Ten Ways To Stay Motivated on a Long Debt Free Journey

When your debt free journey is going to take a long time—years even—it can sometimes be difficult to stay motivated throughout the process. Knowing it’s going to take years to get out of debt can sometimes be discouraging. There will be times during your journey you want to give up, go on a crazy spending spree, or just lose your passion for getting out of debt altogether. Hell, you may not even attempt to start because it just feels too hopeless.

Trust me, I’ve been there before.

We started aggressively paying off our debt in January 2017. At that time, we ran the numbers and sending an extra $1,000 to our debts each month wouldn’t leave us debt free for another 6 years. That was just too long for me. Somehow, I just felt we could make it happen in less time. And so I devised a three-year-plan to pay off $105K in student loan debt. The plan was half factually based and half faith based—since the numbers just didn’t add up. But, I just felt in my soul that we could do it in three if we worked our tails off and hustled with everything we had. Even though 3 years is decidedly less than 6, 3 years is still a long time to sacrifice, work extra, and do whatever it takes to become debt free.

And let me be completely honest and transparent here: this journey has been a LONG one, but it has been worth every sacrifice, every Saturday spent at the office logging extra hours, and every invitation I had to say no to.

Now that I’ve been on my debt free journey for almost 2.5 years, one question I get asked a lot is how to stay motivated when the debt free journey is going to be a long one. Here, I’ve compiled 10 tips to help you stay the course.

How to Stay Motivated on a Long Debt Free Journey

1. Use Visuals. When you can visually see you progress at a moment’s glance, it’s encouraging. There are tons of ways you can visualize your debt and your debt pay off progress. One of my favorite ways is making charts in Canva. Here are some of my favorite visuals I’ve made using the free desktop version of Canva:

But you don’t have to get all fancy with your visuals. Simply making a chart you can color in yourself with pencil and paper works too. Or you can download a free chart if you aren’t that creative in making your own. I love all the visuals from Debt Free Charts — and so many of them are FREE including this Debt Free Chart below!

One final way I love visualizing my debt is with the paper “Chains of Debt.” I made my own personal paper chains of debt a while ago, with each link representing $250 worth of my debt. I have LOVED watching the chains get smaller and smaller with every debt payment. Plus, we can get the kiddo on board with our debt free journey, because he knows once all the links are gone, we’re going to Disneyland!

2. Calculate Your Daily and Monthly Interest. This is an absolute must when you are beginning to pay off debt and creating a debt pay off plan. It’s even more important if you’re deep in the middle of your journey and have never done it before. Quite frankly, I probably should devote an entire blog post to why this is so important.

The amount of interest you are paying is something that is so critical to calculate—especially if you are on a reduced payment plan. If you’re on one of those plans, your monthly payment may be less than the interest that’s accruing. Which means not only will you NOT pay off your loan, the balance will actually INCREASE after making all those payments. Can you imagine making payment after payment after payment, and still end up owing MORE than you started with?!?!

When I first started my debt free journey, I was paying $431/month in interest or about $14.18 A DAY. That means I was throwing away $14 EVERY SINGLE DAY on nothing, due to interest. It also means that if my payments weren’t at least $431/month, I could pay my loans INFINITELY and they would never be paid off.

To calculate your daily or monthly interest, use this formula:

Loan balance x interest rate converted to a decimal (move the decimal 2 places to the left). Divide the answer by 12 for monthly interest or 365 for daily interest.

So, assume I have student loan debt of $90,000 with 5.626% interest. $90,000 X .05625 = $5,062.50. $5,062.5/12 = $421/month in interest or $5,062.50/365 = $13.87/day in interest.

Calculating this figure may just enrage you enough to spark your passion for paying off debt once again. At the very least, it will tell you the minimum you have to pay each month to make any traction on your loans.

3. Celebrate Small Wins. There are so many things worth celebrating along your debt free journey — and you should celebrate them! Paid off another debt? Celebrate! Finally got your total debt balance under $30K? Celebrate! Didn’t go over your grocery budget for the month? Celebrate! Don’t forget to look at all that you’ve accomplished during your journey! Focusing on all your wins during this journey (instead of looking at how much more there is left to do) will help you stay the course.

4. Surround Yourself With Like-Minded People. It can be hard to be successful on this journey when those closest to you just don’t get it. When you are being bombarded with expensive nights out or group vacations or when your decisions to be frugal are constantly being questioned and/or made fun of.

When you surround yourself with other people who get it, your motivation soars. That’s why I LOVE LOVE LOVE the #debtfreecommunity on Instagram. It is so inspiring to see other people killing it at debt pay off, or constantly working overtime to add to the debt snowball, or talking about their successes. It gets you fired up to do the same.

5. Keep Your Why Front and Center. There was a reason you began this journey. What was it? Write it down and keep it somewhere where you will see it often. Go back to your “why” often. Remember why you are working so hard to get in a better financial position and use that as motivation to push you forward.

6. Listen to Debt Free Screams. Seriously, I LOVE listening to debt free screams on the Dave Ramsey show. Listening to other people have success and hearing their stories of how they became debt free is so motivating! When you lose your passion for debt pay off, take a moment and force yourself to listen to these screams and imagine that being you!

7. Read (or re-read) The Total Money Makeover. If you haven’t read it, The Total Money Makeover is seriously a life changing read in the world of personal finance. It outlines the “baby steps” to achieving financial freedom (see them above) and gives you an action plan to get there. The book is full of stories of those who have successfully completed the program and they tell how getting out of debt has completely changed their lives. Reading this book (or re-reading it) may just be the encouragement you need to keep pushing through.

8. Scroll Instagram for Your Favorite Debt Free Accounts that are Actually Doing It. Again, I love the #debtfreecommunity on Instagram because these people are actually doing it. It’s one thing to have the knowledge about paying off your debt, to know what to do, but it’s a whole other story when you can follow along and actually see someone working the plan before your very eyes. It is so fun to follow along on other people’s journeys—especially when they started with mountains of debt and you can watch them become debt free right before your very eyes! It helps you realize that it CAN be done.

9. Dream About What Life Looks Like When You Are Debt Free. I love hearing about what people want to accomplish when they become debt free. Some want to quit their jobs, stay home with their babies, sail the world, or go climb Everest. Having the option to live a life you love is what debt free living is all about. So when you get discouraged, or lose your motivation, think about what your life will look like once this is all over. Whatever your debt free life looks like, it is worth the struggle and sacrifice and hard work it takes to get there.

10. Realize Motivation Has Nothing To Do With It. People always say things like “I’m just not motivated to do X.” Or, “I’ve lost my motivation to do Y.” And they use that lack of motivation as an excuse to do nothing. But you know what? The difference between those who get out of debt and those who don’t, isn’t that those who succeed are more motivated. Motivation literally has nothing to do with it. Regardless of your motivation level, there is one thing that will always drive your behavior: your level of discipline.

Stated another way: You will never always be motivated, so you must learn to be disciplined.

Being disciplined means you do that thing you know you are supposed to be doing even when you don’t feel like doing it. Working more overtime. Giving up eating out because “we have food at home.” Committing to stay within budget. Making a budget in the first place. Staying out of stores that encourage you to spend money. Saying no to that fancy vacation.

When you are disciplined, you do it even when you don’t feel like it.

When it comes down to it, you only need 2 things to be successful with money: (1) knowledge and (2) discipline. So forget motivation. Suck it up, and do it anyway. It won’t be forever, even though sometimes it may feel like it! You’ve got this!

RELATED: Ten Characteristics of Those Who Successfully Pay Off Debt Fast

What about you? Do you have any other tips for staying the course during a long debt free journey? Let me know in the comments below!