Can She Become Debt-Free Before 30? Reaction With @PersonalFinancewithLeila

I set a crazy goal for myself to pay off all my debt by the time I turn 30. And for reference, I turned 29 last month, so I have 11 more months to hit this goal. And in order to hit that goal, I need to make a $1,970 payment towards my debt every single month. And I work a part-time job right now, so I don't even make that much in a month. So the money that I'm using to pay off my debt is the money that I make from social media. And I have exciting news for the first month. We did make enough last month to be able to pay off my debt. So let's make these payments. First off, I have a credit card balance of $1,816.30, so I will be paying that off. So let's go ahead and do that in 3, 2, 1. Okay, this is so exciting. I have not been able to pay off that bad boy in months. I had it paid off for the longest time and I just haven't had extra money recently to pay it off, so that is very exciting for me. And then to make the remainder of the payments, I'm just gonna throw an extra $154 towards my student loan debt. So let's go ahead and make that payment in 3, 2, 1. Yay! Okay. Oh my God, I'm so excited. So first month down, I have 10 more months to go where I need to make almost $2,000 a month to pay off my debt. So if you are on a similar journey, just keep going. I truly believe that if you your mind to something, you will achieve it. But nonetheless, follow along for next month to see if we are able to do it again.

Nice.

Love it. Yeah. And I mean, she mentioned having social media income, and so it's not everybody's cup of tea, but truly the opportunities are endless with social media. It's not easy. You have to be consistent. I don't know what her following is like, or, you know, obviously she didn't break it all down, but To pay. She has a part-time job and that's how much money she had to work with from social media. That's insane.

So I do like that. So her thing was making an extra $2,000 a month on top of whatever her normal job is.

Mm-hmm.

That she'll be debt-free in 10 months. That was the math that she ran. So she's basically making $2,000 extra payments On top of what she's already paying towards her normal debt payments. So in 10 months she'll be debt-free. So she's paying off over, at least over $30K, you know, if we do that math, $2,000 times 10, $20K, and I'm assuming interest, so probably between like $25K to $30K of debt, I would imagine.

Yeah.

Not bad.

And to be debt-free by 30, Obviously, there's some people who watch your content, my content, who are well over 30 and still in debt. But if you're in your 20s, I think becoming debt-free by 30 is kind of like a cheat code. Not a cheat code.

No, right.

It all kind of happened. Some of us get into debt, but I was debt-free by 30, and that has allowed me to set up a pretty strong future. Like, that was definitely important to me. I've seen other people say like become debt-free by 40 or 45. Um, but yeah, I think going into your 30s debt-free is like super helpful, obviously.

Absolutely. What is it like that happens to us at a certain age, do you think? What do you, what do you credit most in regards to why you decided to start Educating yourself on getting out of debt at such a young age? Where do you, you know, give your credit to?

The negative feeling I had for being broke and struggling financially and knowing I had like minimum payments I couldn't afford and not making enough money. I never wanted to feel that again. So I remember thinking that it was probably like late at night. I might have talked about this last time, but I just was in such a bad place financially, mentally, all these things. And finances affect your mental health, you know. But I would lose a lot of sleep. I would cry a lot. And I'm like, okay, I mean, still to this day, I would like to be wealthy. I would like to be rich sooner rather than later. I have no shame in saying that. But I don't struggle whatsoever anymore. And so I just knew at that point, I was like, I don't ever want this In my life again. Like, I want to be set financially. So that was my push.

Gotcha. And I, I, I feel— I want to say other people have that same feeling, yet they, they continue to go through life like almost— like, I see some people just like surrendering to their situation, especially when I read some comments. Some people are just like, oh, nice for you, Denzel. Nice for you, Leila.

Yeah.

Like, I see a comment here on her page Person says, unfortunately for me, I have a mortgage. I'll be debt-free in 27 years. Like, that, that comment, to me, that's a cry for help.

Mm-hmm.

And it's also like you're making fun of your own situation. And I think a more impactful way is to be like, hey, great for you. I'm in debt. Here's my amount. I want to knock this debt out in 10 years. So for hers, 10 months. Your $300,000 might take 10 years or less. It's all the same in my opinion relative to the number that you're trying to eliminate in terms of how you go about doing things.

Yeah.

So shout out to Wealthy with Chelsea. If we check out her page, so not a huge following, 16,000 followers. Okay, and let's see how she makes money. Let me, uh, let's go how she's creating that income stream. So she's got—

Oh, one-on-one calls, right? Nice.

Let's see. So she easily, like, just so you guys know, like, this is not crazy. Look, boom, building my dream life, boom, links plus things I love. So you click the link. She probably makes videos talking about the things that are in her link. Takes me here. Boom, boom, boom. So skincare, that's an income stream. Shop my—

Probably affiliate links. Yeah, right.

Let's just open all this up. And then my Amazon storefront. This does not take a lot of time to do, guys. So it's like we all are consumers of something. And one of the biggest things I've been telling my clients lately is, hey, are you an affiliate or have any partnership with people you do business with? Like, she's making money off of a spray, right? Off of a notebook. How many people— how many of us buy notebooks every now and then? Her recording equipment, a book, Atomic Habits. So she definitely has You know, The Mindset of an Entrepreneur, if you read that book. Okay, boom, skincare, and then her Shopify, and then $150, $11.99 maintenance routine checklist, $5 debt payoff.

Yeah, you know, I've been— I'm in the Amazon Influencer Program, and are you familiar with that?

Yes. Although I'm not a part of it and I probably should.

Yeah. So I have a client who does really well and he's like a small business, not a small business owner. He's kind of big now, but he makes a decent amount of money from Amazon Influencer. And so that inspired me to start it because I'm like, if him, why not me? And I've kind of been treating it as like a little side hustle now that I have, you know, my business full-time, but it's still business income. Um, so you create videos just like sharing anything that you can find on Amazon. Like, I have this little printer here. I could make a video on this showing it. I don't even have to talk about anything specific. I don't have to post it on my socials. It just goes on to Amazon, and then you can— if somebody watches your video, you get a small, a small commission. It's usually a little bit more than just like Amazon Associates, which is just a link. So I've been doing that and my client, he makes like several thousand in a month and he has a friend who makes like $10K a month from Amazon Influencer. So I'm just getting started, but with the, you know, posting a book, posting any of these things, then it all becomes business write-offs as well, saving me more money. And yeah, it's like you do have to have a small following for it to actually get into it and make some sales initially, but It's a way for you to create without having to even like post for your friends to see. Like nobody will necessarily see it. It should— I mean, maybe if they find the products that you're buying. Um, but she had a spray there, and funnily enough, my, my top seller is like this mold and mildew spray that I use in my shower all the time because, you know, like the black mold or whatever that comes in.

That builds around.

Except for this spray. And so I'd made a video on it. This was a while ago. And that sell— that's like my top seller. So it's pretty funny that—

Okay, so, so repeat that. So you said, so there's Amazon Associates, and then there's the Amazon Influencer Program. Yeah. How much followers would you say you need to have? And does any platform kind of qualify you?

Yeah, I think so. Honestly, I joined Amazon Associates when I was like, It was probably over 10 years ago, honestly.

Mm-hmm.

Um, so I, it might have changed by now, but recently my husband, he's been making coffee content and he has, he, he used our like old coffee YouTube channel. So that maybe had like 250 subscribers and he got into the associate program. Okay. He's still not in the influencer. I don't know what it requires to get into the influencer.

Gotcha.

I don't know if you have to apply, cuz again, I got into that probably a couple years ago. Uh, just didn't like make use of it. I don't know if it's an invite or it might be you have to make a certain amount of sales in the associate program first and then you get invited into the influencer. But it— I'm pretty sure like everything is searchable, like you can figure that out.

Yeah. Do you— yeah, do you have to be an Amazon associate first to be Amazon influencer?

I want to say yes.

Okay.

Yeah, I think so.

Gotcha.