Thanks for visiting! My name is Jessica, and I have been blogging since 2010 about student loan debt. All of my blog posts for the first 6 years were posted anonymously out of fear that my friends would find out about my debt (even though they had debt of their own). I was only writing to an audience of about 5 people: 4 strangers, and my mom. That is until I looked down at my phone one morning and saw an email from a CNN reporter asking me (only knowing my first name and alias email address) for an interview about my student loan pay-off journey. One of the 4 strangers that happened to be reading my blog was a CNN reporter. WHAT?! From that interview forward, I decided there was zero reason to hide in fear as over 6 years had passed since my first blog post, I was almost debt-free, and I was ready to OWN my story.
My first 2 years of college were free thanks to a full scholarship at the local community college where I grew up. I have always wanted to be in country music so in 2007-2008, I borrowed $68k to attend my last 2 years of college at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. Thanks to high interest rates and no way to refinance, after graduating, my student loans became a nightmare to repay. I never missed a payment, but I did indeed have to leave the music industry to find a better paying job using my degree in corporate America. In November of 2016, I made my last ever student loan payment. From the $68k I borrowed, I ended up paying a total of $113k back. Yep. That’s over $40k in interest. But I paid every dollar off in just under 7 years. Can you imagine the interest I would have paid if I would have kept those loans around for their full 25 year term?
Life is so free on the other side of debt. I created The Finance Kitchen as a place where everyone can pull up a chair at the kitchen table and openly, unashamedly discuss how together we can all burn the hell out of some debt and learn about all the different ways we can get that dough to rise!
I’m so glad you are here.
Press Features:
- Forbes: How This 29-Year-Old Paid Off $113,000 In Student Loans In 7 Years
- Forbes: Meet The 29-Year-Old Who Paid Off $113,000 In Student Loans: Part 2
- CNN Money: 4 steps to paying off $100,000 in student loans
- Wall Street Journal: Does It Pay to Start at Community College? Maybe
- Yahoo: Here’s the budget of a 29-year-old who finished paying over $100,000 of student loans
- Yahoo Finance: How a 29-year-old who’s paid more than $100,000 of her student loans created her monthly budget
- AOL Finance: A 29-year-old who paid off over $100,000 of student loans gives her 3 best pieces of debt-repayment advice
- The Balance: How One Grad Paid Off $113,000 in Student Loans Before 30
- Facebook Live Hosted by The Balance: We’re live with Jean Chatzky and college debt success story Jessica Elberfeld, who’s about to pay off $113K of debt by age 29
- Student Loan Hero: Find Out What This Woman Did to Pay Off $113,000 in Loans
- Kasasa: 5 debt-busting blogs to inspire your debt payoff journey
- IonTuition: Q&A Spotlight – Jessica from Oh These Student Loans
- VoiceAmerica Podcast: Paying Off Student Loans: One Student’s Story
- MSN: 7 smart choices real people made to get out of debt
- Saving With Spunk: 5 Single Bloggers Who Paid off Massive Amounts of Debt
- Business Insider: Here’s the budget of a 29-year-old who finished paying over $100,000 of student loans
- Business Insider: Jessica Elberfeld at her alma mater, Belmont University, in Nashville, Tennessee
- Business Insider: A 29-year-old who paid off over $100,000 of student loans gives her 3 best pieces of debt-repayment advice
- Business Insider: Best advice to pay student loans