How I Paid Off $38k in Debt; The Full, Unfiltered Story

I want to start with the number, because I think numbers matter.

$38,479.

That's how much debt I was sitting on when I finally stopped avoiding it and actually looked. Not a rough estimate. Not a "somewhere around." I opened every statement, added up every balance, and wrote it down in black and white.

It was a lot.

Before you ask; no, it wasn't all credit cards (although a good amount of it found its way onto the credit card). It was the thing that debt always is: a combination of decisions that each seemed fine at the time, slowly layered on top of each other until the total became something I'd rather not think about on a Tuesday afternoon.

So I didn't think about it. For longer than I'd like to admit.

Here's how that ends: it doesn't get better on its own. It gets worse. Interest is patient in a way that you and I simply are not.

This is the story of how I paid it all off in 3 years, without a windfall, without a side hustle that went viral, and without a single "just cut your morning coffee" piece of advice that actually helped.


Step 1: I stopped avoiding the number

The first thing I did; the only thing that actually started everything, was I sat down and wrote out every debt I had. Every single one.

Credit card balances. Any loans. Everything with a balance and an interest rate attached to it.

I put it in a spreadsheet. Nothing fancy. Three columns. Creditor. Balance. Interest rate. That was it.

The total was uncomfortable to look at. I looked at it anyway. Often. Something strange happened: it felt slightly better than not knowing. The monster under the bed is always scarier before you turn the light on.

What to do: List every debt you have. Don't estimate. Log in, look at the actual balance, write it down. All of them. The total number is not your enemy, it's your starting point. Your personal goal.


Step 2: I built a budget before I did anything else

Here's what I see people do wrong: they find out their debt total, panic, and immediately start throwing extra money at it without any kind of system. That works for about three weeks. Then an unexpected expense hits, there's no buffer, and the whole plan falls apart.

Before I paid down a single extra dollar of debt, I built a budget.

Not a "track your spending and feel bad about it" budget. A zero-based budget where every dollar coming in gets assigned a job before the month starts. Living expenses. Minimum debt payments. A small emergency buffer. And whatever was left after that became my debt attack money.

The budget did two things. First, it showed me exactly how much I actually had to throw at debt each month. Second, it stopped me from accidentally spending the money I needed for debt payments on things I didn't really need.

I found more money than I expected. Not a lot, but more than I thought I had. That mattered enormously in the early months when progress felt invisible.

What to do: Before you accelerate debt payoff, spend one month doing a proper zero-based budget. Know your exact income, exact fixed expenses, and exact leftover amount. That leftover number is your debt weapon.

*Not sure how to do a zero-based budget? I wrote a full beginner guide — [link to Post 2].)*



Step 3: I picked a payoff method and stuck to it

There are two main debt payoff strategies that actually work. You've probably heard of both.

The Avalanche method: Pay minimums on all debts. Throw every extra dollar at the debt with the highest interest rate first. Mathematically optimal; you pay the least interest overall.

The Snowball method: Pay minimums on all debts. Throw every extra dollar at the smallest balance first regardless of interest rate. Psychologically optimal; you get wins faster, which keeps you motivated.

I used the avalanche method because I'm stubborn about math. But here's the honest truth: the best method is the one you'll actually stick to for 1-3 years. If seeing small balances disappear keeps you going, do the snowball. The difference in total interest paid is real but smaller than you think; and worth nothing if you quit. The caveat here is if you have a very high interest credit card, that can do long lasting and meaningful damage, so fixing/eliminating that and/or its balance should really be your top priority. You can then pick your strategy from there.

I listed my debts in payoff order. I set up automatic minimum payments on everything. Every single month, every extra dollar went to the top target.

When that debt was gone, I moved to the next one. And the next. This is the part they call "the debt snowball effect" even in the avalanche method; as each balance clears, the minimums you were paying on it get rolled into your attack fund, which grows. Progress accelerates over time. It’s almost like compound interest in reverse :) You will find yourself looking for ways to pinch and save that little bit extra, its almost gamification of your debt payoff. More on that in the next section.

What to do: List your debts in either interest-rate order (avalanche) or balance order (snowball). Pick one. Automate your minimums. Attack the top one with everything extra.


Step 4: I found extra money — but not the way influencers tell you to

Everyone will tell you to start a side hustle. Sell your stuff. Drive for Uber.

I'm not going to tell you that's bad advice. Extra income helps. But I want to be honest about the other side of that coin: most people who are already working full time and managing debt don't have a lot of spare capacity for a second job. The additional pressure, time and energy drain to hustle your way out of debt can make you feel like the problem is that you're not working hard enough; rather than that you just need a better system.

The extra money I found came mostly from the budget.

When I actually tracked where my money was going; not guessing, actually tracking, I found spending I'd completely lost awareness of. Subscriptions I'd forgotten. Habits that had gotten too expensive or frequent without me really noticing. Spending patterns that looked fine individually when considered inside the vacuum I had created but collectively added up to a lot.

I cut ruthlessly but not joylessly. I kept the things that actually mattered to me. I cut the things that didn't. I freed up a few hundred dollars a month. That was my accelerant.

If a side hustle is realistic for you, great! Add it. But don't let the absence of one be the reason you don't start.

What to do: Go through your last 3-6 months of bank and credit card statements. Categorise every transaction. Find the spending that surprises you. Cut one category that doesn't actually make your life better. Every bank I’ve come across allows you to export to csv file. Now, times have changed since I did this. I went line by line, and i highly recommend this approach, as it makes you relive and feel that expense, purchase, meal, or knick knack that was purchased. With AI, you can now chat GPT that shit, categorize it, group it , colour code it and do trend analysis…This also allows you to go back further for a larger representative sample. If you choose that route, promise me to take the time, and review the transactions. I created a plug and play spreadsheet to help you here: Zero based budget


Step 5: I dealt with the setbacks

I want to be honest about this part too because nobody talks about it.

There were months it went wrong. An unexpected car repair. A heavy phone bill. A month where the budget just didn't hold. Times when I moved backward instead of forward.

Every single one of those moments felt like proof that I couldn't do it. That the plan wasn't working. That I should just give up and go back to ignoring the statements.

Here's what I actually did: I took a breath. I recalculated. I kept going.

The secret to paying off debt over multiple years isn't that you execute the plan perfectly every month. It's that when you fall off, you get back on. The people who pay off debt aren't the ones who never have setbacks. They're the ones who don't let a bad month become a bad year. Like working out, consistency is key.

What to do: Build a small emergency fund before you aggressively pay off debt, even $500–$1,000 is enough to stop a setback from destroying your plan. When something goes wrong (and it will), treat it as a one-month pause, not a failure. Replenish emergency fund and rock on.


What I wish I'd known

Looking back, there are a few things I'd tell past-me:

The beginning is the hardest part, not because the math is hard, but because progress is invisible for a long time. Keep going. It compounds.

Your debt is not a moral failing. It's a financial situation. Situations can be changed.

The people who tell you it's simple "just stop spending money you don't have!,” have usually never been in a position where that felt impossible. Their advice isn't wrong, it's just incomplete. What you need is the system, not the lecture.

Finally: the day the last balance hits zero is one of the best days you'll have. Not because the number is magic, but because of what it means. It means you decided to change something hard, and you actually did it.

I did it. You can too.


*Ready to start? Grab the free budget starter guide, it's the first step I recommend to everyone. [Link to lead magnet page]*

*Next read: [Zero-based budgeting for beginners →]*