How We Paid Off $15,000 Of Credit Card Debt Using Coupons

If I can guess what you're thinking (which you should be warned... I am a mom so that makes me a partial mind reader) then you're probably kinda curious what coupons there are laying around to help you pay off your credit cards, right?

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that's not how this works.

But before I explain how it DOES work, I've gotta give you a quick back story. You see, in 2009 when the economy took a large downturn, my husband, James, received a large pay cut. Unfortunately, we already had a couple thousand dollars of credit card debt at the time so things were tight.

In other words, we were faced with a hard choice to make:

Buy Groceries OR Pay Our Mortgage.

I felt like a complete failure.

Correction: WE felt like complete failures. 

Oh, did I forget to mention that I am an accountant by trade so I should know better? Yeah, there's that accounting degree from the University of South Florida and those 5 years experience working as a Senior Financial Analyst for an International Healthcare Company.

To make a long story really short: Because I love math, I learned how to strategically use coupons to pay for our groceries and everyday expenses so that I could then use our cash to pay off our debt.

It took us 3 years to do so.

$15,000 of credit card debt paid off in 3 years with tiny little $1-$5 increments.

But you know what we truly credit helping us pay off that debt so quickly?

Not the coupons. (Nope... they were just one of the fuels that got us to the final destination)

Nope, what truly helped us pay off that debt was what every person has the power to do with a simple marker and a blank piece of paper: SET A GOAL.

Yes, you read that right.

We took a sharpie out and we looked at each other and we wrote down the total dollar amount of our debt.

And then we stared at that blasted paper each and every day on the front of our refrigerator. (Although over the Christmas holiday we'd tape the sheet to the back side of a frequently opened kitchen cabinet to hide it from extended guests... no one wants to explain hundreds of times why you've got a 5 figure number hanging on your refrigerator in angry colors.)

Want a bowl of ice cream, hun? > > sees debt goal on front of fridge< <

Daggone debt keeping us from going to Cold Stone Creamery to get yummy "mix-ins".

Anyone want some popcorn?  > > sees debt goal on way to pantry to get popcorn < <

Man, the movie theater popcorn tastes SO much better than this Orville Redenbacher stuff I just burned in the microwave. Dang! I can't wait to get this debt paid off for GOOD so we can go to the movies whenever we want.

Every couple months we'd recalculate the number and we'd cross off the big number and write the new, smaller, one.

I wish I had held on to that paper to show you. But it felt so good when we had paid off our debt and James and I set that paper on fire in a family bonfire one night. And then we roasted marshmallows I got for free, using coupons.

Now, obviously, coming up with $15,000 takes more than writing a goal on a piece of paper.

That's what we learned in the 3 years paying off the debt.

And I have good news for you: you don't have to use coupons to pay off debt (I've figured out easier ways for you to do it!).

Do you have debt? Maybe you have student loans or a car payment (I respect that kind of debt so much more than the stupid credit card debt we had).

Are you ready to take action and get rid of your debt?

Because I've got one super simple math equation that'll help you have more money left over at the end of the month:

No Debt Payments = More Money Left Over Each Month!

And you'll pay off that debt so so so so SO much faster, if you rip off that band-aid, calculate the damage, and write the number down in a mean angry color that you can ATTACK WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT.

I've got some super pretty (and FREE!) Printable Goal Sheets to help you do that today. Click here and I'll email them to you for free.

WHAT CAN I HELP YOU WITH FIRST?

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