There's this moment when you realize you're in really big debt.

And we're not talking about like 200 bucks. Oh no I bought some shoes kind of debt.

We're talking about serious debt.

I remember standing in our kitchen seeing the, it a letter oh I don't sell a very good letter

not a good letter at all that's Tony Gardner what he's talking about is a letter

he got about his student loans Tony's and and his wife Maritus. They had racked up about

$40,000 in debt. They had recently got out of college. They had a couple of kids. They were

going to have more. And they felt really kind of hopeless about the whole situation.

And just feeling like how are we going to do this?

How are we going to pay for our student loan debt on the money that we were making at the time

and still get by.

And that's the thing about really big debt, right?

I mean, it feels terrible, but it also feels just like,

I am never gonna be able to pay this off.

It's gonna take like 20 years.

But there are ways you can climb out of it.

We climbed a big steep mountain.

We didn't think we were going to be able to do it.

There was lots of times that we wanted to do it. It was hard and it's worth it.

This is your NPR Life Kit for getting out of debt. In this episode, Extreme Debt Reduction Strategies.

I'm Chris Arnold that cover personal finance

and consumer protection.

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