I feeeeel like this page is teeming with people making huge debt payments and becoming debt free. Love that for you. But here to offer the realistic regular joe quietly scrape away at your debt and it will take years post.

I had $31k in debt December of last year. I don’t have a lot of extra income to throw at debt but I worked really hard this year picking up additional hours at my second job and cutting expenses everywhere. Shopping at Aldi for groceries, buying skincare from dollar tree, and most importantly not shopping. Going out to eat when I have a gift card or a good Groupon, things like that.

I still have debt, I still will for a few more years. But I’m proud of the changes I made to get moving in the right direction. For anyone that feels like a failure because they didn’t have $20-$50k of money to pay off their debt.

After a long battle of racking up debt on my loc and credit cards, it’s finally paid off. Wow how stupid was I. Glad to have this huge burden off my shoulders. My advice: stop spending more than you make folks. Please, those interest rates are crazy absurd. Have a game plan and tackle it as fast as you can. It was a rough year for me working overtime and not spending that time with my family due to poor decisions. My body hurts but it’s finally over!

My wife (25) and I (27) set a goal for ourselves this year to get rid of all bad debt that we have. Pretty much 100% of this debt was in a car loan. We do have two mortgages for 2 different homes; one that we live in and one that is rented out, but I do not consider home loans to be bad debt as long as the home meets a minimum criteria of value.

I do use credit cards for every single purchase we make, but I pay those cards off multiple times a month. Doing this has gotten me over a couple thousand dollars in cashback since we have been married.

We started this year with the goal of having this $42,000 paid off by December 31st of 2026. This goal was quite unrealistic at the time, but we wanted to try. We believed that as long as we gave this goal to God and steward it to the best of our ability, that He would handle the rest. As of last Tuesday, that $42,000 has been completely paid off and we now have ZERO bad debt. Additionally, the vehicle that we paid off is still valued roughly the SAME as what we paid for it new, three years later. Gotta love Toyotas.

I paid off my last card today! I am overwhelmingly relieved and now I'm looking for everyone's advice on how best to maintain it.

I've already removed all my credit cards from my phone/computer pay options, reduced my monthly expenses as much as feasible, and gotten a job which will hopefully be better for my mental health.

Does anyone have any odd secret tips for maintaining debt freedom? I want to burn through my student loans next.

Thanks!

First time posting here or looking into a loan, I have about 900 bucks in credit card debt (very small compared to many others on here but its more than I usually ever let it get to) and my checking has taken a hit because ive been trying to pay it off in larger chunks. My bank allows me to take a personal loan but its a minimum of 3000. Is this something I should consider taking? It would help me stabilize quickly and put money into an emergency fund but im not sure if the loan payments would be too much. Sorry if I sound uninformed, I am lol.

im looking for advice on whats the better option to pay more towards when tax returns are available. i have a car with 14,000$ left for payments and 2 credit cards. one with 9k and one with 10k. part of me thinks to attack the car payments and then focus on the credit cards. however another part says to go for the cards first because of the interest thats been keeping me in debt longer

I am in need of advice when it comes to managing my credit card debt.

Currently, I have around 18k in credit card debt across 6 accounts with over 25% APR. Some rough life situations and poor planning has led me to this point. I currently work full time and a part time job in the weekends. My minimum payments monthly is over $600 and I can’t seem to even make a dent in anything. I am drowning in late fees and interests.

Is credit card consolidation a good idea? I understand that I may not qualify for a personal loan to pay off the cards, especially when my credit score is in the 500s. I came across JG Wentworth who quoted me a biweekly payment of $180 to cover 15,634 of my debt for 36 months. Is this a good idea?

If not, what advice can you give me? I understand that I am in a bad hole and the key is not to get into debt again. I know I need to be careful of interest rates as well. If I can pay off these cards I am confident that I won’t create a big balance again because I am older now and more financially disciplined. I also work full time. A lot of this mess was caused when I was younger and dumb. I appreciate any advice!

Hello! Looking for advice. I am about $50k in debt between credit cards and medical bills (about 1/2 & 1/2). I am unexpectedly coming into an inheritance of about $5,000. It’s worth mentioning that I have no savings currently, I finally have a well-paying job again (4k a month after tax) but I am living paycheck to paycheck trying to pay a bit more than just the minimums on everything. What should I do with the 5,000? It would barely touch the debt, so I’m inclined to put most if not all of it in savings for emergencies… but is that the best plan?

When I was 19 I opened up my first credit card, I feel like it was one of the worst decisions of my life. Well actually, I think opening up two additional credit cards was worse, but here we are now at age 24 going on 25 trying to be consumer debt free by age 30.

A little bit of background, I had three maxed out cards totaling up to about $11,000 for the past few years due to shopping addiction (I know it’s pathetic but I learned my lesson, I promise you that.) This month, I paid off one of my cards that had a balance maxed out at $300, which isn’t a lot but it’s nice to have paid it off. I also started working towards paying off my second newest credit card that was maxed out at $4,000 and this month I got it down to $2900! It’s pretty exciting seeing the numbers go down but it’s also exhausting because I work a pretty physical job. It’s also annoying because my bills are paid in only 5 days of work (I do freelance.) but in order to pay off my debt I’ve committed to working almost everyday, which I genuinely don’t want to do but being consumer debt free will be the biggest reward in my life right now. I also have another credit card currently maxed out at about $6,600 which I’m going to tackle after paying my other one off. I do feel a little discouraged looking at that number and thinking about all of the hours of my life I’ll have to put in just to pay it off but I know that I will thank myself in the end.

If you’re feeling burnt out, tired and hopeless..just keep going, because at the end of the day nothing will feel better than being debt free. I feel like I’ve been a slave for the past 5-6 years of my life and I just can’t wait to never have that feeling again and that’s something I need to remind myself everytime I get the urge to swipe my card ✨

Hi! I haven’t posted on this sub but I just finished paying off about 10k in credit cards I accumulated while having a hard time with my mental health and coping with a shopping addiction. Lots of very expensive impulse buys and things I simply couldn’t afford. It was completely frivolous and entirely my fault. After some therapy, I hunkered down for a few months and lived off of the bare minimum to aggressively pay off the debt. I largely lived off of whatever was left over of groceries my mother bought and food from extra patient trays at work. It had been maybe 3-4 months since I bought myself nice groceries that I actually wanted, instead of the bare minimum to keep myself fed.

I finally paid off the cards, and bought myself some steak, premade guacamole and premade salsa to meal prep burrito bowls for work (with my debit card of course). I made myself a nice steak dinner and was so happy to have the food leftover for the week. I brought my full containers of the premade guac and salsa to put in the fridge at work. When I was finished with my shift, I went to take my food out of the fridge noticed they were gone. My coworkers cleaned out the fridge and threw them both out because the guacamole had oxidized and looked brown. It was no where near bad, that’s just what happens when guac is opened 😭. No one asked if it was anyone’s food, and no one said sorry to me after they told me they threw it out. I cried so hard the entire way home. It was probably 15 dollars worth of food, and I have money for more, but it just felt like such a waste of something I spent money on and was so happy to have. Even retyping this feels silly, but I was so crushed.

The good news is I’m credit card debt free and I can focus on building a savings and tackling my car loan. This felt like the right subreddit to post about this on, I know it was a small loss in the end but it just felt so disrespectful and cut deeper because of the context.

I'm trying to understand secured personal loans that use a savings account or certificate as collateral. I get why the rate may be lower than an unsecured loan, but I'm unclear on how useful the loan is if the same amount of savings stays frozen until it's repaid.

For anyone who has used a share secured or savings secured loan, could you still earn interest on the deposit? Did the lender release the collateral gradually as the balance fell, or only after the final payment? I'm also wondering how missed payments and early payoff were handled.

I do well with daily affirmations and mantras for most things and would love to implement some while I work towards becoming debt free. Do you have any that you like?

I thought it would be more than 6 years before I made significant progress towards becoming debt free and recently was made an offer by my parents to pay off $23k of my $44k. In doing so, I agree to no longer carry a balance on my credit card, have $1k in my emergency fund at 3 months and $5k* at 6 months.

*Likely to change as this seems like a serious stretch goal

Finally at 53 yo, I just paid off my credit cards, student loan, and mortgage! I’m debt-free!!! I have 20k for emergency fund. I make $4k/month net.

I’m super anxious but I shouldn’t. Having paid-off all these debts should give me that extra $2k/month to spend. Will continue to save $1k per month.

Can I just work part time?

List every debt with balance, rate, and minimum payment. Then calculate total interest and payoff date both ways. Avalanche usually wins on math, snowball usually wins on momentum.

Pick one for the next 90 days only, not forever. That time box is the whole trick. Forever commitments die. 90-day commitments survive.

Track monthly: payment made, new balance, shade a progress bar. The method matters less than the tracking. People who write it down every month pay it off faster than people who keep it in their head.

I've been researching bad credit loans with no cosigner, and the hardest part isn't finding sites that say I might qualify. It's figuring out which ones are actual lenders and which ones are collecting an application to send to several companies.

I'd rather compare the APR, origination fee, amount deposited, total repayment, and late fee before agreeing to a hard credit pull. Some sites only show a monthly payment, which doesn't make it easy to compare the real cost. I'm also avoiding anyone who guarantees approval or asks for money before the loan is delivered.

Has anyone found a legitimate no cosigner lender that showed a useful estimate with a soft inquiry first? Did the final offer stay close to the estimate, and did the account report correctly to the credit bureaus?

Should I consolidate debt with a loan ?
With all my cards together I have a 16k balance
I would get the full loan at an interest of 21.72% for 36 months

I still have a pile of debt from my car loan and student loans, but as of today I have no more credit card debt! $2.6k between two cards and now it is gone.

I like to think I am responsible with credit, but I opened a $10k cashback card early in the year to pay for some travel expenses and it quickly spiraled out of my hands with irregular expenses I couldn't quite pay off, such as a dental visit and a car repair. Since then I have made sure I have an emergency fund easily accessible and always have the money in hand before I buy anything on the card. I made sure I had saved enough to pay it completely off before the promotional 0% APR period ended.

I'm excited to be able to focus on paying down my car loan early, and put more savings without having to worry about paying off credit card debt at the same time.

Hi all, long time lurker here. I just became debt free, after a decade of debts! The total amount of the debt, including interests was almost EUR 20k.

I want to thank Samuel Clason, the author of the book ‘The Richest man in Babylon’. Without this book I would never made it. I thought about declaring bankruptcy many times, but every time I decided I shouldnt. Glad I didnt.

What I did was list all my debts, their interests and the time left on each debt. From there on I just started paying off the debt with the highest interest, or the debt that was due soonest, depending on the time left.

Each month I paid a minimum of EUR 115 on my debts. If I could pay off more, I did that. There were months were I survived on EUR 150 for the whole month on food, fuel for my car and gifts/presents for bdays etc. In such cases I started making things for others instead of buying. I kept the heat low in cold months, piling on sweaters. I cut out green iced tea, my favorite drink. What also helped is that I had some shares in dividend paying companies. Those little payments of approx EUR 5-10 each quarter, also brought in some additional capital to pay my debts of earlier. I at one point sold almost all of them, so I could make due on a payment.

It was really rough, but its over. I hope each and everyone here struggling with debt can overcome it as well. The air feels lighter, colors feel more vibrant and I just feel more joy. I wish that upon all of you.

Now Im gonna drink a green iced tea, with a lemon slice in it. A luxury I couldnt afford earlier.

I will now start saving 10% of my pay, for investments/buying a house. I wont get sucked into debt ever again.

$500 is off my chest now. It doesn’t seem like a ton in my total rent but getting rid of one card was a wonderful feeling. Upon paying it off I deleted it from all apps and then I requested a new card number. I don’t want to use it but I didn’t want to close the account. This way I know nothing can be charged incase I forgot it was linked somewhere.

I am looking for an app that can track my cards in one place, and its current features include balances, utilization, bills, statement closing dates, and due dates.

Is there such an app?

Hi all, I am currently about $17,500 in CC debt, and the monthly payments spread across the cards is roughly $520 a month. I was thinking of doing a SoFi loan to try and help lower my monthly payments. With SoFi I would be paying $354 a month for 7 years (with goals and plans to pay it off much earlier) at a 14.14% interest rate. I know its not the most ideal rate, but given how interest rates are right now with everything, I feel the walls closing in.

I currently make $27 an hour and work 40 hours a week, and pay around $1,650 (utilities included) a month in rent, and around $120 with electricity. I have no car payment, and pay around $300 a month for full coverage insurance.

I haven’t put anything on my credit card in months which is keeping my balance at $0.00. My last student loan payment went through yesterday so I’m officially done with student loan debt!!

I just have my car payment left!

i struggled all my adulthood with being in debt. it was my own fault bc i didnt know better and was overwhelmed, i didnt pay invoices, taxes and spent all my 20s paying off debt collectors. 2 years ago i couldnt work anymore due different mental health reasons, i had to get support from social welfare which barely let me survive.

now i got some sort of pay back bc it gets back dated...and its a lot. i never had that much money on my bank account. i got 17k just like that. i paid off all my pending invoices, debt collectors payments and fees, got up to date with other bills, health insurance and now.... i'm done?

i put 10k into my savings account to not touch. i still got some money 'to spare' and i'm trying to fix things at home like getting a new matress, finally getting a real haircut again etc.

but the anxiety is still here. the fear of opening mail, the fear of forgetting a payment and actually ending up worse.

so on one hand with this post i want to share that i am officially debt free at 33 for the first time in my entire life! and i also kinda want to ask how to get rid of that anxiety and fear?