#15 How Chris Paid Off $50,000 in 4 Years

11/25/19 • 23 min

Chris and his wife paid off $50,000 in 4 years plus find out if he thinks you should invest or pay off debt first.

Chris Browning is the creator and host of the award-winning, short-form podcast, Popcorn Finance. Each week he discusses finance with amazing guests in about the time it takes to make a bag of popcorn.

Chris holds a bachelor’s degree in Finance with an emphasis in financial planning and still maintains his position as a financial analyst specializing in revenue analysis.

Website: www.PopcornFinance.com
Social: Instagram/Twitter @popcornfinance

Resources mentioned:
Debt Snowball Bundle
Dollars and Sense by Dan Ariely(affiliate link)

Full transcript:

Welcome to the money mindset podcast where you will find the inspiration and motivation you need to manage your money better so you can stress less and live the life you want. I'm Ashley Patrick with budgets made easy and the money mindset podcast. Today we are talking to Chris Browning who is the creator and host of the award winning short form podcast, popcorn of finance. Each week he discusses finance with amazing guests and about the time it takes to make a bag of popcorn. He does hold a bachelor screen finance with an emphasis in financial planning and still maintains his position as a financial analyst specializing in revenue analysis. So today we are going to talk to him about his debt pay off story and also I did want to get his opinion on whether you should invest or pay off debt. And so we will jump into that here in just a minute before we start his interview.
I do want to mention, uh, for you to go get your free debt snowball bundle. This has worksheets and spreadsheets to get started on your debt snowball today. Uh, you can get that for free. A budget's made easy.com/debt-bundle. So go ahead and go grab that to get started on your debt snowball and paying off debt in this new year. And now we will talk to Chris about how he paid off almost $50,000 in about four years. All right. Today we are talking to Chris, the founder of popcorn finance. And today we're going to talk about his debt pay off story, which is pretty neat and how he loves tiny homes. So before we jump in and get started, can you just tell us a little bit about yourself and kind of, you know, about how you started on this journey?
Ah, yeah. Well thanks Ashley. I really appreciate you having me on. And uh, yeah, so about my, my journey, specifically my debt free journey or just the podcast journey in general,
uh, just about yourself in general and then how you started paying off. What, um, kind of motivated you to start paying off your debt.
Oh yeah. So, uh, for, for me, I didn't have a lot of debt growing up, so, you know, right out of college I got a small credit card, but it ended up paying that off relatively quickly, mainly because they wouldn't give me a high limit.
Yeah.
It's all kind of forced me not to be able to go that far into debt. But then when my wife and I, uh, got engaged and we were getting ready for the, uh, the wedding, that's kind of where the debt started to pile up. We didn't really have much saved up. And what ended up happening was when all the bills started rolling in, we had to take on himself. That's really the ourselves and it kind of spiral from there. So it was combination of a wedding. Dad went on a honeymoon, uh, getting into our first place, a behind furniture and some school and medical expenses, all that together, piled up and put us in about $27,000 worth of credit card debt.
Ooh. So did you have like an aha moment that was like the breaking point, you're like, something has got to change.
Yeah. You know, I, I knew that the debt was piling up. I wasn't really tracking it or adding it all up, but one day, I don't know why, I was just like, you know, let me just look at this and see where we're at. And that's what I saw, how high the balances got into, cause it was spread over about three cards. And that's when they kind of hit me. And it was, it was really the stress and anxiety of knowing that I had this huge sum of money that we owed. And at the time I think combined, we're making somewhere between 40 to $50,000 combined. And so our debt was over half of our actual income or our before tax income. So that's when the stress where they set in and I was like, we have to do something about this.
Wow. That. Yeah. That's pretty amazing. So, and you have a degree in finance, right?
Yes. And that made it all worse because I should have known better and I knew what I should be doing. But it's one thing to know and it's a completely different thing to actually implement those, those practices. And those, those, you know, routines in your life that'll he...

Chris and his wife paid off $50,000 in 4 years plus find out if he thinks you should invest or pay off debt first.

Chris holds a bachelor’s degree in Finance with an emphasis in financial planning and still maintains his position as a financial analyst specializing in revenue analysis.

Website: www.PopcornFinance.com
Social: Instagram/Twitter @popcornfinance

Resources mentioned:
Debt Snowball Bundle
Dollars and Sense by Dan Ariely(affiliate link)

Full transcript:

Previous Episode

#14 How to Budget for the Holidays

In this episode I will explain how to make your holiday plan so you can avoid debt.

Resources mentioned:
[Holiday Planner](www.budgetsmadeeasy.com/holiday-planner)
[7 Day Budget Challenge](www.budgetsmadeeasy.com/budget-challenge)

Next Episode

#16 Simple Ways to Make Money Online

Tom is a 23 year old recent college graduate from Canada with a passion for side hustling, passive income, and marketing. This Online World is all about providing people with honest ways to make and save more money by using technology.

Tom provides some simple and easy ways to make extra money to pay off your debt faster. He has some great tips for making extra money online and in real life.

Resources mentioned:
[Free Debt Snowball Worksheet](www.budgetsmadeeasy.com/debt-bundle)
4 hour Workweek (affiliate link)

Full transcript:

Welcome to the money mindset podcast, where you will find the inspiration and motivation you need to manage your money better so you can stress less and live the life you want. Actually with budgets mace easy in the money mindset podcast. Today we are going to be talking all about earning extra money easily and at home.
Just ways that creative ways that you can make some extra money so that you can pay off your debt a lot faster. So in order to get started on paying off your debt, you can get my free debt bundle. It's uh, forms and spreadsheets and worksheets to get started on your debt. Snowball. Good. A budget's made easy.com/debt-bundle. And today we are talking to Tom. He's a 23 year old recent college graduate from Canada with a passion for side hustling, passive income and marketing. So this online world is all about providing people with honest ways to make and save more money by using technology. So he has some really great ideas that you can do from home and you know, even some in rural areas, uh, you know, and things like that. So let's jump in to Tom's interview. Hey Tom, welcome. Thank you so much for joining us.
Hi Ashley. Thanks for having me on.
And before we jump in to different ways to make passive income and money online and all the things about, you know, making extra money so that you can pay off your debt. Uh, Tom, why don't you go ahead and just tell us a little bit about yourself.
Oh, absolutely. Uh, so yeah, I'm, I'm, my name's Tom, I'm a recent college grad. Uh, I went to school in Gwelf, which is a little town right outside of Toronto, Canada. Um, and I've been blogging for about almost two years now. And just, yeah, I have a pretty substantial interest in, uh, finding unique ways to make money online.
Yeah. And that's a question that I get asked a lot. You know, my audiences, a lot of moms and families and they, you know, they need to make extra money but they don't have a lot of time to make extra money. So finding something that they can do online, um, especially like passive income, you know, where you're not like actively trying to sell things and um, stuff like that is always a win. Um, you know, they, they want to pay off debt but they need to make some extra money to do that as well. So, um, what are some ways that, you know, somebody like that can make some extra money online without, you know, having to drag their kids to a babysitter and do all the things
right. Um, well I think the main thing to keep in mind, and this is kind of what I found, um, when I was in college and trying to make passive income or bits of income online, there's kind of two ways to go. I think a lot of the options out there, you can get started really quick. So you've probably seen a bloggers mentioned like survey apps or survey websites where you can answer surveys or even watch videos to earn bits of income and free gift cards. So that's actually how I got started. I stumbled across something on Reddit called phone farming back in the day. This was about, uh, two years ago. And the gist of it was, was using, um, a bunch of Android phones to watch videos on these reward apps. Um, and basically you would get these in-app credits that you could redeem and you'd get, you know, free Amazon gift cards or PayPal cash.
Um, and it was, it was a really slow earner. It probably made about $50 a month at its peak. Um, but you know, back in college, this was a pretty passive way for me to get some grocery money, um, or free Amazon stuff. Um, but this, the second way I think people generally go about passive income is they putting a lot of upfront work into something and then they kind of coast. Um, so whether that's blogging or starting an Etsy store and then outsourcing parts of it, uh, I think there's a bunch of options down that route. And ultimately I think it comes down to, yeah, do you need money in the next month or two or are you willing to kind of put in a bit of more upfront work and then have a longer term project?
[inaudible] so what are some of your like favorite ways to make extra money, even if it's not online? How, like how do you like to make extra money?
Um, so right now I'm doing a lot of freelance writing these days. Um, so outside of a nine to five job...