Obstacles We Encountered on Our Debt Payoff Journey

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Just in case you missed it, last week I announced the big news that our student loans are fully paid off! We paid off $40,000 of student loans over a 4 year stretch, including $15,000 in 10 months. This was a huge accomplishment for us, and the road to paying off these loans was filled with obstacles.

Whenever you finally seem to get your finances figured out, life has a way of throwing curveballs your way. Have you ever gotten a raise and then immediately had an unexpected bill come up? We have, along with a handful of other challenging circumstances along our debt repayment journey.

Making Minimum Wage

I graduated college in May 2013. Looking to break into the sports industry, I took a job with our local minor league baseball team for a minimum wage, seasonal position. The first season went well and my goal was for it to turn into a full-time position. After the season ended I got a second job at a sporting goods store, also for minimum wage.

Long story short, I ended up working in minimum wage jobs from May 2013 through November 2014. In 2014 I left my job at the sporting goods store in search of a full-time marketing position. I eventually found the right fit for a full-time position in May 2015, after 6 months of unemployment. This position started out at $15/hr for the first 3 months, and then became a salaried role in August 2015. Getting this salaried role sparked my passion to learn about personal finance, start reading blogs, and attending Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University class at our church.

It’s no coincidence that our debt payoff was almost nonexistent from May 2013 – August 2015, and then a snail’s pace until January 2016. At that point we finally had two steady incomes and an adequate emergency fund built up, which led to the beginning of a full scale attack of our debt – to the tune of paying off $15,000 in the next 10 months.

Unexpected Job Layoff

After this torrid stretch, we had gotten our student loans down to a balance of $12,000 in November 2016. At this point, some layoffs began happening at my job. We pivoted and began building up our emergency fund higher to protect ourselves. On March 8th, I lost my job. Luckily I found a new position quickly, starting on May 1st. This caused a brief delay in our debt repayments, but we were able to get back on track soon after.

Vet Bills

• $970 (Fall 2015)
• $300 (Feb 2017)
• $535 (Fall 2017)
• $788 (Feb 2018)
• $435 (March 2018)

We have two small dogs, plus my wife has a third dog that lives with our in-laws. Our oldest dog is 12 1/2, and unfortunately has had some minor health concerns. None of it has been serious and she’s back to great health, but any extra visit to the vet usually involves a big bill. This is a perfect example of why it’s so important to build up an emergency fund as quickly as possible. These bills didn’t completely halt our progress, but they definitely slowed it down as we needed to replenish our emergency fund each time before continuing to make additional debt payments. These pups are lucky they’re cute, because they sure are expensive sometimes!

Car Expenses

Both my wife and I have spotless driving records, yet unfortunately we each had an unlucky fender bender within a month’s time. This resulted in having to pay a $500 deductible and our car insurance bill jumping up significantly. We also had some mechanical issues which resulted in bills of $252 (Oct 2015) and $594 (June 2016).

Living in a High Cost of Living Area

The reason I include this on the list is that living in a high cost of living area likely slowed our initial progress of paying off our debt. Dave Ramsey recommends building up a $1,000 emergency fund and then focusing on paying off your debt. For us, living in the high-priced Bay Area, we knew that $1,000 wouldn’t be enough to keep us covered in the event of an emergency. Instead we focused on building up a larger emergency fund (around $7,000-10,000) before focusing our efforts on ramping

Final Thoughts

Throughout this journey we also paid for a wedding and honeymoon, purchased two cars, and moved into two different apartments all on a combined taxable income of under six-figures. It took awhile to gain momentum and some of these obstacles slowed our initial progress, but when the dust settled, we had paid off $27,000 of student loan debt in a little over 2 years!

My overall message with sharing these challenges is to show that the debt payoff journey is never easy or perfectly smooth. The important thing is to continue to make small, consistent progress over time. I want to encourage you on your own journey, that you can achieve incredible results by pushing through the difficult times. If an unexpected bill derails your budget for the month, regroup and get back on track the next month. Don’t let these bumps in the road knock you off course, one bad month doesn’t undue all the progress you’ve made along the way!

Related Reading: Our Student Loans Are Fully Paid Off!

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