Shonnita Leslie always had a passion for education. But by the time she earned her bachelor's degree in sociology and master's of education in psychology with a concentration in school counseling in 2009, her student loan debt had ballooned to around $101,000 and she was struggling to make payments.
However, she didn't factor in how much she would be able to earn working in education, compared with the student loan debt she would need to take on in order to gain the proper credentials, she says. She initially landed a job at a charter school. A year later, she was offered a job as a program manager at a university, which she still holds today. She continued repaying her student loans, but her payments only went toward the accumulated interest. Despite making consistent payments, her principal balance remained at $101,000.Leslie had $60,000 in federal student loans forgiven through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
Leslie usually makes deliveries after work on weekdays, and enjoys being able to use the flexible hours to her advantage. At one point, she was working an average of 30 hours a week through DoorDash in addition to her full-time job. Currently, she only spends about five hours a week on the side hustle.
"I intentionally did not decide to buy a new car," she says."I had pretty much covered a lot of my debt that I wanted to pay off anyways, so it was a really great time to just kind of move on and not have a car."Plus, she says not having a car saves her money due to not needing to pay for parking, car insurance and other related expenses.