How I Paid Off $60K Student Loan Debt by 26

I studied Computer Information Systems at James Madison University and I graduated in 2015. I figured I would have my student loan debt for the next 40 years or so. I had accepted that and was only making my minimum payments.

That was until I stumbled upon a few personal finance blogs and realized that if I could pay off my debt as fast as possible, I could start taking the money that would normally go to my monthly payments and put it toward my retirement instead.

Learning about the possibility of retiring early was incredibly motivating for me and that's when my debt free journey really began. So in just four and a half years, by the age of 26, I had managed to pay off $60,000 of student loan debt.

Three things in particular helped me to get there.

Firstly, I got a part-time job scooping ice cream. I was a data analyst for a healthcare company full-time Monday through Friday earning $80,000 a year.

After five o'clock or at the weekends, for one to three days a week, I would go to my ice cream job where I made about $13 an hour, plus tips, which were huge. I was making between $50 to $150 a week in tips alone.

I put all those ice cream earnings—about $800 a month on average—into paying down loan debt.

The second thing I did was babysitting. A co-worker at my job had a niece and nephew and their parents were looking for a regular babysitter. So I said I'd do it, and it brought in some extra money to help paying off my student loans, around $300 a month.

And a third way I paid off my student loan debt was I got really into Poshmark, which is an online marketplace for secondhand goods. At first, I was just using it to sell my own clothes that I never wore anymore, which made me some money.

But the main thing that brought in money was I would go to thrift stores, find things that I knew or I thought were trendy, and then sell them on Poshmark for profit.

If I was lazy and I didn't feel like listing anything on Poshmark, I would still buy clothes at thrift stores and then take them to consignment shops where they would sell the clothes for me. This was another $250 a month of income.

All three of these things helped me make more money and all of it went straight to my student loans. In all, they took $10,000 off the total.

There were a lot of other things that helped me along the way too.

I started budgeting using the zero-based budget method to justify and keep track of all my spending. I sold items on eBay. I brought my lunch to work every day and; cooked at home as much as possible, only eating out three to five times a month.

I stopped buying new clothes for a year. I did admin work for a friend who owned her own business for $20 and hour. I got a roommate to cut my rent in half, saving myself $600 a month. I canceled memberships and subscriptions that I no longer used. I got rid of cable.

And I always negotiated my salary when starting a new job and pursued promotions to increase my income.

Paying off my debt consumed my life for many years and caused me a good bit of stress. When I finally paid it all off, it felt like a huge weight was lifted. I could at last take the money that I earned and put it toward my future and my retirement.

There were days that I wasn't sure I would ever be able to pay off my student loans, but through perseverance and support from my loved ones, the day finally came. I never have to think about paying off my student loans again, and that's an amazing feeling.

They are behind me for good!

Taylor Hayes is a personal development content creator. She runs the Imperfect Taylor website.

All views expressed are the author's own.

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