Episode 283- Sylvia's Journey To Paying Off 6 Figures of Law School Debt & Becoming Financially Independent REWIND
Journey To Launch
Jamila Souffrant
4.9 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 17 August 2022
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sylvia accrued six-figures of debt from law school and her life was greatly impacted by Hurricane Katrina while living in Louisiana. With discipline, determination, and the help of financial books such as Your Money or Your Life, Sylvia made the decision to take control of her personal finances. She took on a side-gig as a pizza delivery driver to bring in an extra $2,000 a month and adopted a frugal lifestyle to aggressively tackle her debt. Today, Sylvia has paid down a majority of her student loan debt, owns her own law firm, and is about 3 years away from Financial Independence.
In this episode we discuss:
- Sylvia's story of how she accrued six-figures in debt
- How she used a side-gig and a plan to pay off her student loans
- How she managed her finances and saved without an actual budget
- Why she continued to invest with a significant amount of debt
- Her big move to Seattle
- Her plans after retirement
- Her current investments
- The difference between a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) and actual real estate investment
- How her family has affected her decisions on the journey to financial independence
Other related blog posts/links mentioned in this episode:
- Bigger Pockets
- Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez
- My interview with Vicki Robin, the co-author of Your Money or Your Life
- Automatic Millionaire by David Bach
- The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke by Suze Orman
- Check out my new personal website here.
- Join The Weekly Newsletter List
- Leave me a voicemail– Leave me a question on the Journey To Launch voicemail and have it answered on the podcast!
- Watch me on News12 Watch my latest segments on News12
- YNAB – Start managing your money and budgeting so that you can reach your financial dreams. Sign up for a free 34 days trial of YNAB, my go-to budgeting app by using my referral link.
Connect with me:
- Journey To Launch Instagram
- Journey To Launch Twitter
- Journey To Launch Facebook Page
- Join the private Facebook Group
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Rental real estate is just a good way to be able to extract more cash with less money. |
| 0:09.1 | Let's say you can buy a house for $100,000 and rent it out for $1,000 a month. |
| 0:17.0 | That is basically a 12% cash on cash return, not including expenses. |
| 0:23.7 | It just gives you a better way to get better returns than your money would traditionally |
| 0:29.0 | get every year in the stock market and it gives you a little bit more control over it. |
| 0:33.8 | Welcome to the Journey to Launch Podcast with your host, Jamila Sufrat, as a money expert |
| 0:42.3 | who walks her talk. |
| 0:43.8 | She helps brave juniors like you get out of debt, save, invest and build real well. |
| 0:51.0 | Join her on the Journey to Launch to Financial Freedom in 5-on-4-3-2-1. |
| 1:00.0 | Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, journeyers, welcome to the Journey to Launch Podcast. |
| 1:07.4 | I am sharing with you another oldie but goodie episode that I released way back in the |
| 1:12.7 | day. |
| 1:13.7 | This was originally episode 47 with Sylvia and so if you're an OG journeyer who has been |
| 1:18.5 | listening from the beginning, then you may remember this episode but if you're totally |
| 1:22.6 | new, then you're going to love hearing Sylvia's story. |
| 1:25.9 | She was actually one of my favorite interviews that I've done, I mean, I've done so many |
| 1:30.3 | great interviews but I really do love talking to people who are literally in the middle |
| 1:35.3 | of the journey or even towards the end but they don't have a book, they don't have a blog, |
| 1:40.0 | they're just people living their lives, doing things extraordinary and even, you know, ordinary |
| 1:45.8 | things that have extraordinary results. |
| 1:48.2 | I feel like those are the most impactful for hopefully you listening because you listening |
| 1:52.9 | right now, you know, maybe you're not a blogger or you don't have a course or you're not, |
... |
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