Wow, this feels good to say: after years of hard work and sacrifice, I am now officially debt free. So long, student loans. Good-bye Debt Monster 🙂

How can someone with an average salary after college tackle tens of thousands of dollars in debt and pay off student loans in just a few short years? Here’s how I pulled it off:

THE 5 Strategies I USED TO PAY OFF STUDENT LOANS In 4 years

Below all the superhero strategies I used to pay off my massive debt in a short period of time. Some of these tips may work for you; others may not. But even if you decide to only try a few of these tactics, I guarantee you’ll be one step closer to financial freedom and living an amazing debt-free life.

Here’s how I paid off student loans – all $34,579 of them – in under four years:

Step 1. HUSTLE: I EARNED MONEY ON THE SIDE

When I got my first “real” paycheck, I thought I had it made. As soon as I started earning decent money after college, I realized just how quickly my take-home pay disappeared. I honestly thought that I would be able to pay off all of my student loans in a year on a $48,000 salary… HA.

I made pretty good progress on my debt my first year out of school, paying back almost $7,000 in 12 months. But I knew that I had to boost my earnings if I wanted to quickly dig myself out of this debt hole. And that meant finding ways to earn more money on the side.

I knew that I wanted to earn extra money, but I also knew I wanted to keep growing my career and getting new skills. I started reaching out to companies, start-ups and websites that I thought were doing interesting work, and then I offered to work for them for free. Why free? I wanted the experience and I made sure that we agreed to revisit our work together after a month or two to see if we could turn it into paid work. After launching my blog, I also began freelance writing for other personal finance websites.

I’m not going to lie: working on the side is tough. More than a few of my weekends were spent hunkered over my laptop and I had a few deadlines that kept me up very late at night. But every extra dollar I earned helped me tackle my student loans. Not only did I have a few hundred dollars extra each month that I could use toward my debt, but I was also building awesome experience that I later used to leave my job.

Step 2. Negotiate: I negotiated my salaries TO PAY OFF STUDENT LOANS FASTER

This is hands-down the most overlooked but most effective strategy when it comes to finding extra money to pay off debt. I always ask for more: a raise at work, a higher starting salary at a new job, and even fees on my credit card. Of course, I also spend hours researching and preparing my request with facts and figures. But more importantly, I went into these conversations with confidence. With just a few hours of research and some rehearsal in front of the bathroom mirror, I was able to get a significant raise at my previous job, negotiate my starting salary at my new job, and waive late charges, fines and annual fees from my credit cards and bank accounts.

How much did I earn just by asking over the last 4 years?

I earned $13,000 in bonuses and salary adjustments by negotiating.

That is not an exaggeration. And this doesn’t even include the few hundred dollars I’ve saved in credit card and bank account fees. Can you imagine what you could do to your debt if you had an extra $13K? That’s a good feeling 🙂

Lender	Rates (APR)	Loan Types	Terms	Eligible Degrees	Eligible Loans	More Info
	2.47% - 7.80%	Variable & Fixed	5, 7, 10, 15, 20	Undergrad & Graduate	Private & Federal	Visit SoFi
	2.47% - 6.32%	Variable & Fixed	5 to 20	Undergrad & Graduate	Private & Federal	Visit Earnest
	2.47% - 8.72%	Variable & Fixed	5, 7, 10, 15, 20	Undergrad & Graduate	Private & Federal	Visit Lendkey
	2.80% - 7.02%	Variable & Fixed	5, 7, 10, 15, 20	Undergrad & Graduate	Private & Federal	Visit Laurel Road
	2.48% - 6.25%	Variable & Fixed	5, 7, 10, 15, 20	Undergrad & Graduate	Private & Federal	Visit CommonBond
	2.57% - 8.69%	Variable & Fixed	5, 10, 15, 20	Undergrad & Graduate	Private & Federal	Visit Citizens

Step 3. Allocate: I STARTED TO BUDGET AND AUTOMATED MY FINANCES

The biggest mistake I made out of college? I used my checking account balance as my budget. If I had $1,000 in my account, I felt like I had $1,000 left to spend. So before I started getting used to my fat paycheck, I mapped out my fixed expenses and student loan repayments with a quick, back-of-the-envelope budget. That gave me a better sense of what I could spend – and what I needed to do to accelerate my debt payments.

The other big win was setting up automatic transfers from checking account to my student loan lender. I didn’t have to think twice about the money that was being automatically taken out. And that gave me more incentive to pay more than the minimum when I could afford it so I could reduce my debt quickly.

I also made sure I had a plan for how I would spend any extra money that came my way. If I got a raise at work, earned extra money on the side or got a tax refund, I made sure to allocate that extra money before it hit my account. My rule of thumb for extra cash that came my way: Student loans: 50%, Long-term savings: 25%, Whatever I wanted: 25%.

Step 4. Prioritize: I PICKED WHAT REALLY MATTERED TO ME

I knew if I wanted to tackle tens of thousands in debt in a few short years, paying off my student loans had to become one of my top 3 financial priorities – and that meant ruthlessly cutting down on the things that didn’t matter.

For the last four years, I had a clear list of priorities: paying off debt, buying healthy food and travelling to the West Coast every few months. Everything else was slashed. I stopped buying lunch at work (I think I’ve bought lunch maybe 10 times in four years!). I tried not to spend more than $50 a month on new clothes. And I only bought one new book a year (even though I love to read, I always went to the library instead). With my priorities set, I did my best to scrimp and save everywhere else.

Just as important as prioritizing debt was prioritizing my savings. Even just $1,000 in my rainy day fund gave me some piece of mind that I could handle a true emergency if it came up. So even though I was insanely focused on paying down my loans, I knew I still had to put some money away in savings.

Step 5. Motivate: I STAYED POSITIVE AND ACCOUNTABLE TO PAY OFF STUDENT LOANS

Psychologically, this was my most important step. The biggest motivation for me came from publicly declaring my debt goal online. After posting a YouTube video about my debt story, I got comment after comment asking how I was doing and if I was debt free yet. I felt accountable to reach my goal, even to complete strangers! And after launching The Empowered Dollar, I began to build an awesome support system of fellow indebted bloggers, fans and friends who cheered me along my journey.

So if you want to turn your finances around, find a way to declare your intentions and announce it to the world. Tell your family, friends and dog that you’re going to tackle your debt once and for all and you need their help staying accountable.

It also helped me to set a timeline. By announcing in March that I was going to pay off all of my debt by the end of the year, I knew I had to get an aggressive jump start on my payments.

BONUS STEP: REFINANCING STUDENT LOANS

I used a lot of muscle and hustle to pay off my student loans… but it never occurred to me to look into refinancing my debt.

I get a lot of questions about refinancing student loans (is it worth it? what are the risks? is it too good to be true?). Luckily for me, my interest rates were pretty low and I paid off that debt pretty quickly. But the more I research the refinance options that are out on the market, the more I realize that I could’ve saved a nice chunk of change if I had decided to refinance my student loans.

Well, it’s too late for me to refinance. But not for you 🙂

PROS AND CONS OF REFINANCING

It’s a hard pill to swallow when you realize that most of your student loan payments are going towards you interest rates. That’s why refinancing is so appealing – it’s a chance to lower your interest rate, lower your monthly payment and finally win the battle against ever-accruing interest. But like every financial decision, there are both pros and cons to refinancing your student loans:

• Cons: you may lose some federal protections if you refinance your student loans, including the federal loan forgiveness program. If you hit a patch of unemployment, you won’t be able to claim financial hardship with the federal government like you could have before refinancing.
• Pros: If your income situation is pretty stable and you’re losing lots of money to high interest rates, refinancing may be right for you. Refinancing your debt will help lower your monthly payment and make sure your hard-earned money is going towards paying down the principal, not interest. Combine that with some good money management habits like the steps above and you could be debt free ASAP.

HOW TO PAY OFF STUDENT LOANS BY REFINANCING

So if you think student loan refinancing feels right for you, the good news is there are lots of options on the market to make that happen. One of the easiest ways is to shop online (because you can buy anything online now – even a new loan 🙂 ).

My personal favorite option is SoFi. SoFi offers variable rates as low as 2.79% and fixed rates as low as 3.35%. And according to their website, their members save an average of $14,000 when they refinance. They also have a great-looking, easy-to-use interface (which is more than you can say for other loan websites).

I’m a big fan of SoFi. I’ve watched them grow so much over the last few years from serving just grad students to opening up their doors to thousands of undergrads struggling to pay off their debt. I’ve also gotten a chance to meet the founder and the SoFi team; you can tell they’re genuinely interested in helping as many people as possible lower their student debt payments.

THE BOTTOM LINE ON HOW TO PAY OFF STUDENT LOANS

Paying back student loans is a lot of work. And I worked it at all angles: I worked on my budget, worked on the side and worked extra hard to bump up my salary. But even though it took a lot of work, it’s quite literally the most worthwhile thing I’ve ever done. Because once I was able to buy back my freedom, a world of opportunity opened up for me. And I developed some life-long money habits that have changed my life forever.

Interested in refinancing your student loans?

Here are the top 6 lenders of 2018!

Lender	Rates (APR)	Eligible Degrees	More Info
	2.47% - 7.80%	Undergrad & Graduate	Visit Sofi
	2.47% - 6.32%	Undergrad & Graduate	Visit Earnest
	2.47% - 8.72%	Undergrad & Graduate	Visit Lendkey
	2.80% - 7.02%	Undergrad & Graduate	Visit Laurel Road
	2.48% - 6.25%	Undergrad & Graduate	Visit Commonbond
	2.57% - 8.69%1	Undergrad & Graduate	Visit Citizens