Five graduates that paid off student loans quickly
Since Lindsay Broome graduated from Nashville鈥檚 Belmont University in 2008, she鈥檚 learned one thing in particular about the real world.
鈥淟ife keeps throwing the bills at you,鈥� says Broome, 29. 鈥淵ou鈥檝e got to hurry up and get them out of the way.鈥�
It starts with student loans. Most give you a six-month grace period after you graduate, but when it鈥檚 over, you鈥檒l be on the hook for payments. If you have聽a steady income and a good credit score,聽聽can聽help you lower your interest rates and pay off loans more quickly. And if you聽need to reduce your聽payments, look into聽income-driven repayment plans and聽.
But for some grads, conquering debt is聽just a matter of rolling up their sleeves. These five, who paid down their loans fast, have one thing in common: They made聽more than the minimum payment toward their loans each month.
Let their ideas and strategies motivate you to get rid of your loans too.
Tanner Roman, 26, audio engineer
Tanner Roman, also a Belmont grad, finished聽school in 2012 with $80,000 in student loans. Even more discouraging, he accumulated $2,000 in additional interest charges during his grace period. But this聽motivated him.
鈥淚f you get angry at your debt, the only way to get around it is to throw more money at it,鈥� he says.
While he worked full time at Sony Publishing in Nashville, he supplemented his income with freelance audio engineering jobs.
鈥淎 full-time job is the starting place for income,鈥� he says. 鈥淎ny time I wasn鈥檛 doing the day job, I was out recording people or doing concerts or producing videos.鈥�
Roman鈥檚 night gigs were so successful that he聽now聽freelances exclusively. He pays at least $2,000 per month toward his loans, more than the minimum $500 required payment. So far, he鈥檚 paid off $70,000 in less than two years.
Natasha Flores, 26, senior research analyst
Natasha Flores graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2011 with $25,000 in student loans. She now聽works for a commercial real estate firm in Washington, D.C., and decided to pay down her loans fast so she could start聽business school debt free.
In order to speed up the repayment process, Flores rents out her apartment on Airbnb while she stays with friends or family, which earns her $400 to $2,000 a month before taxes.
鈥淵ou really earn more per diem than if you were to get a second job as a waiter or hostess or bartender,鈥� she says.
Flores聽wants other grads to know that they can look beyond standard ways of earning income.聽鈥淛ust because everyone has a 9 to 5 and pays off their loans through conventional means like a paycheck 鈥� know that there are other opportunities,鈥� she says.
Eric Garvey, 29, leadership consultant
Minneapolis-based Eric Garvey, 29, had $128,000 in student loans and credit card balances聽by the time he finished his master鈥檚 degree in organizational psychology at聽Minnesota State University, Mankato in 2010.
Garvey was surprised by his balance when it came due.聽鈥淚 got letters in the mail warning me, but it didn鈥檛 hit me until I started getting the actual bills.鈥�
Garvey聽got ruthless with his budget, canceling his gym membership and cable subscription and cutting down on shopping. He uses the budgeting app聽聽to track his spending and blogs about his progress at聽. His aggressive monthly payments over the past two years have brought his聽debt down to about聽$71,000.
鈥淯se the fact that you are used to living on a college budget to your advantage,鈥� he says. 鈥淒on鈥檛 go out and start spending more money just because you now have a job.鈥�
Lindsay Broome, 29, accounting consultant
You鈥檒l save more聽money if you pay off your highest-interest loans before those with lower rates. But Lindsay Broome and her husband, who live in Nashville with their two young kids, chose to attack their smallest loans first. They paid off all $50,000 of their聽combined student loan debt between 2009 and 2014.
鈥淓ven if it doesn鈥檛 always make mathematical sense, it really is the most motivational thing to me to be able to check it off,鈥� Broome says. She used many聽of the same strategies as Garvey, including tracking her budget with Mint and reducing her spending on dinners out. She put her extra cash toward one loan at a time until they were gone.
Broome鈥檚 methods included visual aids. She and her husband represented each loan as a bar graph that they聽could color in each time they聽made a payment. Then they crossed each loan off as it disappeared.
鈥淚 had 10 different loans and every time we paid them off, you鈥檇 just mark through that box,鈥� she says.
Zak Hill-Whilton, 27, research specialist
Federal student loans have benefits private loans don鈥檛, such as聽an聽聽option and lower interest rates. But Zak Hill-Whilton, 27, took out almost $100,000 in primarily private loans to attend Drew University in New Jersey.
鈥淚 had no idea what I was doing,鈥� he says. 鈥淎nd I was under the impression that everyone else was doing the exact same thing.鈥�
Hill-Whilton graduated in 2010, and now works part time at a restaurant on top of his full-time job as a research specialist at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. He鈥檚 put all his extra money toward loans for five years, and he鈥檚 cut his balance in half.
But he also learned that it was important to set aside money for himself. You鈥檒l be less likely to burn out if you don鈥檛 use聽all your energy to budget and manage your debt, he says.
鈥淚t had gotten to the point where I would log in to just look at my debt multiple times a day, and that increased my anxiety so much,鈥� Hill-Whilton says. 鈥淏eing able to find a happy and healthy balance is also really important in this process.鈥�
This article first appeared at
