How I Paid Off $280K in Student Loans in 18 Months on a $65K Salary

Yes, I know the headline sounds like clickbait. I promise it's not. But I also promise the story is more complicated -- and more painful -- than any headline could convey.

I'm writing this because two years later, I still get DMs every single week asking me how I did it. People screenshot my LinkedIn post (which went semi-viral with 14K reactions) and ask if it's real. Financial influencers have called me everything from "inspirational" to "a liar" to "a dangerous example of toxic hustle culture."

So here it is. The full, unvarnished, spreadsheet-verified story. With receipts.

My Starting Point: $280,347.19 in Debt

I graduated from Georgetown Law in May 2024 with a JD and a debt load that made my stomach drop every time I opened my loan servicer app. Here's the breakdown:

No slides found. Use headings (#) to define slide titles.

I know. I know. You're already doing the math. "Sarah, $4,100 a month take-home and you averaged $16,523 in monthly payments? That's literally four times your salary."

You're right. My day job salary alone could never have done this. Not even close. That's the part most people miss when they share screenshots of my story. The salary was the floor, not the ceiling.

Background: Why I Was So Desperate

I grew up in a middle-class family in suburban Maryland. My parents are immigrants from Fujian, China. They ran a restaurant. They saved everything they could for my education, but "everything they could" covered undergrad (state school, scholarships helped) and about $12,000 toward law school.

Georgetown Law cost roughly $95,000/year when you factor in tuition, fees, books, and DC living expenses. I was there for three years. I took out federal Direct Unsubsidized and Grad PLUS loans for nearly all of it.

Why didn't I go to a cheaper school? I got into Georgetown with no scholarship. I also got into two T30 schools with partial scholarships. My career advisor, my parents, and frankly my own ego all said: "Georgetown opens doors." They weren't wrong about that. But those doors came with a $280K cover charge.

Why didn't I go into BigLaw? I tried. I did OCI (on-campus interviews) both years. Struck out. My grades were median. I didn't make law review. The firms that did call me back offered positions in practice areas I had zero interest in. Meanwhile, I'd been volunteering with an immigration legal aid nonprofit since 1L year, and they offered me a full-time position at $65K.

I took it because I believed in the work. And because PSLF (Public Service Loan Forgiveness) existed. My original plan was: work in public interest for 10 years, make income-driven payments, get the balance forgiven.

Then I ran the numbers on what 10 years of interest capitalization would look like. On a $280K balance at 6.5-7.9% weighted average interest, I'd pay over $180,000 in interest alone over that decade -- even with IDR payments. The forgiven amount would be taxable as income in many scenarios. The math was horrifying.

I decided: I'm going to kill this debt as fast as humanly possible.

Strategy 1: Extreme Budgeting (The "Live Like a Monk" Phase)

For 18 months, I did not live like a person earning $65,000 a year. I lived like a person earning $15,000 a year.

Monthly Budget Breakdown

That left roughly $3,140 from my base salary going straight to loans every single month. But $3,140/month would take 7.5 years to pay off $280K. I needed to 4-5x that number.

What Extreme Budgeting Actually Looks Like

I want to be honest about what this felt like, because the internet makes it sound simple.

• I ate rice and beans so often that the smell still triggers a mild stress response.
• I slept on an air mattress for 4 months because I refused to buy a bed frame.
• I said no to every happy hour, every birthday dinner, every "let's grab coffee" invitation. My social life essentially died.
• I showered at the gym (Planet Fitness, $10/month, listed under "misc") to save on hot water.
• I wore the same 5 outfits to work on rotation. Nobody at a nonprofit notices or cares, thankfully.
• I did not buy a single piece of new clothing for 18 months.
• I walked 40 minutes to the Metro instead of taking the bus to save $1.75 each way.

I am not recommending this. I'm describing what I did. There's a difference.

Strategy 2: Side Hustle Income (The Real Engine)

This is where the math starts to work. My side income averaged $9,800/month over the 18-month period. Some months it was $6,000. Some months it peaked at $14,000.

Side Income Breakdown (Monthly Averages)

Yes, you read that right. I was working approximately 40 hours of side hustles on top of my 40-45 hour/week day job. That's 80-85 hours of work per week for 18 months.

A Note About the Legal Research Income

I know $4,200/month in freelance legal research sounds high. Here's the context: I was doing substantive legal research and memo writing for small firms that couldn't afford full-time associates. I charged $75-125/hour depending on complexity. Georgetown's law library access (alumni privileges) gave me Westlaw and LexisNexis access, which was a massive competitive advantage.

I also want to be transparent: this income wasn't steady. Month 1 I made $800 from legal research. By month 6, I had three recurring clients and was making $5,000+. It took time to build.

A Note About LSAT Tutoring

I scored a 174 on the LSAT. That score, combined with the Georgetown name, made me marketable as a tutor. I charged $150/hour, which is actually on the lower end for private LSAT tutoring in the DC area. I typically had 4-5 regular students at any given time.

Strategy 3: Income Stacking (Salary Growth)

I didn't stay at $65K for the full 18 months.

• Month 1-6: $65,000/year at the immigration nonprofit
• Month 7-10: $74,000/year -- negotiated raise after taking on additional grant writing responsibilities
• Month 11-18: $82,000/year -- jumped to a different nonprofit (housing rights) with a higher budget

Each raise went 100% to loans. I didn't inflate my lifestyle by a single dollar.

Strategy 4: Debt Avalanche

I had seven separate loan disbursements with different interest rates. I used the debt avalanche method -- attacking the highest interest rate first while making minimums on everything else.

Loan Breakdown

The capitalized interest was the killer. Almost $70K in interest had accumulated during law school and the grace period because I had unsubsidized loans that started accruing interest immediately.

The Monthly Payment Tracker

Here's what my actual payments looked like, month by month. I tracked every dollar in a Google Sheet that I stared at like it was a sacred text.

*Month 18 includes a $42,000 lump sum. More on this below.

The Month 18 Asterisk

I need to address the elephant in the spreadsheet. That $56,500 in side hustle income for the final month includes $42,000 that came from a one-time event: I sold the LSAT prep course I'd been building on the side (video lessons, practice sets, study guides) to a small test prep company. I'd been building it in stolen hours over the preceding 6 months, and the sale closed in November 2025.

Without that sale, I would have paid off the loans in approximately 21-22 months instead of 18. Still aggressive, but that lump sum absolutely accelerated the timeline. I want to be upfront about that.

The Breaking Point

Month 9. September 2024. I almost quit.

I was working 82 hours that week. I had a catering gig on Saturday morning starting at 6 AM, two LSAT students back-to-back Saturday afternoon, a legal research memo due Sunday night, and my day job had a major immigration hearing on Monday that I'd been prepping for all week.

I was eating dinner -- rice and canned tuna, again -- at 11 PM on a Friday night, and I just started crying. Not gentle tears. Ugly, heaving sobs in the kitchen of an apartment I shared with three other people who were out living their lives.

I called my mom. She told me to come home. And I did.

I moved back into my parents' house in Columbia, Maryland for months 10-15. My rent dropped to $0 (my parents refused to take money). My food costs dropped because my mom insisted on cooking. This saved me roughly $600/month, which went straight to loans.

Yes, this is a privilege. A massive one. Not everyone has parents with a spare room and the willingness to take in their adult child while she works herself to the bone. I know that, and I'll address it more below.

During the months at my parents' house, I also had what I'd now describe as a depressive episode. I was sleeping 4-5 hours a night. I had constant headaches. I lost 15 pounds (not in a good way). My therapist (free through my employer's EAP -- 8 sessions) told me I was showing signs of burnout that bordered on clinical exhaustion.

I kept going. I'm not sure that was the right decision. But I kept going.

The Honest Privilege Check

I've been accused of leaving out my privileges. So let me list them explicitly:

1. No dependents. I'm 28, single, no children. Every dollar I earned could go to debt. This is arguably the single biggest factor.

2. Good health. I didn't have a medical emergency, a chronic condition flare-up, or a disability that limited my work capacity during these 18 months. This is luck, not merit.

3. Parents' house. Living rent-free for 6 months saved approximately $3,600 and gave me emotional support I desperately needed.

4. Georgetown network. My LSAT tutoring rate, my legal research clients, and the course sale all benefited from having a T14 law school on my resume. A graduate from a lower-ranked school might not command the same rates.

5. No car payment, no major recurring expenses. I didn't have a car loan, credit card debt, or other obligations competing with my student loan payments.

6. Timing. The freelance legal research market was strong in 2024-2025. I benefited from a moment when small firms were outsourcing work rather than hiring.

7. Physical ability. I could work 80+ hours/week because I was young and physically capable. This is not sustainable and I would not do it again.

8. Whiteboard math vs. real math. My story compresses 18 months of grinding into a tidy narrative. There were weeks where I made $200 in side income. There were months where nothing went right. The averages hide the variance.

If even two or three of these factors were different -- if I had a child, if I'd gotten sick, if I didn't have my parents' house -- this story would have a very different ending.

What I'd Actually Advise

Having done this, here's what I'd tell someone with massive student loan debt:

1. Don't do what I did. Seriously. The physical and mental toll was enormous. I'm still recovering. I have a complicated relationship with rest -- I feel guilty when I'm not productive, which my therapist says is a trauma response from this period.

2. But do get aggressive. Even if you can't go full scorched-earth, moving from minimum payments to 2-3x minimum payments makes an enormous difference over time.

3. Side income is the lever. If you're on a fixed salary, the budgeting side has a floor. You can only cut so much. But the income side has no ceiling. Even an extra $1,000-2,000/month dramatically changes the payoff timeline.

4. Use your professional skills. My biggest earner was leveraging my legal training for freelance work. Whatever your profession, there are probably freelance or consulting opportunities adjacent to it.

5. Track everything. My Google Sheet was my lifeline. Seeing the balance drop each month was the only thing that kept me motivated during the dark months.

6. Consider PSLF seriously. If I'd stayed at my first nonprofit for 10 years and gotten PSLF, I might have paid ~$100K total instead of ~$297K. But I would have had the debt cloud hanging over me for a decade. For me, freedom was worth the premium. Your calculation may differ.

7. Don't sacrifice your health. I did, and I regret it. There's a point where the marginal dollar isn't worth the cortisol it costs you.

Where I Am Now

It's been over a year since I made that final payment. I now earn $91,000 at the housing rights nonprofit. I have an emergency fund. I've started contributing to my 401(k). I go to restaurants with friends again.

But I still flinch when I see a loan servicer commercial. I still check my bank account compulsively. I still feel a knot in my stomach when I spend money on anything that isn't strictly necessary.

The debt is gone. The scars are still healing.

---

This article represents my personal experience and should not be taken as financial advice. Everyone's situation is different. What worked for me involved significant privilege, sacrifice, and luck. Please consult a qualified financial advisor before making major financial decisions.

All figures are from my personal records and tax returns. I've rounded some numbers slightly for readability but the totals are accurate to within ~$500.