As you may know, I’ve been paying my student loans aggressively for the past year now. While there will always be room for improvement, I’m proud of the progress I’ve made so far. I went from a six-figure debtor to a five-figure debtor exactly one year since I started my loan payments.
While I consider my frugal habits to be the number one reason for why I was able to put $73,000 into loan payments in one year, I also have to be honest.
I have made splurges. But it’s something I’m not ashamed of. In fact, I think everyone should reward themselves.
Splurges sometimes get a bad name, especially in the debt repayment community.
Why are you spending money anywhere else but your loans?
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Well, I would argue that planned splurges are actually good things and can motivate you even more.
For me, the worst things that can happen during a debt payoff journey is to get complacent or burn out while paying backdebt. For a period of two months, I actually did get complacent. I wrote about it and how I overcame a setback to get back to paying off my debt.
To prevent burnouts, I do a couple of things while paying off my debt. One of the most important things I do is to reward myself after every accomplishment, and this applies to my personal life outside of paying off my debt as well.
For example, even when I was a broke student in graduate school, I made sure to reward myself during the breaks after finishing final exams with out-of-state trips whether it was to New York, Florida, or California. The splurges I made were well worth it. It rejuvenated my mind and body so I would be ready to start the new semester fresh.
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When I finally started working full-time I splurged and bought myself a nice Tory Burch purse (on a Black Friday sale).
And now that I’ve managed to become a five-figure debtor, I rewarded myself with a new tablet (also discounted from Amazon Prime Day sale) and a new Longchamp work bag.
How to Use Reward as Motivation
So many people end up discouraged and stop their debt repayment journey when they realize they have been “missing out” on life in their efforts to pay off their debt. But by rewarding yourself as you continue to repay your loans, it will give you the motivation to continue.
Rewards serve as a goal to work towards. Forexample, I had been wanting a Longchamp bag for a couple months now but by telling myself that it would be my reward once I lowered my debt to under $100,000 I became super pumped and motivated to cut down unnecessary purchases.
Instead, I used all my extra cash to put down more payments towards my loans. And once that goal was accomplished I could get what I really wanted.
So really, using rewards as a strategy in repaying your debt is like killing two birds with one stone. By choosing your reward, you make a conscious decision in picking what it is you truly want. So you disregard unnecessary purchases.
But the only way to get this reward is by paying down your loans.
This creates a goal to work towards. So now you are extra motivated to pay down your loans so you can get your reward. At the end of the day, you not only pay your loans faster but you also pinpoint (and get) what it is you really want.
All my splurges, in general, were less than $200 with the exception of my travel trips. As you can see, splurges don’t need to be expensive. I also still cared about the price point, making sure to buy most of my splurges on sale.
Most importantly, I allowed myself to make these purchases without feeling any guilt. While my goal will always be to pay my student loans off aggressively, I refuse to do it at the expense of my happiness and well-being.
While I curb my spending on eating out and buying my “wants”, I still allow myself social time with friends and family, going out to restaurants and buying things that I want. I just make sure to limit myself and stay within budget.
I am confident that it was because I allowed myself this balance of aggressive debt payments while still enjoying mylife that I have been successful in making loan payments without burning out.
