How One Man Paid Off $25,000 Of Debt In A Year — And Kept It From Creeping Back

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Brandon, pictured here, jump started his debt payoff by moving in with his parents. ReadyForZero

Brandon’s journey with debt started slowly.

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A self-admitted "electronics guy," he developed what he described as bad spending habits when he was only 18. A few short years later he got his first career-oriented job and his first brand new car, thus adding more debt on top of his student loans. So far, his story sounds like what most young professionals go through, all the way up to deciding to purchase a home …

But Brandon’s inner voice kicked in before he made it too far down the home purchasing path. He decided to ask a trusted financial expert in the Atlanta community, Clark Howard, for advice. Even though the market for buyers was favorable at the time, Howard advised Brandon that his option to move back home with his parents for the express purpose of paying off his debt instead of buying a house was the better option. 

One step back, two steps forward

While Brandon liked the idea of moving home to pay off debt, he wanted to make it clear to his parents that he had no intention of taking advantage of their generosity. He created an Excel spreadsheet with amortization schedules to show his parents exactly when he’d be paid off. Graciously, Brandon’s parents agreed to let him come back and live rent-free so he could pursue his aggressive repayment plan.

"I was super excited and positive about being able to pay all that off," he remembers. "At 25, when you’re living at home, it’s kind of dorky, but it was for a purpose and I was dedicated to that. Yeah, there were some sacrifices I had to make, like my social life. It was ultimately worth it."

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Although this was before Brandon’s ReadyForZero days, his debt payoff schedule and plan looked pretty similar to what he would have seen on ReadyForZero. He prioritized his highest interest rate debt first (credit cards, then auto loans, and finally student loans). And living rent-free would allow him to reach these goals faster.

"I tried to be as frugal as possible because it would be kind of lame if I went home and said, ‘Hey I’m going to live off you rent free and then I’m going to go party all time,’" he explains. "That wouldn’t be cool. But I didn’t just lock myself in my bedroom and not come out and do anything. I limited what I did, focused on my goals, but still had some fun too; just toned it down."

In just one year, Brandon paid off $25,000 of debt.

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In just one year, Brandon paid off $25,000. ReadyForZero

A few career turns, a few new hobbies, and some debt creep

After Brandon paid off his debt, he changed his career path. While he now has a job he loves in IT (thanks to an interest in computers and some self-taught skills), he started out in human resources and took a turn in consulting. The consulting work partially contributed to a personal economic downturn:

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"After that $25,000 was paid off, I was mostly debt-free for a number of years, and then I remembered it was like gaining weight," Brandon explains. At different times, he's lost 60 pounds in six months and 70 pounds in seven months through a basic change of habits, and sees a parallel between losing weight and gaining debt. "If you don’t watch it, if you’re not careful, if you’re complacent about it, it will sneak back up on you."

He says that's what happened to him after paying off his student loans. "I bought some stuff and helped make ends meet," he recalls. "I went through a time when I was at the consulting firm where they had a slowdown of business and my salary got bumped down to almost half of what it was previously. Before you know it, I had $8,000 or $9,000 [of debt] … That $8,000 stuck with me for several years. It would wax and wane a bit, but it just seemed like it wasn’t going anywhere."

Around that time, Brandon also picked up some new hobbies, such as skydiving. In pursuit of that hobby, Brandon wanted to buy his own parachute rig — nearly a $5,000 investment. He realized that making a large purchase while in debt didn’t make sense after all:

"Before I had a chance to change my mind, I went to my online banking portal and sent the money to my credit card and was just done with it. That knocked it in half immediately. And with that momentum, I scraped up a couple more thousand just emptying my savings account (not touching retirement, cause I don’t want to do that) and I was able to pay off this other couple of thousand," he explains.

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"Then I had a pretty good month or two of work where I was doing some travel ling and making some overtime, and so I had bigger than normal paychecks. And then I just used every bit of extra money. It was like, bam bam, and two or three months later it was gone."

All in all, years of carrying $8,000 worth of credit card debt were eradicated in just a couple of months. All it took was a shift in priorities and a burning desire to get rid of the debt for good. "I’m the kind of person where it’s hard to get me going, but if I get my mind on something, I’ll go to great lengths to accomplish it," Brandon says.

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Brandon's new hobby, skydiving, isn't cheap. ReadyForZero

From losing debt to losing weight

Finally free of debt, Brandon took the opportunity to bulk up his checking accounts. "I have one checking account for bill payments and direct deposit and another one that’s attached to my debit card that I make purchases with," he explains, "but now that I’m at zero balance, whenever I see anything that’s not zero, I immediately go and pay it down. It just feels good, you know, having it at zero."

That cushion can be the key to staying debt-free — not just for Brandon, but for anyone who is or was battling debt. Whether you call it an emergency fund, a buffer, or just simply extra money, having a fund to rely on when times get tough is the key to making sure you don’t have to swipe a credit card to make ends meet.

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In Brandon’s words, it’s all about dedication: "Just the dedication to it, you know, being willing to set some things aside for an intended benefit, it’s something that you have to do."

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