Actions That Are Helping Us Pay Down Our Debt

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I love this picture above because I feel like we have had to really believe in ourselves during this process.

Paying off debt can be hard and I’m learning it takes a lot of discipline to realize the goal.

We have been making great progress this year with paying down our debt and I wanted to share how we are going about it!

Our current 2022 debt pay-off goal

We have a total debt amount of $277,721.41 in debt.

You can read the details of this debt in my July 2022 Debt Update Post.

Our 2022 debt pay-off goal is to pay off $17,331.16 of this debt which is all of our non-student loan debt.

5 methods we are using to pay off our debt

1. I have two side hustles

I currently work as a social media manager for a shopping center in my area and have been doing that work since October 2020.

It’s freelance work and I get paid as a contractor.

I also have been pet sitting via the Rover app. I have been a pet sitter on Rover on and off for 4 years.

Having the contractor income is supplemental to my full-time job and helps us afford all of our bills, so any extra income we bring in can go straight to our debt. Pet sitting has allowed me to save for upcoming trips without going further into debt. (see: how to make money as a pet sitter for more deets.)

2. Bret got a summer job while he was taking a break from school

Bret is currently in medical school and decided to take some time off.

He used to go up to Alaska to work at a commercial salmon fishing site but hadn’t been up there in 4 years.

Someone he knows reached out to him to see if he was available this summer for a 6.5-week position and he was!

I was lucky enough to be able to visit him and highly recommend a trip to Alaska to anyone. It’s gorgeous!!

Anyway, since we are able to live on my income alone, we were able to take all the money he made this summer and put it towards our debt.

3. We started renting out a room in our home, aka house hacking

We have a guest room and guest bathroom that we don’t use very often, so we started renting it out as a medium-term rental (1-6 month leases).

I wrote an entire post about how we are going about it and things to consider if you would also like to do the same! See below.

Related post: How to House Hack a Single Family Home

4. Our budgeting method is working for us

We have tried so many budgeting methods and we have finally found one that has worked for us.

It’s a combination of envelope budgeting and conscious spending.

Instead of actual envelopes, we use digital envelopes. Because of it being digital, we have multiple bank accounts:

• Food & other account
• Bills account
• Taylor spending
• Bret spending
• Various savings accounts (majority of them are HYSAs)

We were consciously spending without knowing it was called that. I learned that term from Dana Miranda at Healthy Rich. You can read more about her and her work, here.

5. We are setting small debt payoff goals

With such a large debt amount ($277k), we found it was important to set smaller goals as to not get overwhelmed.

I really want our consumer debt to be gone and so with briefly mapping out the income from these other methods of income, we think we can get there!

Final thoughts

I have learned through this process that setting intentional goals is huge when paying off debt.

Before we set these goals, we would say our goal was “to pay off debt” but we weren’t being specific. In turn, we weren’t making any progress.

There is a reason S.M.A.R.T. goals are often talked about:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-based

I feel like we have great momentum in our debt payoff journey and am excited to continue it.

I also want to point out that paying off our debt is important to us, but that may not be an important goal for others, and that’s okay, too.

It’s called personal finance because it’s personal!