Welcome everyone to another episode of debt stories, real people beating debt and winning financially.

Today we meet Jonathan and Miranda of Springfield, Missouri.

He works in software development and she stays home with their four kids who are all under the age of five.

Together, they'd racked up nearly $52,000 in debt, and this is the story of how they paid it all off in just 21 months.

Let's go back to the beginning, shall we

Well, I didn't really think about money very much when I was a kid.

So that might explain a lot, I guess. My sister and I, we were the only two grandchildren. We just kind of coasted from birthday to birthday.

And so when I really started to learn about money management, that's actually when we got married.

Jonathan and Miranda married at the age of 20 when they were still college students and he recalls we talked

about what kind of goals we had and what we wanted to be able to do with our lives

pretty early on. Our lifestyles changed dramatically when we moved out of the dorms and had our own house and you know we

figuring out what

areas of strength and weakness we each had and what we brought to the table.

They were off to a great start. Couples who manage money together, well, they can pay off a whole lot of debt, which was a good thing.

Between the two of us, we had about just for under $52,000 in student loan debt.

Jonathan had graduated at the end of 2011,

and not long after Miranda became pregnant with their first.

She finished her degree at the end of 2013,

and they welcomed their second child into the world.

It was a whirlwind, and they knew that if they wanted to enjoy their new family it was time to face

their student loans so they did.

The debt has been entirely paid off since June of 2016. We paid it at about 21 months since we

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