After years of payments, budgeting, and more than a few financial arguments, my wife and I finally did it. We paid off our student loans.
It’s an odd feeling.
For better or worse, those loans helped shape my entire financial philosophy. For most of my adult life, paying off debt wasn’t just a responsibility — it was the guiding principle behind almost every financial decision I made.
For a long time, I thought beating the student loan devil meant putting life on hold. Now that the loans are gone, I realize the journey taught me something different: it’s possible to tackle debt without postponing life entirely. But it took my wife to help me figure that out.
How I Tried to Tackle the Debt Alone
Thanks to my upbringing, I always knew one thing about money: essentials come first. Food, shelter, transportation — the basics.
Once those were covered, whatever money I had left went straight to student loans. I didn’t even think about building savings. Every extra dollar went toward paying down the debt.
I often skipped smaller luxuries, but that came with its own side effects. For example, I hate shopping for clothes, so instead of replacing things gradually I would wait until everything was falling apart — socks with holes, undersized shirts, clothes worn thin.
Then I’d make one large purchase all at once, usually on a credit card. Thankfully I rarely put myself in a position where it took more than a paycheck or two to recover. Still, my focus was always the same: chip away at the student loans.
One summer I worked three jobs. That was the summer of hell. But at the end of it, after all my bills were paid, I had my first $1,000 saved.
I went to the bank and cashed it out. When I got home, I threw the cash around my room in celebration. I practiced baseball pitches with it and made it rain like I had just signed an MLB contract.
But the celebration didn’t last long. I knew exactly where that money was going — straight to the devil that had been hanging over my finances for years.
My Wife Was Living a Different Financial Life
My wife approached money very differently. When she got money, she either saved it or used it to treat herself.
One thing that stood out to me early on were the small luxuries she allowed herself. She would buy different soaps that smelled amazing — not the basic bar soap I was used to, but ones with fragrances and names that sounded like they came from a spa instead of a grocery store shelf.
She liked trying different foods too — new restaurants, different cuisines, things I had never even thought to try. Meanwhile, I was perfectly content with Dial soap and what I used to call “grub.” Simple food, simple routines, nothing fancy.
To me those things felt unnecessary. To her, they were small ways of enjoying life.
Over time those habits started rubbing off on me. I began to appreciate the little upgrades — the nicer soap, the different food, the small comforts that make everyday life feel a little better.
She wasn’t spending recklessly. She was reminding me that life doesn’t start after the debt is gone.
Another thing she valued was travel. When we first started dating, that confused me too. Traveling felt like a foreign luxury to me. I couldn’t imagine saving thousands of dollars just to go somewhere for fun while I had student loans hanging over my head.
But as I got to know her friends and family, I realized something: travel wasn’t reckless spending to them. My wife carefully watched for deals, planned trips around sales, and made thoughtful choices about when and where to go.
Eventually she took me on my first cruise to the Bahamas. Because it was a group trip, she was able to squeeze me in.
I had an amazing time. But even though she told me I didn’t have to pay her back, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I needed to. I wasn’t comfortable with someone else covering that kind of expense for me.
So just like I did with credit cards, I tightened my spending and paid her back.
After that trip, I asked her more about her finances. That’s when she told me something that surprised me — she had real savings set aside for emergencies and travel. She was a saver in a way I had never been.
But when I asked about student loans, the conversation got a little quieter. There was some sheepish avoidance on that topic.
When Our Financial Worlds Collided
The turning point came when we found out we were expecting our first child. Suddenly money wasn’t just about my debt or her savings anymore — it was about building a financial life together.
Her mother played a big role here. She introduced us to people like Suze Orman and Dave Ramsey, which pushed us to think about money differently.
Around the same time I heard a quote from the show Ozark that stuck with me:
“Money is not peace of mind. Money’s not happiness. Money is, at its essence, the measure of a man’s choices.”
That line hit me hard. Money wasn’t just numbers — it was about the choices we were making together.
One of the biggest questions we faced was this: were we going to focus only on killing debt, or were we going to build a life while we did it?
I think a lot of couples run into this moment eventually. One person is worried about the future — paying down debt, building security, doing the responsible thing. The other is worried about the present — making memories, enjoying life, and not letting the years pass by while waiting for the “right time.”
Neither person is wrong. The real challenge is figuring out how to build a life that respects both instincts.
Learning to Manage Money as a Team
At first we tried different ways of keeping our finances separate, but that didn’t really work.
There was the issue of the income gap. I made more money than she did, and there was no ratio that ever felt truly fair when dividing and tracking expenses.
There was also a lot of borrowing happening on both ends — mostly mine — and it started to feel like a nightmare to keep track of everything.
Eventually I pushed for us to combine everything. That wasn’t easy. We argued.
She worried about losing independence. I felt that if we were going to build a life together, we needed to be all in.
Eventually we combined our finances and started using the EveryDollar app, which helped us see exactly where our money was going. Those conversations weren’t always comfortable, but they were necessary.
She had loans. I had loans. Now they were our loans.
She was pursuing a lifestyle, and I wanted to be there with her. So we worked on figuring out how to do both together.
Our New Financial Philosophy
The pandemic changed things for us financially. Like many people, we ended up with some unexpected extra income and picked up a few side hustles. For the first time in a while, it gave us room to step back and think more broadly about our finances.
Instead of living paycheck to paycheck, we started thinking quarter by quarter. That shift helped us become more intentional with our money.
We also realized we could be smarter about how we used credit cards. Rather than treating them like borrowed money, we started using them almost like debit cards — spending only what we expected to earn and paying the balances off regularly. The upside was earning travel points and cash back.
It’s a risky strategy because credit cards can create the illusion of painless spending. So I made sure to monitor our accounts closely, making sure we always felt the reality of what we were spending.
At the same time, we started planning our year differently. Some months we pushed harder toward paying down debt, while other times we allowed space for travel and experiences.
Even while we were paying off debt, we made room for life. We took road trips through California, drove up to Canada, and visited Puerto Rico and Mexico.
Those trips reminded us why we were working so hard in the first place. We weren’t just trying to eliminate our student loans — we were building a life together while we did it.
Our philosophy eventually became simple:
Use the system responsibly.
Beat the devil.
But still live a life.
The Outcome
We followed the first two steps of the Dave Ramsey plan: build a starter emergency fund and attack debt using the snowball method.
Together we paid off our student loans — first hers, then mine. Along the way we also paid off home improvement loans, paid for our wedding in cash, and eliminated other debts.
Today, the only debt we have left is a car loan.
And Lord willing, nothing chaotic happens to slow that down.
What Comes Next
For years I thought beating the student loan devil meant postponing life.
What my wife taught me was something better.
It’s possible to beat student loans while still living life.
If student loans were the devil…
Then this finally feels like freedom.