Nicole Bandklayder is a serial entrepreneur that is on the verge of becoming debt free. Like many people, she knows all too well that credit card debt can be overwhelming.
For the last decade, Nicole struggled with about $10,000 in consumer debt between her seven or eight credit cards. A major move helped her free up finances, but she also found that she needed to change her mindset if she wanted to be debt free.
Read more
Meet Whitney Hansen, a 20-something who has kicked some serious money- and goal-setting butt — including paying off $30,000 in student loans in just 10 months. Here’s her inspiring story.
“I graduated from high school in 2006 and didn’t really have the financial support system to get me through college, so I had to figure it out on my own. I moved to Boise (2 hours away) the night of graduation and started cosmetology school the very next day. I did the nail tech portion which was 3 months, so by August 2006, I was licensed, employed and beginning my college career studying Accounting at Boise State University. That mini career allowed me to have a decent income during college and I purchased my first home when I was 19.”
Read more
You know that feeling when your wife calls you at work and tells you she can’t buy groceries because there wasn’t any money left in the account?
It’s hard to believe this was our reality in the Spring of 2011. We were living paycheck to paycheck and only one major expense away from an absolute financial disaster. The worst part was we were too stupid to even realize how bad it had become because we were normal.
Normal is driving around luxury cars with 6 year notes, taking trips to the Caribbean on Visa’s dime, wearing fancy jewelry that we financed, and letting the world know how well we were doing.
We would spend three hours researching the best flat screen television to buy, and about seven minutes a year to decide on our investment strategy for our pathetic retirement goals. We were running on the treadmill, and every year the treadmill got faster and faster.
Then one day we couldn’t keep up anymore and we finally had that “Oh, $h!t moment”. We couldn’t buy groceries because we were broke. Who could have seen this coming?
I’ll never forget the embarrassment I felt inside because I knew we were doomed. I knew that we both had good jobs and we still couldn’t even pay for ourselves. How pathetic, right? That feeling of shame, embarrassment, and overall fear of the future caused something radical to happen.
The next few months would be a defining point in our marriage, for our life, and for our legacy. It started the day Andrea and I got on the same page with money together. One thing we agreed on with our money…we were tired of being broke.
Read more
Today’s debt free story is from Amanda Page, who has made some amazing progress on her loans! She’s about to turn 40, and lives with her two dogs in Ohio, one of whom graduated “Class Clown” in his training class. Read on for her story.
I didn’t originally set out to pay off my loans in one year. It took over ten years before I felt that my financial life was in a place that I could make any progress on my loans.
For over a decade, I paid the minimum payment. In that time, I paid off a little over $1,000 of a $48,500 total. It took me ten years to pay $1,000. It was a sobering moment. I didn’t want the next ten years to yield such a poor result.
Read more