How This Couple Paid Off $186,981.91 of debt in 24 months

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Last Updated on September 21, 2019

How are you enjoying the debt-free success series so far? I hope this debt-free series inspires you that you too can be debt-free. For me, this series shows that we are capable of defying all odds and anything is possible and I can pay off my six-figure student loan debt. This debt-free success series has been a lot of fun, so many phenomenal stories. Today, I’m back with another inspiring interview.

I’m here today with Leo and Faith. They have successfully paid off $186,981.01 of debt in twenty-four months!

As a result of them being able to pay off their debts, they’ve started the Freedom Is A Choice Movement. Under this movement, they share financial strategies and money lessons that they’ve learned over the years.

Don’t sleep on this couple. They’re a true testament of setting your mind to something and sticking to it.

Read their story below.

Complete the sentence “I knew I was debt-free when….”

We’re not debt free yet but we can see the finish line! We started at $211,000 of debt and 2 years later, we have less than $30,000 left!

Tell me a little about yourself?

We are two young newlywed couples who were in over our head in debt! Faith is a pediatric nurse practitioner and I’m an occupational therapist. We’ve been married for 2 years and just gave birth to our son, Legacy.

We enjoy traveling, eating, sleeping, and sports!

I just released my new book, Got Debt? The 7 Bulletproof Steps to Debt Freedom where I share all of the strategies Faith and I used to pay off $100,000 of debt in 12 months!

We are super passionate about financial freedom so we started The Debt $layers Bootcamp where we help individuals gain control of their finances and eliminate debt. Our expertise and personal finance journey have been featured on The Steve Harvey TV Show, Yahoo Finance, The His and Her Money Show, Northwestern Mutual, amongst others.

What did your debt consist of and how much did you (or do you) owe?

Student loans were the bulk our debt but we also had credit card debt and a personal loan

At what point did you realize you wanted to be debt-free?

We realized we wanted to be debt-free during premarital counseling with our Pastors when we were asked to come up with the vision and purpose of our marriage. By engaging in those conversations, we came to the conclusion that we could not truly live out our God-given purpose while being enslaved to debt. How could we when our minimum payments were ~$2,000/month!! So we went on a radical journey and paid off over $100,000 of debt in 12 months during our first year of marriage!

What steps did you take to reduce your debt?

We took a bunch! We lived on a strict budget, carpooled to work, packed our lunches every day, made home-cooked meals for the week, and increased our income! There were tons of behavioral and mindset changes we had to make as well.

What was the most difficult challenge you faced in eliminating your debt?

The most difficult thing for us was learning to say no and delaying gratification. For as much as we worked and sacrificed, it would have been easy to justify spending on so many occasions. But we learned that a little spending here and a little spending there starts a slippery slope that gets you quickly off track and further away from your goals. It hasn’t been easy but we know it’s worth it! One day we’ll look back at these past two years and be glad we stuck to the plan.

Now that you’ve reached this goal, what’s next for you?

We haven’t reached our goal yet but have already started thinking/planning for the next phase of our plan which is saving for a fully-funded emergency fund, maximizing our retirement accounts, and investing! We also want to celebrate our debt-free accomplishment with a huge party and a vacation overseas God willing!