413: Ditching $150K in 16 Months - How Arden Transformed Her Financial Future
The Clever Girls Know Podcast With Bola Sokunbi
Bola Sokunbi
4.8 • 931 Ratings
🗓️ 7 April 2026
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
New Book - Clever Girl Millionaire;
On this episode of the podcast, we're joined by Arden Missal, founder of She's Financially Free, to talk about how she paid off $150,000 in student loan debt in just 16 months—and completely transformed her financial future.
Rejecting the common advice to "take it slow," Arden went all in, working multiple jobs and making intentional short-term sacrifices to gain long-term freedom and control over her life. Now, she's on a mission to help women stop avoiding their finances and start building a life that feels calm, confident, and aligned.
In this conversation, Arden breaks down the mindset shifts, simple systems, and no-nonsense strategies that helped her achieve debt freedom—and how others can do the same without perfection or overwhelm.
What Arden Discussed on the Podcast:
-
Her financial journey and what led to launching She's Financially Free.
-
The decision to aggressively pay off $150,000 in student loan debt in 16 months.
-
The emotional and mental shifts required before financial progress could happen.
-
Practical tools, habits, and routines that kept her focused during her payoff journey.
-
Her income sources at the time and how she maximized them to accelerate debt repayment.
-
Limiting beliefs about money and self-worth she had to confront.
-
How debt influenced her decisions around work, lifestyle, and relationships.
-
Why many women feel stuck financially even when they're doing "all the right things."
-
One simple shift to start gaining momentum when dealing with overwhelming debt.
-
How becoming debt-free transformed her mindset, confidence, and long-term goals.
AND SO MUCH MORE
How to Keep Up With Arden:
-
Website: ShesFinanciallyFree.com
-
Free toolkit: ShesFinanciallyFree.com/StarterKit
-
Instagram: @shesfinanciallyfree1
More Clever Girl Finance Resources:
👋 New to Clever Girl Finance? Start here:
https://clevergirlfinance.com/start-here
❤ Get the best-selling Clever Girl Finance Books: clevergirlfinance.com/books
❤ Get access to 30+ free courses, worksheets, savings challenges, and our favorite banking resources: clevergirlfinance.com/course-packages
❤ Read the Clever Girl Finance Blog: clevergirlfinance.com/blog
❤ Follow us on Instagram: @clevergirlfinance
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey, Arden. Hi. Welcome to the Clever Girls No Podcast. I'm so glad you are here this morning with me. |
| 0:08.2 | I'm so happy to be here. And we're going to be talking about an incredible milestone accomplishment that you have achieved, which was how you paid off $150,000 in 16 months. First of all, that is incredible. So I'm |
| 0:24.5 | excited to talk about that and also how you navigated your mindsets and basically changed your |
| 0:30.7 | entire financial future by buckling down over those 16 months to get rid of this debt. |
| 0:37.4 | Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Clever Girls No podcast. |
| 0:41.3 | This is Bola Shokunbi. I'm the founder and CEO of Clever Girl Finance. |
| 0:46.1 | The Clever Girls No podcast is a podcast for women offering a space for conversations around |
| 0:51.0 | personal finance, business, life, and living. |
| 0:58.6 | I'd love for you to subscribe to this podcast, and you can do that everywhere you listen to your podcast episodes. |
| 1:00.2 | And if you love what you're listening to, be sure to leave a review so that other amazing |
| 1:04.4 | women just like you can find this podcast too. |
| 1:07.5 | Also, don't forget to stop by Clevergirlfinance.com forward slash subscribe and sign up for our weekly newsletter. |
| 1:14.6 | It's a great way to get motivation and accountability sent straight to your inbox as you work on achieving your financial goals. |
| 1:21.6 | We also have over 30 plus completely free courses to help you on your financial journey. |
| 1:26.6 | And if you haven't already, check out our YouTube channel. |
| 1:30.3 | Just search Clever Girl Finance on YouTube. |
| 1:33.5 | You can also find us on Instagram at Clever Girl Finance. |
| 1:37.1 | Okay, let's get into today's episode. |
| 1:40.7 | So before we dive into the details of your journey, please tell everybody listening who you are, what you do, and how your financial journey led you to starting your own business. |
| 1:52.6 | She's financially free. |
| 1:54.8 | Absolutely. |
| 1:55.7 | So my name's Arden Missal. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Bola Sokunbi, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Bola Sokunbi and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.