I mentioned in my 2013 recap post that we had recently ticked off the major financial goal of paying off my student loans. HOORAY! I received a few emails asking questions about how we did this, so I thought it would be a perfect topic for our first Marvelous Money post of the new year! Let me make the requisite disclaimer here that this is simply me sharing my experience. I’m also assuming that you’re starting from a place of paying all of your bills on time. Debt can be complicated and scary, so if you’re in over your head, I would highly recommend seeking the advice of a financial professional. I wanted to start by briefly addressing why paying off debt is a worthy goal. With it being the New Year, a lot of people are talking about this right now (which is awesome!), but if paying off debt is just something that sounds good, it’s easy to lose heart when you’re slogging through the often long and tedious process. There’s power in understanding the why. Remember that aside from reducing the amount you’ll spend in interest over your lifetime, the real goal of paying off debt is to move one step closer to financial freedom — and when you’re financially free, you have more independence, more security, and more options in almost every part of your life. Let’s begin! I’m going to start with a little background on our situation, and then share a few techniques we’ve used over the last four years. From the beginning of 2010 (shortly after we graduated) we’ve had five financial goals. We tackled them roughly in this order, though all have been ongoing: 1. Fully funding our emergency fund 2. Fully funding our wedding contribution 3. Fully funding a house down payment