A big part of my intentional living journey is to simply my finances and pay off my (massive) student loan debt. Both the hubs and I had significant student loan debt (mine being quite a bit more) after graduating college that we honestly thought we would be paying off for 25 years. Only when we finally hit a wall, felt trapped and drowning in debt, did we fully realize what we wanted to do in life and that paying on student loans forever was not one of them!

For the past 6 months I have been trying to save like crazy to pay off one of my private student loans by the end of January. Last weekend I was able to do just that! It feels so good when you see the “paid in full” under your account (or the paper letter mailed to you). If you’d like to read about what we have paid off so far you can read “Debt Repayment – A Year in Review“. While we still have quite a bit of debt to go, as we mostly utilized the debt snowball approach, it really feels like we are in the home stretch. Less than 2 years ago I would have never realized the short amount of time it takes to accomplish something!

Looking at the goals we set for this year we have already paid off one student loan (which was our goal for the end of January) as well as a vacation we plan to take later in the year. But there’s 11 more months and so many more opportunities to work towards other goals we have set!

Now that I have paid off one loan, I am in the process of refinancing my last private student loan from a 15 year term to a 5 year term. That will save us so much money over the lifespan of the loan! The hubs has two smaller private student loans that are next on our list to pay off with a goal of 8-9 months. That will conclude his private loans. When his are paid off our goal is to then use any extra money at the end of the month to put towards my private loan with the goal of paying it off in 2 to 2.5 years rather than the 5 year term I took it out for.

Our other goals for this year include increasing our income. I know the hubs has already figured out how much he wants to work and make in overtime. He received a promotion last year and that really helped with increasing our income. Going forward with a higher rate of pay, his overtime rate will then be more; if he chooses to make the same amount in overtime this year, he wouldn’t have to work as many hours as last year. If he chooses to work the same hours, he gets more money!

As a salaried employee I don’t really have the option to work overtime (although it would be nice!) so I’m currently exploring side hustles and passive income streams. I have worked per diem before which was great, however due to living in a remote area and scheduling conflicts it became harder to find shifts to cover. My goal by the middle of the year is to have something in play that contributes positively to our incoming cash flow that is closer to home or can be done from my office. 🙂

We both still have quite a bit of federal loans left and generally know which direction we want to head in after the 2-2.5 year mark, but at that point there’s a lot of paths we could potentially head down. As we approach those goals we will need to re-evaluate where we are and where we want to go. Overall, I’m super pumped to be crushing our debt and am excited for the future!

Lastly, I want to wrap up this post with a shout-out to all the ladies who joined me and really crushed it during the January budget challenge. I am so proud of all of you for the dedication and progress you’ve made to eliminate your own debt. You’ve really worked hard to change your money mindset, recognize your triggers, and implement strategies to overcome them. I love how aware you’ve become of your spending habits as well as the specific, measurable goals you have set for yourself. Continue to crush it!