How to get out of debt quickly — Money EmpowHER (2024)

How I paid off all my business debt in 1 month + why I won't get be getting back into it.

A conversation on the dirty d word in the entrepreneur world: the shame, the anger, and the fear… I'm talking about it.

If you are going to be an entrepreneur you have to be ready to deal with lots of THIS.

Know your money, watch your money.

It is NOT easy, it will take you to sh*t level of feelings and it will make you feel amazing, but get this right.. it is not EASY. Stop in your head.. trying to make this EASY. You need a level of mental stamina + emotional stability to KEEP going.

This is for someone who is already in debt and your debt is stopping you from moving forward in any PART of your life.

In 2017 I made investments into my business that didn't pay off right away, and honestly they probably could have, but because I was in such fear, or worry or doubt or anger.. I then turned that investment inwards towards myself + a little bit outside myself, anger towards people rising up after me, anger towards the industry.... That lasted for 8 MONTHS GUYS. 8 FREAKING MONTHS.

Once I turned my relationship with money on it's head, I let go of the anger + the shame + the fear and I just went full force towards my dreams, even with my debt.

That lead me to paying off my debt in 1 month, paying a business coach in full, not creating anymore debt for myself (I made another $12K in investments), and completely changing my life + out look on money.

Shame, fear, anger: How those emotions kept my debt in the dark because I did not face it.

• I used to find myself getting angry about growing up poor and having to take out student loans that my friends didn’t.

• I used to get angry about having to work 2 jobs while I was in college to pay for things that my friends never had to worry about (things like car payments, car insurance, gas, text books, food, etc).

• I used to feel angry that money was always harder for me than it was for other people. I used to get angry even about the investments I made in myself when I first started my business but now when I look back at that woman, I don't get angry with her.

She was just seeing the bigger vision for her and saying YES.

She said YES to college (and I became the first person in my family to have a college degree). She said YES to starting her first business (that I went on to sell before 30th birthday).

I learned that the empowerment around money came from creating the money and finding the money. That's where I found myself feeling powerful towards the next steps for my life.

Before I was able to pay off $9,500 of debt I got to a point where I said go ahead debt take me all the way down! I don't give a sh*t because I'm going to pay off my debt this year. I discovered this part of me where I can have complete confidence in where I was going and really truly feel it and mean it.

Once I had this complete confidence I was able to feel powerful around money, I wasn’t going to let it control me anymore.

For a long time I was allowing money to have complete control + complete power of me. Right now as you’re reading this MONEY might be making you feel shame, anger, or fear but GIRLLLL, the only person making you feel those things are YOU.

Now how you find the money: create the money: that is entirely up to YOU, but do take responsibility for how you find or create the money.

If you put your debt on a credit card, take responsibility.

If you had to take a massive student loan, take responsibility.

Take responsibility for your decisions + actions that will allow you to not feel like money has all the power in your relationship with money.

What you did was not wrong or the worse thing ever, you saw an opportunity for you to step up and become a higher version of yourself, you took it, and your investment hasn't paid off… YET.

If you get a 2nd job, take responsibility.

If you do freelance work, take responsibility .

Moral of the story: take responsibility for every penny you spend and make, a majority of is all up to you and your choices

Know that number that you said yes to, that means getting very comfortable with your debt. I used to hide from my credit card, not looking at it that much, sometimes being shocked at how much debt I had.. but once I started to look at my money and take responsibility for it, everything changed. My heart racing when I looked at my accounts slowed down or that anxiety that kept me up at night wondering how I could ever ahead.. started to subside.

I realized there was choice in my life.

SHAME CAN NOT LIVE IN THE LIGHT, if you keep your shame of your debt in the dark, it will continue to LIVE.

• Write down your number of DEBT RIGHT NOW.

• I want you to know that number inside and out.

Your debt can be around business, college, personal, etc. Stop strangling your past self + his/her decisions, take full responsibility for the decisions you have made in the past, and love yourself for making those decisions.

PPSSSTTT: I wrote this journal that helped me to uncover all the icky sticky money beliefs and thoughts I was having. It helped me to uncover all the true things I was really feeling about my debt and what was really holding me back from taking action to move forward with it.

There’s over 44 journal prompts here for you to explore and see what your relationship with money is REALLY like.

Grab it down below:

When I set out on a journey to pay my debt, the first place my mind goes to is:

What can I CUT?

Like most of you, when I look at my expenses, I’m not spending a significant amount on fun stuff.

If I did cut back that “fun stuff” I would only be adding $200 or $300 to my debt.

Instead of looking at small amounts of money I could put toward my debt and let’s be real

living a life paying off debt where I’M MISERABLe is 0% fun. I decided to focus on creating more income.

That lead me to switching my business model.

For you, it can be lots of different things:

• Ask for a raise

• Start a side hustle Etsy business

• Start a side gig: Uber, Instacart, Doordash

• Start a service base side business: managing social media, become a virtual assistant, become a coach

• Create a passive income product like a book or course that you make money from over and over

• Selling things! (I once sold my first business for $15,000 with a Craigslist post, you can read about that here).

When I needed to purchase my first car my one job just wasn’t cutting it. I asked a friend to give me a ride to her place where she worked so I could get a job bussing tables. While it wasn’t super fun to work 2 jobs, I knew it needed to be done so I could pay for the car that would get me the better job.

The point is that the opportunities to create more income are endless while cutting your expenses, just isn’t as fun right?

It’s like a fad diet, it won’t last.

Here’s what I did to focus on creating more income: I changed my business model:

1. I stopped selling things that brought me little amounts of money ( like 1 off sessions, intensives, small courses, anything below $1,000)

2. I focused on things that pulled in bigger chunks of money, like a $10,000 coaching package, (YES I was terrified to sell them).

   If you want to learn how to create and book out a $10,000 package with a small audience I have a courses here for 50% off for the next couple days.

3. I simplified my business budget to only things I needed to sell these $10, 000 packages (like I didn’t need to be going crazy with Facebook ads, I only needed to focus on my current audience) and I cut out any “fat” out of my budget, (fat = things that I wasn’t using as the time but classified as a some day expense. Like a membership to a program about creating courses.. but I wasn’t creating courses, get it?)

4. I simplified my personal budget but kept things that would help me feel good (like I allowed room for coffee and 1 massage a month)

Within 5 weeks I sold 3 $10,000 packages and made $14,946 cash within 5 weeks.

I had 1 client pay in full, 1 client go on a payment plan, another client go on a payment plan, and I had a couple payments come in from a course I sold the month before.

If you want to start selling $10,000 packages as a coach, here’s my course here that works you through step by step how I did it with a small audience.

And because I love you, here’s 50% off.

LOOK AT YOUR FREAKING MONEY but more importantly give your money DIRECTION.

I like to call it directing my money. Directing your money is the habit that will allow you to not go into debt EVER AGAIN. I am serious!

It was such a game changer when it came time to for me to get out of debt. Before paying down the $9500 I was already in the habit of directing and budgeting money so by the time I started receiving big chunks of money, I was able to allocate my money towards my debt but also not create more debt moving forward.

Directing my money also forced me to look at my debt over and over. Instead of acting like it didn’t exist, I was able to look at it, and plan for creating more income to pay it down.

But directing my money also helped me to make conscious choices about where I wanted my money to go without shame or guilt.

After I made $14,946 in 5 weeks, typically after a large chunk of money I would:

• put it all toward debt (and get into debt again the next month)

• spend it all on my business (that next investment I “needed” in order to keep these big chunks of money happening)

• Or go wild and spend a majority of it on myself (because I deprived myself of any spending the months before)

But after this time because I was in the habit of directing my money I knew exactly how I needed my money to work:

1. I needed to pay for the current months expenses

2. I needed to put money aside for the next months expenses so I can live a month ahead and not go into debt if something happens next month with my expenses or income (for example: a client not making her next payment)

3. Pay off $9500 of debt

4. Put money towards an assistant to help with the influx of clients and help me stay on top of my marketing

5. Pay myself

6. Set aside $1,000 for emergency expenses (<< This is what I should have done.. I did this after paying down my personal debt and it helped me tremendously)

If you establish this habit, you will never go into DEBT AGAIN.

It really isn't about the amount of money you're making if you don't know how to spend it + allocate it. Think about lottery winners, celebrities, or athletes. They make massive amounts of money and still a lot of them end up bankrupt.

Know where your money is going RIGHT NOW, even if you have none coming, even if you only have a little, even if your money is inconsistent.

Get into this habit RIGHT NOW, give your money direction RIGHT NOW, it needs direction or it will be spent aimlessly and you will feel powerless to money.

Here’s a quick video I made for you down below on 1 little trick you can use to get out of credit card debt and how you can budget your money with my You Need a Budget:

BONUS: CHANGING THE WAY I VIEW MONEY

If you can’t tell from how I started this blog post, me and money didn’t have the best relationship to start with. I always felt like a victim to it. I always felt there was never enough and it was always a struggle.

One day I even found myself saying to a friend out loud:

“I was born poor and I’ll always be poor”

It wasn’t even about trying to make money to be a baller or flashy, I just wanted to feel good about money. To feel good about the choices I was making with money and to feel stable with it. To know that I didn’t have to stress every time I opened my bank account.

Going on this journey with money lead me to looking at my debt + looking at my money forced me to start doing work on my money mindset, my money mindset became a non negotiable.

I started to discover all these beliefs I had about money and most importantly.. the thoughts, beliefs, and the attitudes I had towards people with money.

Consciously I wanted to be rich but subconsciously I thought the rich were assholes. So why would I ever want to become an asshole?!

I had a lot of work to do on the beliefs, ideas, and thoughts I was having around money in order to make more money and feel really good about it.

It all started by just asking myself questions, thinking about things from a different way than I usually do. I started wondering what successful thought about money, how did they think? What were their thoughts?

Then I put them into this cool journal, feel free to grab it below: