deal with any situation life could unexpectedly cast their way with a credit card if it was absolutely necessary.
Life Began to Unravel
Things went so well that Andrew decided to branch out and start his own business. He understood that new businesses don’t become successful overnight, but Amanda still made good money and their business didn’t require much capital investment at the start. Building their future with their own business seemed like a no-brainer, so he quit his job to devote himself fully to the venture.
“We were spending money carelessly,” Amanda admits, but it never caused any concern until Andrew noticed that making his student loan payments was getting more difficult. Their savings account, never fat to begin with, was quickly moving into the red.
So, one night Andrew suggested that perhaps they should skip the next golf outing with friends. “Why?” she asked. That’s when she learned about the $55,000 sword of Damocles hanging over their heads.
[Editor’s correction: They had been discussing the difficulty with their budget and that’s when Andrew suggested that perhaps they should cut out golf as a way to deal with the $55,000 sword of Damacles hanging over their heads.”]“Let’s Talk About It”
At first, she was not impressed. “You mean I’m the main breadwinner, and I’m the one who has to give up my golf? I’m not the one who brought this debt into the marriage. And now I’m supposed to cook so we can eat at home?”
Fortunately, that’s not where it ended. When they got married, they chose matching wedding rings, both of which have an inscription: “Let’s talk about it.” It reflected a commitment they had made before getting married — to keep no secrets and to have enough faith in the relationship to talk everything through until they arrived on the same page.
This was not a short discussion, as you can imagine.
This is the second in a series of articles looking at American families who are saving major dollars on real-world incomes. Last week: Steve and Arnette Economides. Next week: Thomas Frank of Des Moines.
Persistence Finds a Dream
It took time, but eventually their discussions led them to a central question: What do we want from life? What is our dream?
They realized that they had never spelled out in detail what “making it” looked like for them, but they both agreed that making partner wasn’t worth the hours and sacrifice needed to get there. As they continued to talk, it became clear that, in some way, the nucleus of their dream was independence. Exactly what independence looked like, they still needed to flesh out — but Andrew’s business (thebeancounter.com) clearly fit right into that.
Something Had to Change
In order to get there from where they were, they realized they needed to make some drastic changes. Both were appalled when they looked into the savings account mirror and realized they had nothing, despite their very comfortable income. They immediately applied their accounting knowledge to their own situation.
“It’s amazing how people like us can dissect a client’s finances in detail and still be clueless about our own.”
Andrew Argue
There was nobody they could talk to in order to get counsel. For the most part, their circle of friends did not subscribe to this new view of theirs — and besides, nobody ever talked about money.
It wasn’t easy, but they changed everything they were doing, swiftly and totally, analyzing each and every single transaction to discover their spending patterns.
They settled on an over-arching principle for spending: Expenses = Income – Savings. Before any dollar was spent on an expense, they removed 10 percent of their income which was automatically transferred into a savings account not to be touched.
Here’s How They Did It
They started an emergency fund. Their first step was to open a savings account for an emergency fund that would cover three to six months of their expenses. For them, that meant they needed to save roughly $13,000.
They set a budget. They constructed a budget on a spreadsheet. Then they whittled it. Once they articulated their dream as independence, every expense was re-framed: How will this get us from here to there? Anything that would not help them reach the goal was axed without mercy.
They stopped eating out. The no-mercy rule meant they had to give up their fine dining excursions. It was the one thing they had truly become hooked on. Letting go of that was not easy, especially since Amanda was still working many hours a week.
After a few months, they realized they needed to tweak their system to protect them from themselves. They decided to draw their food budget out in cash at the beginning of every month. Thereafter, all food expenses, either grocery shopping or eating out, had to be made in cash. If the budget ran out before the end of the month, it was rice and beans. They allowed themselves no wiggle room on the budget. It took a month or two to bring their food spending under control, but they did it.
They stopped rationalizing. Socially, making the change wasn’t easy either. According to Amanda, they found lots of push-back from their friends. She spent anywhere from eight to 10 hours on a Sunday preparing the next week’s meals, including her lunches. When coworkers gathered up the usual posse to go to lunch, she would demur in order to stay within the cash food budget.
Invariably, the reaction was something like, “Oh come on! What difference is $10 going to make?” She knew. She knew it wasn’t just $10, and it wasn’t just one time. Besides, she was not going to waste the food for which she had sacrificed her Sunday.
It came down to the fact that those around them didn’t want to “act poor.” But Amanda and Andrew looked in the mirror and said, “Hey, we are poor. No shame acting that way, especially if we know this is going to get us to the place where we aren’t poor anymore.”
They relocated and redefined work. They moved from their expensive place in downtown Miami to a studio in suburban Orlando, where the rent and other living expenses were much lower. Andrew’s business efforts started to pay off and they were able to pay off the $55,000 in student loan debt in 14 months. Then Amanda quit her job and started a business of her own too.
Amanda works the busy season (tax time) as a contractor — which brings in good money, but obviously only for a limited time. Their income wasn’t as predictable as it was before, but their strong budgeting discipline allowed them to save between 30 to 50 percent of their income over the next year or two.
They got even more creative. As they became more experienced in saving money, they became more creative. They kept discovering more ways to live frugally and, since both their businesses were online, they could live anywhere.
For the past year or so, their place of residence has been AirBnB. They’ve lived in various places, and are considering sites in Spain, Portugal, and Italy. But at the moment, they are renting a house atop a mountain in Costa Rica, for less than $1,000 per month. The longer they’ve been on AirBnB, the better they’ve become at sniffing out the best deals.
Philosophies Underpinning Success
Andrew said, “It’s not easy to look into the mirror and own up to your own bad behavior.” However, they discovered they had one thing in their favor:
“Our behavior was our worst problem; but fortunately, that’s the one thing we had the most control over.”
Andrew Argue
When we asked Andrew and Amanda about the philosophies they felt led them to success, they said that they:
- Realized they were “suffering death by a thousand cuts.” Nothing they did was radically expensive or outrageous; but everything added up — and it added up to a lot. They never went into debt because they made enough money, but they didn’t save.
- Looked the fear of “acting poor” in the face. They acknowledged that they are poor and then embraced a plan to put an end to that.
- Didn’t get out of debt until they made it a top priority. Then they got out of debt fairly quickly.
- Analyzed their spending. Their equation for spending became Expenses = Income – Savings. Then they made cutting their lifestyle to the bone a major stepping stone to future success (not something to be endured for some undefined feeling of “doing the right thing.”)
- Became creative. They kept asking what else they could do which would either cut expenses further, expand their horizons more, equip them with more skill, or some combination.
Along the way, Andrew and Amanda discovered two kinds of reaction to their radical approach to personal finance. Some people shut down the conversation and change the topic. Usually, those are the ones who feel guilty to some degree about living a high-debt lifestyle, but they aren’t ready to confront their own situation.
Most people are intrigued, though, and want to know more. Many are relieved to have the topic of money brought into the open. They want to know how they can get rid of their debt monsters; and when they hear how Andrew and Amanda killed $55,000 of debt in little over a year, they become all ears.
The Future is Bright
Amanda said, “Through it all, we learned how to communicate to each other much more openly than before. We began to build a strong foundation for our marriage and continue to be thankful that we learned this process early on.”
Andrew and Amanda are still young. They still don’t know where they will settle or what their life will look like exactly. They still haven’t saved that much money, because it’s barely been two months since they paid off their debt. Once they’ve achieved their next goal of owning a home outright, they will turn their attention to investing.
And, every step of the way, they will keep to their wedding ring motto: “Let’s talk about it.”
Tell us: What’s your savings strategy?
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There are 55 comments to "Couple erased $55K student loan debt in 14 months".
Good for them for their hard work meeting their goal 🙂 $55K in 14 months is impressive.
The part about “acting poor” and “being poor” rubbed me the wrong way though. It’s a shame there’s still a stigma surrounding being frugal, and that people still equate doing without luxuries and living within a budget to poverty (which is something else entirely). In an ideal world, we could say “hey, I’ve got this awesome goal I’m working towards” and the people around us would say “cool! how can we support you?” and no one would see others or themselves as deprived or “less than”.
Agreed, there is a stigma to being frugal; people look down their noses at you if you aren’t buying the latest and the greatest…
In a shallow, image-obsessed place like Miami there sure can be. Where I live and work there’s much less pressure and someone who eats out every day can just as easily be derided as a wasteful spender.
I think I’m lucky (and grateful!) that most of my social and professional circles are like-minded in many ways. It’s much easier to bring your lunch every day when your coworkers do the same, and work towards financial goals when your friends are doing likewise.
Some of my family, though… well, that’s another story.
I agree about the wording “being poor” and “acting poor”. You shouldn’t have to claim to be poor in order to get people off your back for not meeting their spending expectations. Unfortunately, my husband sees this as the best way to get his family off our backs when we are more frugal than they want us to be. He tells them, “We’re poor because of XYZ expense.” I cringe because I know our daughter hears this and when she starts to understand more this might make her feel that our family is financially insecure. I want to be able to say to the family, “We have different priorities with our money,” but this would make them think that I was putting them down for their financial decisions.
I tell my family and friends something like “I’m not spending on x right now because I’m saving up for y”. Same general message as your husband’s, but framed in a more positive way.
If we’re not acting self-righteoues or superior, then we have to realize there’s a limit to how much we can control how people react to our spending habits. If hearing that I’m not spending on this or that “want” makes people question their own habits for a moment, then perhaps that’s not a bad thing…
Prior to me quitting to stay home with the kids we set goals with deadlines. Our money went to our goals (building savings and investments and paying off a mortgage). Everything that was left went to expenses.
Our immediate priorities changed and I needed to stay home with the kids. So now with a lot less income we save 10% to stay in the habit of saving, but our goals have been put on hold for the kids until we can increase our income.
So my strategy is PAY YOURSELF FIRST and BE FLEXIBLE! I cant wait until I have an income again (When they are in school) and 100% of it will go toward our goals!
I am agreement to that you must prioritize your expenses toward paying yourself first.
We put our retirement and investment savings away first and live on the difference. Most of us don’t have the discipline to do the opposite so we must recognize that and make the shift.
I’m glad everything worked out, but if the spouse I had just married and made “a commitment [we] had made before getting married — to keep no secrets” was keeping a $55k debt from me, I think it would have meant immediate divorce.
I agree. Perhaps not downright divorce, but some really deep disappointment and a big loss of trust. With these words in the wedding bands! Perhaps the profound process that followed Andrews disclosure is meant with “this was not a short discussion”.
Our strategy has always been live below your means so you can save at least something on a consistent basis.
To be honest, my immediate thought when reading this is why the cooking wasn’t shared between the two of them since it seemed to really bother her and was mentioned several times in the article.
That was my thought, too. The only acceptable reason for him not to cook is if he’s hopelssly horrible at it. But he should be able to make sandwiches….
There’s no such thing as “hopelessly horrible” at cooking. There’s only “inexperienced.” And that can be remedied with practice.
Someone who just refuses to ever cook is someone I wouldn’t date, much less consider marrying.
Agreed. Weird story. Two adults, with careers – in finance – get married without discussion money/debt? Hmm. Anyhow, good that they’ve got it under control. Smart to take the food budget out in cash ahead of time.
One of the most useful things my wife and I ever did was to calculate our net worth. It’s easy to just focus on cash flow and think you’re doing well when you have cash and not so well when you don’t. In reality, it’s your net worth that matters because that shows you the bigger picture. Our net worth came out to be something like -$30K but at least now we know the truth and we are focused on moving that number up to 0.
Levi,
Kudos to you and your wife for stepping up and figuring it out! All the luck in the world to you to get that number to zero!
I wanted to comment on your net worth number being the true target though. At Get-Rich-Slowly we recognize many stages of personal finance. I think your comments are right on the money for where you are now. But once you get rid of all your debts, have an emergency fund and have established the habit of saving, I think you need to go back to focusing on cash-flow. Too many people focus on a huge stockpile of money in stocks and bonds (or other net worth equities) that pay nothing. Most of us are looking for financial independence either soon or at traditional retirement age. When you stop working, you’ll both need income. So focus on it pre-retirement and you’ll be set. The big difference in focus is that your former self focused on earned cash-flow, what you’ll need is passive cash-flow from investments/businesses. Cash-flow you don’t continue to work for.
I know I probably sound pedantic but I can’t tell you how many people get stuck on net worth and fail to see the income they need in retirement. You sound like you are right where you need to be for the stage of finance you are in. Just don’t get stuck. Once you are have all debts paid, and funds in place, invest for cash flow.
This would be a good topic for a future article!
Kudos to the Argues for vanquishing the debt. Hubby and I are in the “retirement red zone,” as on advertising campaign put it. When he feels like everybody is taking all his money, Hubby calculates our net worth to reassure himself that we’re still on track. We must be doing something right because it’s been going up despite one kid in college. Personally, I can’t say enough about setting goals. If you don’t designate where the money goes, it will just disappear and you’ll have no idea where it went. Also, it’s very important to differentiate between needs and wants.
Like the article though I would agree with the first response regarding the use of the word “poor”. I wouldn’t quite equate the ability to pay off $55k in 14 months with being or acting poor (nor do I think the act of restraining mindless spending to be something specific to the poor, or that the poor necessarily do). Normally I don’t play the semantics police but poverty is a social class and so it becomes misappropriation.
But negativity out of the way…awesome job! Now you’re living a “rich” life 😉 Perfect example of how important it is to know what you want and where you’re going. It’s good to know on an individual level, but almost even more necessary to know as a couple.
I totally get what everyone is saying about the word “poor,” but I looked at it a bit differently. My husband and I were in a similar situation -high earners with high-earning friends and almost no savings. One of the reasons we were spending wildly was to show off our income – nasty, but true. When we started cutting back, we literally had friends and family members scold us for “acting poor.” It was a shock, and at first we tried to argue with them. After awhile, though, we realized that it felt a bit classist to pretend that we were “better” than poverty somehow. Yes, we earned plenty of money, but we were bad stewards of it and had empty bank accounts. We had to look ourselves in the mirror and say, “You know what? Who cares if we’re ‘acting poor?’ We are broke!” Once we started embracing it and even challenging some of our friends – “You’re making fun of poor people but you have 6 figures worth of debt. Most people you would consider poor probably have a higher net worth than you” – it erased some of the stigma in our minds.
Of course, I know there is a difference between broke and poor, and claiming to be poor when you rake in boatloads of cash is offensive. The cure for broke is usually refraining from going out to eat, while the cure for poverty is extremely complex. But sometimes people need to have a bit of a wake-up call that they’re not “above” poverty in any way.
Anyway, AWESOME story, and congratulations!!
I think it’s the attitude more than the wording that bugged me. You tell someone you’re cutting back because you’re saving up for a wedding, they’re all for it and asking when you’re getting married. You’re trying to save up for trip? Everyone says “Cool! Where are you going?”
But you’re trying to get out of debt or boost your savings… Well, you’re deprived, cheap or not living the good life. Really, we should be applauding those goals instead!
HE brought the debt into the marriage, but SHE “spent anywhere from eight to 10 hours on a Sunday preparing the next week’s meals, including her lunches.” It should have been the both of them sharing that responsibility. Loved the rest of the article and that fact that they succeeded.
I had to go back and re-read the part about her spending all day Sunday cooking–I originally thought it said “they.” I wonder what he spent Sunday doing since it appears that he did not help? This seems kind of strange since they both appear to be on the same page about saving money and getting out of debt.
The part that really struck me was “Invariably, the reaction was something like, “Oh come on! What difference is $10 going to make?”” My thought is, if her coworkers thought the $10 wouldn’t matter, then they wouldn’t mind paying for her lunch. Essentially, tell the coworkers to put up or shut up. Either the coworkers stop ridiculing her choices or she gets a free meal, a win-win! I’ve actually employed this strategy quite a few times and it seems quite effective in getting my choices respected.
So happy that they got rid of their debt. I know this is going to sound strange but I am in finance and my fiancé and I know about each others debt but we don’t know how much. My debt will be gone before we get married and I will probably ask him about his after we get married.
Can I be nosey: why not before? I don’t like surprises, so the last thing I would want is to find out “oh sorry, I’ve got $50K in debt so that means we’ll have to delay getting a house and put off saving for retirement for a while” or something like that.
But knowing about it beforehand and going in with a plan to pay it off, that I could deal with.
Can I second Beth’s question? It’s really out of curiosity rather than judgment, I promise! I can sympathize with the female in the story above because I was extremely naïve in college and since I never went into debt for college it never occurred to me till a few years after graduation that student debt was common. However, now that I know how common debt is in all forms and how detrimental it can be if not properly managed, it’s unfathomable to me that I would marry someone knowing that they have debt but not knowing how much. I’m really curious as to why you are hesitant to ask before marriage. Thanks for sharing, hope this question doesn’t offend you!
I hope Andrew is working 8-10 hours on Sunday in some capacity (around the house, doing repairs, etc) as well!
As a CPA in a similar career path as them, it kind of blows my mind that this wasn’t talked about before marriage, let alone before engagement, but hey everyone is different I guess. I find money to be one of the top things in a long-term relationship to know everything about each other. Can you imagine getting into a legally binding relationship with someone with let’s say $55,000 in credit card debt @ 18% and not knowing because it was simply “not considered important”. Hot dang, I would lose it.
However, it is a great accomplishment to have the means and determination to get rid of the debt. Nicely done and congrats.
I am an accountant who reject lunch invitations to my co-workers all the time. They understand. Not only it saved me money, it also saved my health. It is not acting poor.
Could you meet halfway and bring your lunch and eat with them?
I reject lunch invites all the time for health reasons. A few strategies I use to mitigate this:
* I commit to bringing my lunch 4 days/week, leaving myself one free day in case something comes up that I think I need to attend
* If your coworkers go to places with patio seating (not sit-down restaurants, but quick/casual places) I bring my lunch and sit with them
* If a coworker is bringing back something to their desk, I’ll walk with them just to get out of the office and get some socializing and movement in
Great story, 55k in 14 months is no easy task at most income levels. I really think that communicating and being on the same page goes a long way. The whole “just $10” is true on one time purposes, but when you say that and go out to lunch everyday…it really adds up.
This is very impressive and very motivating. I’ve cut my spending a lot, but my Starbucks habit has been really hard to break. I not only enjoy the coffee, but I enjoy the ritual of stopping there before work.
They paid off almost two years of my income in 14 months. They ain’t poor, and they should feel like idiots for saying they are.
I agree with the other commenters that 1) the phrase “acting poor” leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and 2) why is he not the one in the kitchen? Not that starting your own business is a walk in the park, but when your spouse is working 80 hours plus a commute, you need to step up to running the household, period. I can, however, believe they didn’t discuss 50k of student loan debt, I know many who graduated with that number or more, as a student it unfortunately felt like the norm, expected, not worth mentioning. I was encouraged to simply “sign the dotted line” each semester as an investment in my future, and it was not until graduation that I began to grasp the total. Not easy to pay off, so I tip my hat to them finding a way.
@Thomas – They were poor in terms of wealth/net worth not income.
I always find this pay down student loan trip many people go down a little odd. Yes I had been going down that road too but then I learned more about investing and realized something. All student loans are tax deductible whether you’re itemizing or not. This means a 5% loan is often more like 4% to your wallet. If you have high interest rate loans I understand, but many of my loans are under 4% and after deducting it’s closer to 3%.
My recommendation is to at least max out your 401k/simple IRA and a Roth/Tradional IRA for the year before considering to use any extra left over to pay down low interest student debt or even low interest mortgages for that matter.
But I suppose if you’re struggling to get by you may just want that extra breathing room as soon as possible.
There are income limits for deducting student loan interest (or at least there used to be).
There are limits, though it’s based on AGI so thanks to having a house now I was again able to deduct the full amount of interest even though my gross income is nearing the point where the amount you can deduct has phased down to 0%. Fortunately even at the minimum payment I’ll be done in a couple more years so I won’t have likely get to the cut-off again before then.
I agree with the other commenters. The way this is written it seems like it is not even an option for Andrew to cook the food. “Oh no, food needs to be made and the woman works too many hours. What could the possible solution be?” Guess she’s gonna be working some overtime.
I like this article.
It brought up a situation I would like the GRS community’s reaction to.
In Post #14 Erica explains that her friends often gave her a hard time about sticking to her budget and not going out with them. So she told them to “put up or shut up.” Essentially, if they want her to go out and she wants to stick to her budget, why not have them pay…
I am by no means wealthy. But I make considerably more money than most of my closest friends do. (Yes, emergency fund, saving for retirement, blah, blah ,blah) There are times where I really want to go out with them and I know they would like to go out too but it is not in their budget. If I want to go do whatever it is badly enough I will offer to pay for the whole thing.
Some people, like Erica, are fine with that. Others seem offended. Or refuse based on , what? Pride?
It doesn’t bother me to pay for them if I offer to do so. I don’t really understand why I have to be punished by their budget. Am I seeing this wrong? Is there a better way to handle this?
I don’t know, I guess I am often on the other side of Erica’s post and am delighted to have someone “call my bluff.”
I really enjoyed this!
However, I am confused as to how $55k in debt wasn’t mentioned before getting married? $55k isn’t really pocket change.
Anyway, good post and congrats to the couple!
I prefer to see virtually all of us westerners as rich, as even those earning modest incomes are part of the global top 10% in income (or greater) … when most of your basic survival, safety and social needs are being met, you are not poor.
Please add my voice to the “Why is SHE the one spending 8 to 10 hours fixing the next week’s food?” chorus. That is, unless he is spending 8 to 10 hours doing things that save them money (cleaning, mowing the lawn, doing minor repairs, running frugal errands).
I’ve lived “poor” myself, sometimes through necessity (because I actually *was* poor) and sometimes through choice:
https://www.getrichslowly.org/voluntarily-slashed-salary/
It’s not so bad if you can see a way out of it eventually. But some people can’t seem to get ahead no matter how hard they work and how much they cut back. When they read articles like this one they probably laugh sardonically — imagine a couple of employed CPAs saying that they’re “poor.”
And yet another one wondering why the heck she spends 8-10 hours a week cooking and what is he doing? It’s certainly a good reminder for anyone in a serious relationship to talk about money, debt and goals before marriage. I wonder if she would have married him at that time if she’d known about the debt?
I, too, can’t get over the sexism here. It’s insulting enough that the female is apparently just naturally the one who has to spend 8-10 hrs/wk cooking and packing lunches for both of them. It’s much MORE insulting when you add to that the facts that (a) it’s HIS debt (b) AND he kept it a secret from her (c) AND he did this despite the fact that they apparently both agreed before marriage that it was super-important to disclose things. Plus, (d) she was the main breadwinner and already working way too many hours and (e) having to cook on top of already being overworked was, for her, clearly something she was REALLY stressed by and really wanted to avoid.
I’m glad they love each other and worked it out but it’s hard not to read this and worry for Amanda. It looks too much like she is being (or at least WAS) taken advantage of. It’s so important for marriages to be equal partnerships… And no I don’t mean by that that it’s always wrong for people to fall into gendered roles IF THAT’S WHAT THEY PREFER, but in this case she clearly was not at fault for the debt and also clearly didn’t prefer having to do all the cooking for both of them.
Plus once they figured out their goals, they magically decided that his business that was so hard on them fit right in? Sounds like this dude has the situation rigged to get everything he wants.
Thanks for the article.
This is really inspiring. Thanks for sharing!
Ditto on the poor comment. These people are not poor and need to look at what that actually means. If you have the choice today of what to wear, what to eat, and a choice of transportation you are in the top 10 percentile in the world. I hope this couple will reevaluate their use of a word that does not apply to them. Comment #21 by Thomas was priceless.
Love this series! Fresh and inspirational. Keep up the good content work.
I don’t get the 8 to 10 hours of cooking for just two people. I think an investment in a slow cooker would take many hours off the cooking time. Out of preference and the fact that my husband has a four hour commute, I do all of the cooking for the two of us and it doesn’t take me nearly as long, even if I don’t use a the slow cooker and even if I cook each meal one at a time for the week. This is all made from fresh whole foods.
I think you need to change your methods.
What an inspiring story, kudos to this achievement! Although I have to align with some of the other commentators, I can’t understand why she automatically had to cook the family’s food..? Plus, I’m not convinced that staying in the kitchen for that many hours makes that much sense. Her opportunity costs for that time amount to something. For example, the couple could’ve worked on the business and made more money or she could’ve done freelance gigs that could’ve amounted to comparably more money than the food costs.
First, a disclaimer: this article has a lot of good advice and the approach to finances that this couple adopted seems much better their previous behavior. There is great info to be found here. However…
I read this article because I wanted to know HOW a couple paid off $55k of debt in just over 1 year (I think that’s what the title suggests this article is about). Most of the article talks about the couple changing their approach to money, which was a necessary precursor to them prioritizing paying off the debt, but didn’t actually answer the question of how they did it in only 14 months.
The real answer to that title question was contained in one (and only one) sentence of the article: “Andrew’s business efforts started to pay off and they were able to pay off the $55,000 in student loan debt in 14 months.” So my takeaway is, they paid off their student debt by making a boatload of money and NOT spending it on discretionary stuff.
Basically, most of the article answers the question, “How did this couple discover and revamp their toxic approach to money?” It’s a great topic that is very useful for a lot of people, but it’s not what I feel like I was promised from the title/link.