It’s been over a year since I became debt free, and unfortunately I am back in debt, thought for a lot less this time. I long to be debt free again. I’ll be 25 soon and I feel I have learned some valuable financial lessons a lot sooner in life than my peers. I started my adult life in debt. When I was 18 I applied and was approved for an $8500 credit card. I was so pleased at the time and felt very grown up. I look back and feel like it should be illegal to provide 18 year olds without a track record that much credit. I had taken a gap year and worked full time. I could afford it, I wasn’t making big purchases anyway. The following year, 2006, I moved away from home to go to university. I wasn’t a very organised person and had no one helping me, so I made a lot of very costly decisions based on assumptions and optimism. I assumed I would be eligible for government scholarships, but I was wrong. It became very hard to keep asking my dad for money so I stopped. I started advancing cash from my credit card. I did this until my credit card balance was zero. I spent the next 4 years struggling to pay the minimum and study. I was also accruing debt in other areas too. I got mobile phone and internet plans I couldn’t afford – lock in, 24 month contrasts each worth $2500. I wanted to keep up with the Jones’ and live in a nice place. By the end of 2009, I was in over $20,000 debt. I think I was 22. I took a break from uni and moved back home. I was sure I would be stuck with this debt for years. I wouldn’t have believed it if someone told me I would be debt free in less than 6 months. I would like to say I did by being creative and using these tips about selling online. I did it by working my butt off. I started by working for dole. The government paid me $216 a week and I had to earn this by working 16 hours a week somewhere. I was living in a remote community at the time where the majority of people are on a government benefit. I was asked to do my hours at the office that managed all of this. I decided to put a lot of effort into what could have easily been a means to an end. I worked very diligently that first day, and impressed my supervisors so much that within days they offered me a contract. I would be self employed and charge them to teach basic computer skills to job seekers. Students were often truant (adult students) so I had to repeat many classes. I had to work over the expected hours, and I was paid for it. I was soon earning up to $2900 a week and putting 90% of it onto my debt. I loved watching the numbers drop week after week. While I was doing this I also had a second job at night. I worked security at the local hospital. This mostly involved driving the retrieval vehicle (ambulance) and making sure the nurses were safe during call out in the middle of the night. Due to unreliable co-workers I often did many more shifts than I was rostered to do. At the peak I was earning up to $600 a week. I took up a third job during this time, caring for wards of the state in a residential facility on the weekends. I’d work Friday to Monday. These two days netted me just under $700 a weekend. If only I had been debt-free at the time. The day came when I was debt free, and I thought I’d be more excited. I felt free to move back to the city and finish my degree. Which is where I am now. Though, unfortunately I’m in debt again, but only about $2000. I look forward to using some of the things I’m learning on this site to be free again.