The article either got dugg or Lifehacker brought some serious traffic to their site...

christian ross

I was about 24K in debt and it took me about 3 years to pay it off and start accumulating savings.

I did it by cutting my credit cards up and paying for everything in cash with all extra money going to my credit cards. It wasn't fun but I'm sure glad I did it.

breals

Grats to JD on the accomplishment.

But the article description just provokes a bad knee-jerk reaction of.....

So the secret of getting out of debt is reducing expenses and generating more income?

Its like saying loosing weight is simply increasing activity and decreasing caloric intake.

Both are true. The hard part isn't seeing that either.

The hard part is committing and sticking to it.

Of course JD has stuck to it, so congrats again. :)

godai

@J.D. Roth: I have no doubt your story will inspire others. Congrats!

alexander

I helped my brother in-law get out of his $12,000 debt. I'm no expert by any means, but the first thing I had him do was pay off the small store cards. He had anywhere between $200 to $400 on each of 4 store credit cards. I told him to pay off those first simply so that he could see for himself that he could do this. It helped him a great deal when three months in he had those 4 cards paid off. It was a small accomplishment that gave him the fuel to continue. It gave him confidence and showed him it was possible...

alexander

It takes a lot of determination to accomplish something like that in such a short amount of time!

Shali

Alexander, et al. No need to apologize to me. I admire people who have always had the fortitude to avoid debt and make the right decisions. My wife is one of these people. She has always made the right financial decisions. I think folks like her (and you) *should* be congratulated. It takes just as much willpower to avoid debt in the first place as it does to dig your way out. In my case, though, I'm hoping that my story can help others who have made dumb choices before turn their lives around.

J.D. Roth

To JD: I just want to say that's an amazing story! You have inspired me. I have been in a quagmire (to describe it nicely) of debt and this just gives me the extra push to suck it in and get it all done. To the others who have told their story of success and being debt free: my hat is off to you too!

r529

@J.D. Roth: Sorry about that... I was chewing on my foot at the time.

ChrisC1234

From somebody who only has about $5k in debt now, I'm certainly not thrilled about owing anything to anyone. However, I do wonder how many people spend years sucking the pleasure out of their lives to pay off credit cards and then like, get hit by a bus or something before they have a clean slate.

If you undertake a pay off of any magnitude, you gotta budget something for mad money. Something. Life is too damn short to pinch ALL of your pennies for any length of time.

michaelportent

@alexander: Apology accepted. Yes, that does suck. Right there with you.

Gina Trapani, Lifehacker Editor

Sorry, I'm just being a dick. I read this right after the "Government will freeze interest rates for [stupid] home buyers" and it just pushed me over the edge. It's maddening that my wife and I make ok money, have lots of savings and we can't afford jack shit when it comes to housing. At least we were counting on the market fixing itself and prices coming down, but now with this freeze the prices will probably stay where they are, or even worse, go up once again. Sorry J.D. and if I offended anyone else, I'm sorry. Congrats on your accomplishment...yes, we all love stories of redemption.

alexander

$47k in 4 years; it is doable. It just takes discipline, and yes, personal sacrifice. During those 4 years I've changed my job, been promoted, and next Spring I'll finally see my real salary! ;-D

markadm

@Gina Trapani, Lifehacker Editor: I'm sure they sneaked over from consumerist.

Masokist

@alexander: Come now. The hero's journey is that of redemption. Everyone's got their vice, whether it's weight, debt, insert-modern-problem here. It's great that debt isn't a problem for you (it's not one for me, either, coincidentally) but that doesn't mean you can't appreciate someone in a bind, setting a goal to get out of it and reaching it over the long term.

Gina Trapani, Lifehacker Editor

My wife & I just finished paying off $30K+ in just under 2 years. I had been on disability for 4+ years, and as soon as I got back to work we threw nearly every spare penny at the credit cards.

One of the biggest helps in the whole process was playing the 0% Balance Transfer game. We both have a few extra credit cards open now, but we barely paid any finance charges on the debt we did have. That was probably one HUGE thing that allowed us to pay it off so quickly, since we didn't even stop doing things like eating out now & then, etc.

bostonguy

@alexander: We are the few and we are supposed to be quiet. Nothing fascinating about being fiscally smart. No more comments from you (or me), let's just move along and pretend this didn't happen... Oh, and congratulations! Now, ssshhhh!

testkahuna

@ALEXANDER: Congratulations! :) Unfortunately, your story doesn't "sell" as well. The consumer society wants tragedy with their triumph, not a story that shows them what could have been! It seems too... rubbing it in our faces. :) Know though, that while it's not said, many millions envy you.

I'm on JD's path as well. I did not have $30K, more like $12K, and I stopped the consumer life about 6 months ago, and I have about 4 months to go before I wipe the slate clean.

For those interested, I used a motto that I keep in front of me all day every day:

"The pain of discipline is far easier than the pain of regret."

Perhaps it will help someone through the decision NOT to buy just one more thing, because that is the death-trap to people getting out of debt. Just that one last thing.

bkpatt

@alexander:

everyone KNOWS that being responsible & smart rubs against the grain in this society. You should be tarred & feathered & staked out in the town square & have all your savings spent on lottery tickets!

SHAME ON YOU! SHAME ON YOU I SAY FOR NOT BEING A "GOTTA HAVE IT NOW, WHO CARES ABOUT TOMORROW!" SHEEP IN THIS SOCIETY!

forgottenpassword

Won't someone congratulate me for NOT getting into $35,000 debt, getting and education, having a job, savings, and living within my means all this time? Anyone? No takers? Oh well....

alexander

And now your blog is crashed from the traffic. How ironic if you rack up thousands of dollars in web hosting overage charges after telling your story.

Just kiddin!

Iron

@rdm: ....same here. Our local CCCS chapter was great in getting 6-8% repay agreements on all accounts, especially 2 very "hard-line" creditors, and my wife and I will be debt-free in 1 more year (total debt was around 38k). When I get a few extra bucks in OT, it always goes to snow-ball the smallest debt still out there to make the setup work even better.

NoWin

@J.D. Roth: My apologies for the wrong number--updated it to 3, which is way more impressive! :)

Gina Trapani, Lifehacker Editor

@ChrisC1234: You *do* realize that the J.D. Roth you replied to, and the J.D. Roth from the article are the same person, right? The comment he left was a clarification of a misunderstanding of the original article.

FordPrfct

ChrisC -- Well, I'm actually the guy in the story *and* the guy who made the comment! :)

Basically, I lived your typical consumer lifestyle for 17 years, then took 3 years to pay it off. So, yeah, it took a lot of frugality and hard work to get this done.

J.D. Roth

I am $5000 away from paying down $32000 in debt in just over 3 years, too. I did it by using CCCS, paying down more than they wanted, and getting extra work to supplement the money I was losing. My boyfriend and I also bought a house and two cars while we were paying it off... otherwise it probably would have went quicker. 5 more months and I will be out of debt that has been plaguing me since I was 19 (11 years)!

rdm

Now WHY am I going to take personal finance advice from someone that 1) racked up $35k in debt, and two, took TWENTY YEARS to pay it off. You can pay of a HOUSE (that costs much more than $35k) fairly easily in 20 years.

@J.D. Roth: Now THAT is impressive, I'm sure took much more frugality than doing it in 20 years.

ChrisC1234

@J.D. Roth: Congrats, J.D.! The write up was great. This being my final year in College, smart debt management is going to be vital over the next few years and I've taken some excellent tips from your article. Best of luck in your road to acquiring wealth.

cdoggwsu

Thank you, Gina.

For the record, it only took me about three years of dedication to get rid of the $35,000 in debt. But I was a consumer drone for twenty years before it was all gone.

Next stop? The opposite of debt: accumulating wealth instead of squandering it. Woot!

J.D. Roth

20 years? I need to start poisoning my rich relatives. Oh wait, I don't have any rich relatives. Damn.

DeeJayQueue

How about paying off your 30 year mortgage in 1/2 to 1/3 the time without changing your standard of living?

Watch this.. [www.xmission.com]

Then go here to find out more: [mortgage.aewilliamsllc.com]

artis

@christianross: Firefox tells me the site is unreachable :( Something generated a lot of traffic!

IAmMarchHare

@godai: It sure seems like common sense, but if its so common to spend less than you earn, and not borrow money at 18+% interest (typical credit card), then why do so many Americans ignore this? Why are the stastics 7 or 8 out of 10 people in this country living paycheck to paycheck because they spend more than they make?

jtimberman

@michaelportent: My wife and I just finished paying off our consumer debt (about 65k in 3.5 years). Since we've been pinching the pennies to make that happen, we're going to celebrate with a full home theater purchase in the next month or two :-).

We think it's well deserved, especially since we haven't bought anything for pure consumption and entertainment since we started our debt snowball.

However, both of us have developed the habit of NOT spending money through this process and being very aware of opportunity costs. But a little celebration won't hurt. Especially when it involves 50" of 1080p fun.

jtimberman

Hey all. Sorry for the server problems. I moved to a dedicated server a few months ago to alleviate problems like this, but it hasn't helped much. I contacted my host today and they've taken the server down to add more memory. Now that my debt is paid off, maybe I can afford a separate database server, too.

J.D. Roth

@michaelportent: "how many people spend years sucking the pleasure out of their lives to pay off credit cards . . . Life is too damn short to pinch ALL of your pennies for any length of time."

Why is living within your means "sucking the pleasure out of life" and how exactly does living beyond your means give you a richer life experience? Isn't it theoretically possible to enjoy life even if you are spending less than you earn?

Doesn't your point of view kind of imply that spending money is the only thing that makes life pleasurable? If thats true, isn't that kind of depressing?

And even if spending money is the only thing that makes life pleasurable, it still makes no sense to carry debt for consumer spending over long periods. Perpetually carrying a load of consumer debt only reduces your overall lifetime spending on fun stuff because a portion of your income is perpetually diverted to paying interest. Think about it.

AndyFromTucson

Oh hell!

Try being called "Mister Negative" and "Depressed" and being accused of wanting to spoil everyone's fun, and wanting to deprive your wife of nice things!

This is why I am in debt right now - and I've seen this advice on another lifehacker article - and it is crucial:

Get On The Same Page As Your Spouse!

That's got to be number 1.

If you are not on the same page as your spouse, you are SCREWED!

Get help, YESTERDAY. Counseling.

My problem was, I knew this, years ago. And for various reasons, my wifed refused to go to counseling. (As you can see, her defense mechanism is to blame - so in her mind, *I* was the one with the problem, not her - in reality - we're married - we BOTH have a problem).

Fortunately - I think I've finally gotten through to her. We've been in counseling for a few weeks, not doing great - but also, last night, she said that her new year's resolution was to get out of debt.

That was the best news I've heard in like 5 years!

jafac

methinks the reason why people spend beyond their means boils down to retail therapy.

It seems like a small boost in power to be able to go buy that new toy (whatever it may be) when you can't afford it, compared to when you are more than able to.

I was like this. When my income was just about the same as my monthly bills, if I wanted something I bought it. When I got a better paying job and I no longer had to watch my account daily to make sure I had enough to buy lunch, all the other stuff seemed less important.

funkknight

@JTimberman:

Well because its easier to not follow the ideas.

Haven't been able to read the article yet, stupid websense at work. My comment was geared toward the description above. I'm just not surprised that following the ideas of spend less, make more gets you out of debt.

I am finally getting out of the hole I dug (around $30k in debt as of 3 years ago).

How did I do this?

I got a job about 2 years ago which has an annual salary of around twice the amount of any job I have had previously and i put roughly 1/2 of that salary toward paying off debt. So my lifestyle didn't really change much, but my debt level did.

So while the willpower to not increase spending is an accomplishment, its just not a revolutionary idea to me.

godai

so, uh... is there an actual article on that link?

obelix

@ungood: Congratulations!! This made my day. Thank you! :)

Gina Trapani, Lifehacker Editor

About 5 minutes before reading this article, I got the email from Prosper telling me that the CC loan I took out is paid off.

Lifehacker, and sites recommended to me by lifehacker were the impetus for me to start down the long path of paying off my loans (although much less than $35k). It has made a huge difference in my life. Thank you!

And grats to the OP!

ungood

Bet it all on black. No, wait, red! I meant red!!

cv

@alexander: I agree with you 100%. Bailouts for irresponsible borrowers only lengthens the pain and props up prices.

Let it be known that this is true, and maybe reason will prevail.

massysett

Cheers, JD. We payed off ~$40k in under 2 years using Dave Ramsey's plan. He's extremely motivating, and as you found also, his methods just plain work. Its amazing what you can do when you make it a priority. And despite all the sacrifice and frugal living, we were so much happier during that time than we ever had been before. Its a very special day when you walk out of debt, and vow to never go back.

Congrats to you, and Leo for that matter. Will you be calling into Dave's show on Friday?

anatak

I've never listened to Dave Ramsey's show, though I've had many, many people tell me I should. I guess I could at least listen to a podcast, eh? I love his books, though...

J.D. Roth

@J.D. Roth:

Way to go! Just getting out of $30000 of debt myself over 4 years (as of last Friday), I can share the feeling of joy. It was some tough work, but boy it is worth it!

newfmike

I have you all beat. But I'm not gonna tell you by how much. It's too embarrassing.

TommySez

Congratulations to everyone who has been in debt and has worked their way out. Good luck to all of those in the process. Admiration to all of those who never made the mistake in the first place.

Basic financial responsibility (avoiding debt, saving, investing, budgeting) is one of the big missing pieces in our educational system. Every single student should graduate from high school with a practical understanding of personal finance.

onesix18

One of the best things my wife and I ever did, was agree that we would have zero debt (outside of mortgage) before we got married, and that we would keep it that way. It inspired me to pay off of 8k of debt in about 6 months. In the same 6 months she paid off about 4k of debt. We have been married about 3.5 years now, and have managed to stay debt free for most of that time. We have had 2 major events that caused us to go into debt but both events took about 6 months to clear up. The first was a rental property nightmare. The triplex we own had all 3 tenants leave at the same time, and all 3 trashed the place. It cost nearly 20k to get the places rentable again. The second was the birth of our son. My wife took 5 months off work. She was only paid for the first 3, so we got a little less than 10k of debt built up in the last 2 months. It is amazing how much easier it is to pay off 10k than 20k. I imagine it only gets harder as the debt goes up.

Ryan Fisher

@Ryan Fisher: Yeah -- I had been completely debt free for the first 10 years of my post-college life, and then was hit with a series of major disasters within a period of a few years (starting with a divorce and then a job lay-off, and getting worse from there) that ultimate plunged me deep into debt. However, because of my natural predilection to live beneath my means, I am just a few months away from clearing almost $30K of debt. This will have taken me 2 years. The slight pain is that my credit rating got shredded in the process... then again, when you pay for everything in cash, who needs credit?

abhowell

This man got into debt because he is an idiot. Against all laws of natural selection, he got back out of debt and lives to spawn more stupid children-consumers. This is a pity for all humanity.

SorenKier

Every time I read these stories I get astounded as to the crazy amounts of 'consumer' debt people have. I would really love to know what people bought in order to get themselves to that level. Did their parents not instill in them the values of the SNL commercial 'don't buy stuff you can't afford'? Do people really have horrible impulse control? I'm really mystified.

aaronw1

@onesix18: too right. My blood boils when I think about the things that my parents or my high school (in an Oregon university town, no less) should have made clear, but didn't. Not just personal accounting, but the nature of working for a living, having practical goals for oneself, knowing how to use other people's perspectives on career and life, what to expect from things like college and employers, all that stuff. I've learned it the slow way, and in some cases too late. I am still paying the price of not having some of those basics set out clearly and pragmatically. But I'm not the only one in that position, as JD's story shows.

It's obvious in retrospect that many many people just don't have the benefit of a structured perspective on this stuff, which means that they are each struggling to invent the wheel, at a substantial cost to society. Some people start off well, and others manage to figure it out, but I suspect there are even greater numbers of people who don't have access to the steady guidance that's required to succeed as JD has. On that basis, I agree with you that the educational system has its priorities wrong when it doesn't focus first and foremost on self-management.

e-tat

People get into debt for a variety of reasons... it's not just stupidity. In my case, I took three years off of work to handle a family problem. I ended up with no savings, and $14k in debt. Three years later, I'm out of debt, and have about $20k in savings again.

Probably the single most important thing that someone who's trying to get out of debt needs to understand is the difference between "need" and "want". Once you understand that, you can start viewing your finances in a rational manner.

It's great to hear the stories here. Awesome accomplishments!

Aelfric