March 2020 $77,339 Debt Payoff Journey

Eighteen months ago, my husband and I sat down and added up a number we’d been avoiding for years: $116,000 of debt. This march 2020 77339 debt payoff journey update is the story of how we paid off $77,339 of it — and the two big lessons (budgeting and keeping an emergency fund) that made it possible right when the world turned upside down.

When we got serious back in September 2018, our combined income was $120,000–$130,000 a year. Do the math and you’ll see the absurdity: we owed nearly an entire year’s gross earnings. We’d been telling ourselves the minimum-payment story for years — put it on the card, pay the minimum, repeat — while the balances quietly piled up around our necks. This month, with $77,339 paid off and $38,661 remaining, I want to share exactly what worked, because the month of March 2020 taught us lessons I never expected.

Facing the $116,000 Monster

You cannot fight what you refuse to look at. The very first step of this debt payoff journey was writing down every single debt we owed — all fifteen accounts — from smallest balance to largest. It was terrifying and, honestly, freeing. Here’s what our starting inventory looked like:

Eight credit cards. One car loan. Two medical loans. Two student loans. Two personal loans. Today, after eighteen months of the debt snowball, only two remain: one student loan and one family personal loan. If you’re earlier in your own journey, my January 2020 debt payoff update shows what the month before looked like, and the February 2020 update covers the month before that.

Why We Kept Our Emergency Fund First

A coworker first pointed my husband toward Dave Ramsey’s teachings, and we devoured his podcast for months. We were motivated — but we deliberately did not follow the baby steps in order, and March 2020 proved that was the smartest decision we ever made.

Ramsey’s plan says: save a small starter emergency fund, then throw everything at debt, and only afterward build 3–6 months of expenses. We did the opposite. We went into this debt payoff journey with a couple of months of expenses already saved in a high-yield savings account, and we held onto it the entire time. You can read about the baby steps framework on Dave Ramsey’s site to see the order we deviated from.

Then COVID-19 hit. Millions of people couldn’t work — including, temporarily, me. If we’d poured every spare dollar into debt and kept nothing in reserve, we’d have been stuck with no cushion during the scariest economic moment of our lives. Instead, our savings sat there quietly doing its job while we kept attacking the debt. If you take one thing from this march 2020 77339 debt payoff journey, let it be this: never throw all your money at debt without a real emergency fund behind you. Aim for 2–6 months of expenses. The future is genuinely unpredictable, and your plan should admit that. My guide to building an emergency fund fast walks through how we stacked ours.

The Zero-Based Budget That Changed Our March 2020 77339 Debt Payoff Journey

I had tried budgeting before this debt payoff journey and never got it. Then I learned zero-based budgeting, and it clicked: every dollar of income gets a job — spending, saving, or debt — until income minus expenses equals zero on the plan (not your bank account). Here’s a simplified version of what ours looked like each month:

The magic isn’t the math — it’s the awareness. When every dollar is assigned, you see exactly where money leaks. You think twice before the impulse purchase. And at month’s end, any “extra” that shows up has a default destination: debt. If budgeting still feels intimidating, my beginner’s budgeting guide breaks the zero-based method down step by step.

Attacking the List With the Debt Snowball

With our list sorted smallest to largest, we aimed every extra dollar at the smallest debt first while paying minimums on everything else. When the smallest died, its payment rolled into the next one — the snowball growing with every kill. This march 2020 77339 debt payoff journey is proof the method works on a massive scale: $77,339 gone in 18 months, roughly $4,300 a month on average. That’s the engine that drove our march 2020 77339 debt payoff journey to $77,339 paid off.

Mathematically, attacking the highest interest rate first saves more. Psychologically, the snowball wins for most people — every paid-off account is a victory that fuels the next one. I’ve broken down the evidence in my post on whether the debt snowball really works. For us, those early wins — killing the $1,400 card, then the $1,800 medical loan — were the fuel that carried us through the boring middle months.

Finding $5,279 in a Single Month: March 2020 77339 Debt Payoff Journey

Here’s the March breakdown. Careful budgeting surfaced $3,610 in overage — money left unspent against the plan. Combined with our $1,669 debt snowball rollover (the accumulated payments from already-killed debts), we threw $5,279 at the remaining balances in one month.

Where did the $3,610 come from? Two places: our combined tax return and a temporary job assignment I picked up on one of my days off. The tax return is the part I want to highlight. Most people treat refunds as fun money — a vacation, a shopping spree. We sent ours straight to debt, and it was one of the biggest single payments of the entire journey. A windfall only changes your finances if you aim it at something that matters.

That $5,279 payment brought our total paid to $77,339, leaving $38,661 across the final two accounts. Two-thirds of a $116,000 mountain, gone.

Cutting Costs During the Shutdown

March 2020 was also the month everything shut down, so we went hunting for savings in every budget category — the same categories I’d recommend to anyone. We shopped our car and home insurance for cheaper quotes, looked for a lower-cost phone plan, and cut our grocery spending by planning meals around sales. My full list of money-saving tips to start now has the complete playbook.

The single biggest win: my student loan. The required payment was about $400 a month, and I called the servicer to ask for a forbearance because of COVID-19. They paused required payments for 3–4 months and waived all interest during that window. That’s $1,200–$1,600 of breathing room plus months of interest saved, from one phone call. If you have student loans, it is always worth asking what hardship options exist — and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has clear, unbiased explainers on your rights as a borrower. Every dollar of that breathing room went straight back into our march 2020 77339 debt payoff journey.

Earning Extra Money Without Leaving Home

With stay-at-home orders spreading, the safest side income was already inside our house: stuff collecting dust. Clothes with tags still on, old electronics, shoes we never wore, kitchen gadgets from long-abandoned hobbies. We listed them on resale marketplaces and turned clutter into debt payments without putting anyone’s health at risk.

If you’ve already decluttered, my roundup of easy ways to make extra money every month has more ideas that work from home. The principle is the same one that powered our whole march 2020 77339 debt payoff journey: extra income is a tool, and debt is the job you hand it.

What I’d Tell You If You’re Starting Today

If you’re staring at your own six-figure monster, here’s my honest advice after eighteen months in the trenches:

1. Write down every debt first. The number is just a number. You can fight a number; you can’t fight a vague feeling of dread.
2. Build the emergency fund before you go scorched-earth on debt. Two to six months of expenses. March 2020 is all the proof you’ll ever need.
3. Run a zero-based budget every single month. It’s the engine of the whole operation — nothing else works without it.
4. Pick the snowball and trust it. Smallest first. Roll every freed payment forward. Don’t renegotiate with yourself mid-stream.
5. Aim every windfall at debt. Tax refunds, bonuses, stimulus checks, sold clutter — debt first, fun later. Later comes sooner than you think.

For the full starter framework, my post on how to get out of debt with 5 tips condenses the strategy into its essentials. It’s the same playbook that powered our march 2020 77339 debt payoff journey from $116,000 of debt to $77,339 paid off.

This march 2020 77339 debt payoff journey isn’t over — $38,661 remains, and we’re coming for it the same way we took the first $77,339: one budget, one snowball payment, one month at a time. If we could climb out of $116,000 while the world shut down around us, you can start climbing out of yours today. The monster in the closet is always smaller once you turn the light on.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much debt did you pay off in the March 2020 update?
By the end of March 2020, we had paid off $77,339 of our original $116,000 in debt over 18 months, leaving a remaining balance of $38,661 across our final two accounts.

How long did it take to pay off $77,339 of debt?
Eighteen months — from September 2018 to March 2020. That averages about $4,300 per month, achieved through zero-based budgeting, the debt snowball method, and directing windfalls like tax refunds straight at the balances.

What is the debt snowball method?
The debt snowball means listing all your debts from smallest balance to largest, paying minimums on everything, and throwing every extra dollar at the smallest debt first. When it’s paid off, you roll its payment into the next smallest debt — the “snowball” grows with each account you kill.

Should you keep an emergency fund while paying off debt?
Yes — this journey proved it. We kept 2–6 months of expenses in savings the entire time instead of throwing everything at debt, and that cushion carried us when COVID-19 disrupted work in March 2020. Always build your safety net before going all-in on debt payoff.

What is a zero-based budget?
A zero-based budget assigns every dollar of your monthly income a job — spending, saving, or debt payments — so that income minus planned expenses equals zero on the plan. It forces you to account for all your money and reveals exactly where extra dollars for debt can come from.

Emily Carter

Emily Carter is the founder and editor of Her Everyday Nest. After nine years of renting in five apartments across three cities, she's learned how to make any rental feel like home.