How I Paid Off $200,000 of Debt—And Still Managed to Go to Greece

You know those semi-embarrassing, self-adhesive name tags we wear from time to time? If I was wearing one today, it’d say, “Hello, my name is Tinsley, and I’m debt-free.” It’ll never get old, the thing I’ve dreamt of saying for so long: debt… free. A seemingly out-of-reach, overly ambitious goal made a reality.

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I found myself married at 22, fresh out of college—the first in my family to graduate—with the harsh reality that I was officially on my own (but married?) with adult-sized bills and no way to pay them. I found a job making $10 an hour, my husband continued working for a nonprofit, and we were barely keeping our heads above water. I didn’t come from much and learned about money (or the lack thereof) at a young age. As an adult, I wanted to approach finances differently. I was fortunate that my partner agreed, so within six months, we upended our lives, changed our careers, and moved to a city with more opportunity. We decided that my husband would go back to school, which meant that our combined $30,000 of student debt quickly snowballed into $200,000. I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders—suddenly, my wish to course-correct the past felt inconceivable.

I have friends who treat student debt as if it were another member of the family, another partner in the relationship, to which they explain, “Oh, that? Yeah, we’ll be paying that off until the day we die.” ‘Til death do us part, I guess. But see, growing up the way I did, I didn’t want any part of it. When you spend 22 years in financial purgatory, the thought of spending another 50 feels like actual hell. I refused to accept my friends’ reality as my own, so we met with a financial advisor, created a five-year plan, and got to work. We took on odd jobs and cut costs in nearly every aspect of our lives, and when we were done, we rewarded ourselves with a weeklong trip to Greece.

Today, I am completely debt-free. I don’t owe on a mortgage, I’m not late on a car payment, and I’m not deferring any student loans; it’s a position that I don’t take lightly, and one that I hope, in sharing how I got here, could be more of a reality for others. Whether your goal is to settle a debt or to save money, these are the money-saving steps that helped me pay off more than $200,000 of student debt in just five short years.

1. Set payoff goals

There’s a phrase my husband likes to quote ad nauseam: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” Sometimes, the best way to start is simply to begin. Start small, if that’s all you can do, and set a realistic date for when you’d like to be debt-free—let it become your light at the end of the tunnel. A deadline keeps you accountable, and it forces you to be strategic with your money.

For those of you who feel equipped enough to begin on your own, go for it, but if you’re like me—the only math I understand is 4 + 4 = ATE—you may want to consider some outside help to figure out how you’ll pay your debt. We started working with a financial advisor, which can feel intimidating, but I promise it is anything but. Nearly a decade of working together—from unplanned setbacks to major life events—he’s guided us at every turn, and we wouldn’t be where we are without him. No matter how different our goals may look, professionally guided or not, the beginning is all the same: Pick a timeframe and stick to it.

2. Get painfully specific with your budget

To this day, it still surprises me how few people I know with a budget—shocks me, in fact. I use a calendar to plan my life, so why wouldn’t I also use a budget to plan my expenses? In college, I remember how liberated I felt on payday—a sense of financial relief after a long two-week wait—and then how, without a plan, I’d end up blowing it before the day was over. As an adult, I can’t really afford to make those same mistakes, especially as someone with lofty financial goals. I knew that if I was serious about paying off debt, I’d have to be just as serious about establishing and sticking to a budget.

Here’s the kicker about budgeting, though: If you don’t account for everything—and I mean, everything—then expect to overspend. The more you overspend, the more likely you are to give up. Beyond the monthly essentials (housing, food, utilities), my budget sets parameters around how much I can spend on coffee, clothes, cleaning supplies, you name it. If I have a history of repeatedly spending money on something, it’s accounted for—yes, even my haircuts. Now, in setting money aside each month, I no longer get a pit in my stomach when it’s time to get my hair colored or time to restock on paper goods since everything is already accounted for.

3. Say “no” to travel, even when you really want to go

In a day and age where everyone seems to have the affordability to book a spontaneous flight (it will never not be a mystery to me), it can be easy to fall prey to getting out of town just for the heck of it. It was a tough pill to swallow, but had I not decided to limit my travel in those five years, I wouldn’t have made nearly as much progress.

Though I hated every minute of not being able to enjoy a vacation, missing friends’ weddings, and losing out on family holidays, I had a goal, and I was determined to meet it. Even now, debt-free, traveling is expensive; between the cost of flights, hotels, rental cars, and more, it’s something I still consider carefully. Fortunately, what helped me along the way was knowing that after we had achieved our goal, we had planned to reward ourselves by reallocating our next would-be debt payment toward a big trip. I got back from Greece six months ago, and now, missing that girl’s weekend in Miami a couple of years ago pales in comparison.

4. Don’t upgrade what works

Fun fact: I’ve never bought a new car—like, ever. And I don’t mean that I haven’t bought the newest model on the lot, either; I mean I still own the used car I bought when I was 18. While the car didn’t accompany me on my move to NYC—I gave it to my dad, and yes, it still works—I can remember the palpable embarrassment I felt pulling up to my grown-up job in my ‘ole beat-up hatchback. My embarrassment, though, wasn’t a good enough reason to replace it. Had I done so, I would still be in debt today.

Continuing to drive an old car is a larger metaphor for how I approach the smaller things in life: Do I really need snow boots for that one small dusting a year, or do I really need matching storage bins when the mismatched ones work just fine? Look, speaking as someone who has made an entire career out of making things look good (I’m a stylist who tells other people what to wear), it pains me not to have the bistro-tile berry baskets and the quirky needlepoint pillows, but at the end of my life, will it really matter? No. Can I get by just fine without those things, at least for the time being? Yes.

5. Embrace odd jobs to make money

Picture this: five electric scooters in the doorway of my cramped Nashville living room. Back when Lime was paying people to charge scooters, my husband and I would collect them from all over the city, plug them in at home, load them up again in the morning, and return them to their designated post by 6:00 a.m. We did it for years. We never said no to any odd job that came our way—hosting trivia at the local bar, delivering food, catering events, running other people’s errands, babysitting, picking up trash—and no matter how big or small the payout was, every dollar helped chip away at the mound of debt before us.

6. Borrow or rent fashion items

It shocks people to know that I don’t shop on sale, and I get it—wearing what I wear, doing what I do, and working with a limited budget like mine—something’s not adding up. Fortunately, my intro to sustainable fashion coincided with the start of my commitment to becoming debt-free, so shopping intentionally came with a lot more ease. What was tough, though, was that my small monthly allowance didn’t exactly cover new trends or special occasions. That’s when I had to get super crafty and 1. work with what I had, 2. borrow from others, or 3. rent through a third-party app.

I rented once, and I was hooked. It was like playing with monopoly money—I was able to stay on-trend and on-budget for around $100 or so. In the months where, let’s say, I bought a pair of shoes and didn’t have enough money left over to put toward a rental membership and I had a nicer event to go to, I’d ask my friends if anyone had a dress or a bag I could borrow instead. After years of doing so, I’ve trained myself to be a lot more reserved and intentional when it comes to shopping.

7. Spring for an at-home beauty routine

When it comes to my beauty routine, I’m surprisingly low maintenance. In the last five years, I’ve rarely visited a spa or salon for anything other than my routine hair appointments and have instead learned to nail just about every at-home remedy in the book—gel manis, botox alternatives, eyebrow tints, you name it, and I’ve tried it. Now, I can’t imagine myself ever scheduling a standing nail appointment, knowing how much money I could save by sticking to my at-home methods.

8. Ditch the debit card

No, this isn’t some Dave Ramsey ploy to get you to store cash envelopes under the bed to become debt-free (yep, I’ve tried that, too). It sounds backwards, I know, but replacing our debit card with a credit card was one of the smartest moves we made. The switch helped us to take advantage of credit card rewards we’d spent years missing out on, and by leveraging those perks on things like flights and lodging (when we did travel), we saved thousands along the way. Not to mention, the monthly promotions on purchases made at restaurants or retailers or through ride-share apps that regularly allow us to earn up to five times the points on every dollar spent. Nowadays, I rarely take a Lyft or dine at a restaurant without first checking my credit card’s list of active rewards.

9. Find ways to earn cash back

It’s funny—when thinking back on everything we’ve tried throughout the years while aiming to be debt-free, the list is longer than I remember. We’ve tried things like Allstate’s Safe Driving Bonus program, where we installed a movement-tracking device in our cars for a discount on car insurance, as well as Amazon’s Shopper program, where we uploaded shopping receipts each month for cash back. We’re also in tune with regular cash-saving apps like Ibotta, Rakuten, and Seated, where you can earn money back on purchases made at grocery stores, online retailers, and restaurants.

10. Stay in for the majority of your meals

Trust me, I enjoy eating out as much as the next person, maybe more, but by getting into the habit of cooking at home, not only did we save money, but we had more control over our diet and made healthier decisions. Popping into Starbucks or Shake Shack every once in a while may not seem like a huge deal, but over time, that extra $5 or $10 quickly adds up. When I’m not taking advantage of restaurant deals through my credit card rewards or cash-back apps, I stick to a handful of recipes that include a good mix of pantry staples so that on the off-chance that I’m not as planned out as I’d like, I still have some solid go-tos to whip up on the fly.

11. Pause monthly contributions

When it comes to paying off a large chunk of debt quickly, you have to be willing to go the extra mile. As scary as it was, when we committed to becoming debt-free, we also committed to putting a pause on contributing to our retirement and rainy day funds. This meant that for five years, any money that would have normally been put into a retirement or savings account was instead redirected toward student loans. It was by far the most-discussed decision with our financial advisor and one that I feared would set us back significantly, but after sticking to our same routine, post-debt, we’ve been able to accelerate the savings process and build our retirement and rainy day funds back to a comfortable place.

12. Pull out all the stops

Beyond our set monthly payment, any additional income in those five years—overtime pay, tax refunds, birthday checks—would be immediately allocated toward debt. Since we faced our own setbacks—COVID, a job loss, and a cross-country move—we needed small but mighty ways to make up for lost time, and we were willing to do anything it took to speed things up. Though our monthly student loan payment was already nearing $5,000, if there was a month where we could pay more, we would.

13. Pick a reward that matches your goal

The motivation to say we are debt-free was enough to keep us going, but knowing a big celebration trip was on the horizon definitely helped. Once our balance hit zero, our would-be payment went toward a week in Greece. We saw Athens, Milos, and Paros, and we soaked in what was a very needed, well-deserved escape. (Renting outfits for a real vacation was a treat in and of itself.) After our trip, we were ready to allocate our freed-up funds back into our savings and retirement. Now, we live a life where we can enjoy being debt-free, save for our future, and remain financially savvy enough to handle whatever is next for us.