A note from Erin: I am SO excited for you guys to get to meet Kitty from Kitty & Kevin today. This girl is a huge inspiration to me to make smart choices with my money and to always enjoy life to the fullest, even when being frugal. I met Kitty through Omaha Bloggers, and through photo sessions and a shared Ikea love, we became friends. Kitty is a girl of many talents. She’s a lawyer, top-notch photographer, fantastic money-saving blogger, and Etsy business extraordinaire. I don’t know how she wears so many hats and does it all so gracefully. Her and her husband are also really cute. I really hope to get Josh and Kevin (her husband) to hang out sometime soon. I think they have a ton in common. Before I start playing friendship matchmaker anymore than I already do, take it away Kitty!
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If you’re a 20-something and decided that higher education was for you, you’re probably among the rest of us who are dealing with one of unexpected pleasures (sarcasm) of post-graduation life…student loans. Bleck! So why do I make a point of blogging about something so awful? Let me back up just a bit.
So who am I? I’m a newlywed, barely through my first year of marriage. I’m in my first year as an attorney, my first year not dealing with finals. Before my husband and I got married last year, we had just over $100,000 in student loan debt. We think about it every day, and when I started up my job last fall (after taking the bar exam) we decided we were going to do everything in our power to get rid of that debt as fast as possible.
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In the last 6 months, we’ve paid down $35,000 of our student loan debt.
I can tell you right now I don’t make anymore (actually less than many) of my peers that didn’t go on to further education after undergrad. My husband works as a cashier at Lowes. We aren’t paying off our loans quickly because we make a lot of money at our jobs, we’ve made a lifestyle change! I want to share a few of the things we’ve done to make it possible to make a large dent in our loans!
Tips for Taking Control of Our Loans:
1. We live off of one income. We do everything we can do live only on my husband’s income.
2. We find other ways to make money. We co-own an Etsy shop together, and run a photography business together. It doesn’t bring in enough to live off of, but some months it pays our rent!
3. Rent, we live in a much cheaper place then we needed. Right now, we are renting a 1 bedroom apartment. We keep our utilities as low as possible because every penny we save is one more step towards being free of our student loan debt!
4. We made a point of downsizing and selling anything we didn’t use. Our old laptops, phones, etc. were all sold on craigslist or eBay. Living with less material possessions makes us more aware of what we actually use, and helps curb our desire to buy more.
5. We pay on our loans once, sometimes twice a week. If we have extra money coming it at different times, we pay immediately. The day we get a paycheck, part of it goes directly to loans. Even if it is just $50, it makes a huge difference at the end of the month (or year).
6. Freebies. We go out and do things in the city, but we make a point of trying to hit places up on free or discounted days! You know what, we still get to splurge on things that matter. We absolutely love to travel, and we still travel as much as possible. In the last 6 months we’ve visited Denver, Oklahoma City, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, and are going to Nashville in a couple weeks. We stay with friends, travel smart, and still enjoy/love the time we have together being young and free! Traveling cheap is another of my passions, and I love sharing my tips/tricks through my blog!
Want to hear more about our journey to be free of our student loan debt? Feel free to come visit us over at Kitty and Kevin to read more, or to hear more about our photography business Lady GreyPhotography (named after our cat, Lady Grey) check us out there too!
Question of the Day: What are some of your tips for managing debt?
You forgot to mention what a great designer Kevin is! 😉 I smile every day that I go to my blog and see my header 🙂
What great tips! I am currently working on my third, yes third, degree and am anxious everyday about what I will do next year when the loans kick in again. I currently live as cheaply as possible and find that sometimes it makes me miss out on fun things in life. I never really get to travel anymore because the stress of spending the money now. I will have to try to open my options up so that I don’t miss out and can pay my loans next year 🙂
The dollar amount you were able to pay off…that’s simply amazing! I think one thing I could do is sell some stuff!
These are great tips Kitty, thanks for sharing!!
I love how you’ve both hustled to create side income for yourselves, I’m sure it makes a big difference!
Joanna and I are on a similar journey and it is exciting to see how fast you’ve been able to go. At your curent pace, you’ll knock those out in no time!
Great tips! I feel like I am going to be paying my student loans for-ev-er….. I slightly regret choosing to go to a private college some days because of it. I’ve definitely tried the downsizing thing & being more frugal with certain items but I still haven’t made a dent in the principal balance (at least it feels like).
P.S. that is amazing that you guys were able to pay that much on your loans!