Perhaps you’ve been wondering why I’ve been a little MIA with Make Real Cents or maybe you could care less, but either way you’ve found yourself here so I’m going to get right into it.
If you’ve been following Make Real Cents you’ve probably noticed there hasn’t been any new content shared in a long time. Why? There are a few reasons, which I will dive into below, but I would like to quickly apologize up front to those who have been on this journey with me from the beginning. My hope is that I equipped you with enough skills/resources that you take your finances seriously and search out on the internet, social media, etc to get what you need. Thank you for hanging in there and being patient with me as I finally reveal what I’ve been keeping secret for a while now.
Alright so here’s the tea you guys have all been waiting for… get ready to sip your hearts out.
So you might be wondering, what the hell has been going on?
Let’s start with a brief recap of my financial journey to piece together for everyone how I got to this point.
http://mountaintopcampground.com/galary/entrance-2015/ In 2014-2015, I absolutely sucked with money and lived paycheck to paycheck. During this time, I also started making six-figures (low six figures, by no
The thought of someone making six-figures and being broke may blow your mind or make you roll your eyes in disgust, but stay with me here. At the time, I was living and working in the most expensive place in the country that also came with the highest tax rates (ex $100k salary after tax in NYC will have your take-home pay at $66k and that’s not including healthcare cost or funding a 401k or general living expenses period). Even though I was making a low six-figure salary, I was taking home a five-figure salary after taxes and healthcare costs. Don’t get me wrong, a good income can greatly help with getting out of debt, as I’ve advised in the past, but sometimes it really does just boil down to an income problem for some people. You may have a ton of debt and just not enough income to barely manage basic bills, that’s when you may have an income problem versus a debt problem. If that’s your problem, you should seek out a second job, career change, develop new skills, etc. to get your income up to help you tackle your debt in a much more manageable way. I know that sounds easier said than done but that’s really the only way to tackle a ton of debt with a little shovel (your income).
Debt Free Journey Timeline
http://thehistoryhacker.com/wp By January 2016, I was drowning in roughly $57,000 worth of debt that consisted of student loans, collection accounts, car debt
Then i n March 2016, just as I was amped up to get out of debt I was sued for a student loan that was in default. I was being sued for $30,000!
From March 2016-June 2017, I got real with myself and went on a strict budget. I started putting as much money as I could towards the student loan account I was being sued for. The Universe was looking out for me because my lawyer was able to buy me some time during this period. (Wondering how exactly I started budgeting with this heaping debt? Click here to get step by step information to start for yourself)
1.) I picked a debt payoff method (debt snowball vs debt avalanche). This gave me an easy plan to follow.
2.) I pulled copies of my bank statements to find out what exactly I was spending money on. I then categorized those items (food, housing, travel, phone, insurance) and totaled what I was spending on average in each category. I took that information and created a budget where I gave myself a limit on each category that was significantly lower than the average I had calculated. So that meant I needed to cut out eating out, wining and dining, buying new clothes, etc. I was determined to get this debt paid off all by myself- I cut off cable, made my lunch to bring to work, etc.
3.) I began to throw all the ‘extra money’ I was accumulating (money saved from budgeting, work bonuses, stopped contributing to my 401K, and tax returns) I could towards my debt. I paid the minimum on my other debts while saving the rest in a separate account for the purposes of stock piling the lump sum I needed for the lawsuit.
Fast forward 1 YEAR and…
In April 2017, I wrote a check for $29,328 towards that student loan lawsuit! That one loan was GONE, but unfortunately that was not ALL of my debt. At this point if I can remember correctly, I just had 3 student loans left, one of which was also in collections ($13.5k, $4.5k, and $2.8k respectively) and some credit card balances to take care of. Since I went full force with saving money for the lawsuit for A YEAR, I eased up a little after the largest debt was done and divided my attention a little.
The funny thing about debt is that the more and more you pay down, the more and more options and doors open up for you and the more and more your vision is clearer and your outlook is brighter when it comes to the future. My focus then shifted from NON-STOP lawsuit death looming over my head to, let’s start planning for a wedding. So all the money that now freed up from the stock piling lawsuit shifted towards 60% wedding savings and 40% debt payments. I finally felt like after a year of such a stressful situation looming over my head, I could breathe. A weight had truly been lifted and now I could finally focus on something that wasn’t as stressful as a lawsuit, wedding planning (well for some, this may be more stressful lol).
From July 2017-August 2018, I continued tackling debt while also beginning to save money for my wedding that was now planned for June 2018. I now had shifted my savings where 60% of that was going towards wedding savings and 40% went towards paying down my Navient student loans.
In June 2018, I got married to the love of my life… oh and we paid for the wedding IN CASH! A complete 180 from my impulsive ‘throw it on a credit card/borrow it from friends’ mentality just three years prior.
Finally, in September 2018, I officially became debt-free. It took two years and 9 months, but I had finally done it. I paid down $57,000 worth of debt all by myself while also paying cash for a wedding.
Now life after paying off my debt!
In December 2018, I started teaching myself how to code by using a few free sites I’d highly recommend like
They sat next to me at work and created reports for our traders. They were apart of our data analytics team and basically, their career path was to create very useful reports for the department and eventually transition into BIG roles within the company. They also knew how to code.
I grabbed coffee with one of the people on the team and just asked a few questions, apparently, they were also learning how to code in Python from a trader on the desk that taught himself. The trader had told them that the skill would become invaluable in the future as algorithms and e-trading have skyrocketed in the industry. A skill, I observed as becoming more and more desirable with each person that walked over to their desk. They inspired me to learn something new that would mentally challenge me and also give me new usable skills. You can say, I kind of started seeing the writing on the wall and knew that learning how to code and technology in general, really is the wave of the future.
Kicking off the new year with a bang in February 2019 my wife and I purchased a home! We didn’t do it with the intended 20% down we thought we’d save, truth be told we weren’t even close to 20% down, but we managed to get the home of our dreams and even do some minor renovations before moving in. We went from
April 2019– Now having the house as a large asset to cover, we shopped around for life insurance and finally settled on a company we liked and applied. For people new to Life Insurance: Yes, you need to “apply” (you don’t just get it because you sign up for it and pay for it) for life insurance for those of you that don’t know. Depending on the type of coverage you get, you may even be subjected to taking a pee test and supplying a blood sample. Basically, the company wants to know that you aren’t going to pass away within the next month from natural causes and that they are insuring a healthy adult and if they aren’t at least they can adjust the premium accordingly to align with your level of health.
June 2019- I finally get approved for life insurance. We went with a 30-year term life insurance plan with the option to convert it to whole life insurance at the 20-year mark. For all my new folks: If and when you figure out you need life insurance, start the process IMMEDIATELY! I cannot stress this enough, you never know how long it will take to get approved for it and God forbid something happens in the meantime.
I made moves in July 2019 and started a new job closer to home which saved me $700/month in commuting costs. Which essentially covered the difference in mortgage costs for the house!
We continued to budget, save and pay for a lot of stuff in cash. Through it all, we managed to stay consumer debt-free!
Now for the news you’ve all been waiting for, remember how I briefly mentioned that I started teaching myself to code back in December 2018? Wellllll I REALLY got into the idea of coding what the power of learning something new can do not only for you but those around you.
As Oliver Holmes says, “A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.”
Coding
Let me first kick this off by saying learning how to code is challenging. I won’t say it’s hard but it’s definitely not easy. It’s something you have to practice, practice, and practice at some more to even remotely start to understand the basic concepts. HTML and CSS are a great starting point but don’t let the ease of learning those languages fool ya! Once you get into actual
I took my first official computer programming class in March 2019 (Python- a computer programming language) in the city for $500. I had been able to teach myself so much with the little time I had. Little time being, I would wake up at 5/5:30am almost every day of the week, throw on a pot of coffee, and watch youtube videos and go through coding tutorials online until I left for work at 7:00 am. When I got home at
The class was two nights a week for three hours after work and after I took the class something amazing happened- I was still completely and utterly lost in the class. It was hard, at this point we had already moved out of the city which meant my commute home went from 45 mins to an hour and a half. Because I was working full time and tacked on some extra commute time to my schedule, learning after work was EXTREMELY challenging hence why I felt lost. Most nights in class, I would be on the verge of falling asleep at the 8:00 pm mark.
It wasn’t long until I stumbled across the idea of a coding
As I researched the idea of a
Then the Universe aligned for me and I found a scholarship where they’d pay for me to go to computer programming
I had been eyeing a particular school for a while and when I got the courage to finally apply they rejected me. They essentially told me I wasn’t good enough yet and to apply again in the future. I was super discouraged. At this
I felt like I had been doing everything I could to get myself in the best position- Anytime I wasn’t at work or sleeping I was coding and practicing. Soon enough this is how
This other school happened to offer a 100% scholarship if you got accepted into their program. I was so caught up in the first school I got rejected from that I completely brushed this school aside. It was very similar to how it was paying down debt. You have to be clear on what you want the end goal to be, but flexible on your approach. But I applied, like I to make sure I had a backup plan. I eventually got notified that I was accepted into the program that was 100% paid for. I was in absolute shock. My plan took a different turn and an even better turn that I could have imagined and I’m so thankful for it.
As I was celebrating this amazing victory, I got even more uplifting news- the original school I had wanted to get into so bad finally accepted me. The second time I applied was even harder than the first, I thought I had failed the test, but I got a call the next day saying they would like to interview me. I went from feeling extremely discouraged
After giving it a lot of thought and reflecting on my journey to get out of debt, I realized all the doors that had been opened for my wife and I. I didn’t feel like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders anymore. When I was drowning in debt I never would have imagined going back to school to learn something new because my debt had held me in bondage for so long. My
And little did I know that the groundwork I was laying would be able to lead me to seize this opportunity and quit my job.
I am proud to say that I gave my six-figure paying job my notice, gave up a corporate title I’ve worked over 9 years for, and officially start Bootcamp school on September 25thF! The school will last for three months with an intensive schedule. I will be in class from 9-5 and have an additional 10-20 hours of work outside of classroom hours weekly. Once the course is complete I will be considered a newly minted software engineer and will have gained these new skills for Free99. For those of
While I’m in school, we (my wife & I) have enough saved for me to cover my half of living expenses (we split the bills right down the middle except for healthcare) and for a few months after school finishes, while I search for a job. I’m incredibly optimistic about what the future holds and can only thank God for pushing me to pay off my debt and become more grounded and secure in my personal finances.
My debt blurred so much of my vision for the future while I was in the thick of it. I felt chained to not only my debt but my job as well because it was helping me pay off my debt but it definitely was NOT A place I wanted to be at. I felt hopeless, like would I have to do things I didn’t like or enjoy for the rest of my life because of my debt? Regardless of whatever industry I worked in, will work in, or work in, I never want to have to stay in a place I don’t like because of debt. Like I said earlier, the closer I got to being
Y’all stay tuned because it’s only getting started. If you’re interested in my IT journey make sure you follow my page @TechGirlAlchemy.
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Marlena says
Congratulations! Here’s to the next chapter!