Live Debt Free: How We Paid Off $90,000 in 26 Months and Celebrated Each Milestone

In 2017, my (soon-to-be) husband and I had a combined debt of nearly $90,000. We were determined to pay it off and we wanted to do it as quickly as we could. I created our first ever budget and any money we didn’t spend in a month went towards our debt. I made several spreadsheets and I calculated, based on how much we were paying off each month, how long it would take us. My calculations showed something like 3.5 years, and while that felt like a long time, we felt (mostly) committed to paying it off.

Paying off debt was this concrete goal and we could see real gains in real time as we made payments. We used the snowball method, which instructs one to order all debts from smallest balance to largest balance and pay the debt with the smallest balance first, essentially building momentum. Well, it worked. We paid off all the debt in about 26 months, a full year faster than I calculated.

One of the things that helped us pay down the debt was a visual tool I created. I grabbed graph paper and decided that each box on the paper would represent $50. I charted out each loan we had to pay back with $50 squares on the paper. It took three full pages to draw all our debt. As we made a payment, we colored in the corresponding squares. It became a fun game to be able to sit down and color in the squares. Not only were we having fun, but we were watching the debt diminish.

Abstaining from something (e.g. spending money) is not fun. But, reframing it as an activity is fun. Habit research suggests creating a reward for your inaction, to make it actionable. When we would pay off a debt in full, we would color in all of our squares and then celebrate with a bottle of wine or a nice dinner.

I’ve noticed that saving money for retirement doesn’t have the same feelings of immediate reward that paying off our debt did, so I’m once again looking for ways that we can be motivated and celebrate.

How do you celebrate your wins?