How This Debt-Free Blogger Became a Million-Dollar​ Digital Nomad

Today, I am so excited to be able to share with you one of my favorite debt-free success stories. After receiving her first student loan payment in the mail, Michelle knew she had to get serious about paying off her debt. She knocked out her loans in only 7 months thanks partially to her side hustle: blogging. I was fortunate enough to get to interview Michelle about her debt payoff and the success of her blog, Making Sense of Cents. Keep reading to see how she turned her blog from a debt free side hustle into a full-time income that has allowed her to travel by both land and sea over the last few years.

Paying off debt

I know your blog started with you sharing your debt payoff journey. What inspired you to get serious about paying off debt in the first place?

The day I received my student loan bill was the day I realized that I didn’t want my student loans hanging over my head for a decade (or longer).

I had received “bills” for years, but they were simply reminders that I’d owe money once I graduated.

Well, a few months after I received my MBA, I got a letter in the mail that stated how much I’ll owe monthly.

I know, I know, I should have been smarter about the whole thing while I was in college – but the average person does not really think about how much they’ll owe monthly when they are done. And, that was me.

But, receiving that first real bill whipped me into shape.

I did not want my largest payment each month to go to student loans (and I had a mortgage at the time too).

So, I made an action plan to pay off my student loans as quickly as I could. I paid off my $40,000 student loan debt in just 7 months. You can learn more about how I paid off my student loans here. 

Ready to pay off debt?

If you are ready to ditch your debt and take one step closer toward life as a digital nomad, then don’t miss my Debt Snowball guide and printout to help you get started.

Turning debt payoff into profit

How did you realize that sharing your journey could actually turn into a profitable venture?

I started Making Sense of Cents entirely for me – I did not know that blogs could make money or anything like that when I first started.

However, not too much later, I started talking about side hustling on Making Sense of Cents, and I had countless readers tell me that I should try to make money blogging.

So, it all grew from there and I have now been a full-time blogger since 2013. Check out Michelle’s course, Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing.

Income and travel

Do you work to hit a certain income goal per month?

Not really. I simply just try to have fun and enjoy what I do.

What steps did you take to make full time travel possible?

I paid off all of my debt before I left my day job to blog full-time, so my debt was paid off long before we started to travel full-time.

I also researched the cost of full-time travel, but made sure that my income was high and that I had a good emergency fund to cover anything that may come up.

Once we became location independent, we felt very comfortable with full-time travel. This is because we were able to earn a living while traveling, so we didn’t really have much tying us to our home back in Missouri any longer.

More posts from digital nomads:

• Downsizing and Saving for Full Time Travel With a Family
• Life on the Road. How This Minimalist Family Finds Comfort in Tiny Living

You’ve done RVing, sailing and van life. What do you think the future holds in store for your digital nomad lifestyle?

As someone who travels full-time, I have no idea, haha!

We really like traveling full-time, so I see us doing this for a while.

Eventually, we’d like to cross an ocean on our boat, do some long-distance trails, and meet some other outdoors goals that we have.

We may live in a house again one day, but I think we would still be traveling extensively too.

Advice for other bloggers

If you could give other bloggers one piece of advice, what would it be?

My top piece of advice would be to continue trying!

The first 6 months is definitely the hardest when it comes to blogging, and that is why the average person will quit by then.

Blogging is not a get rich quick scheme and you will have to put in a lot of hard work in order to see success.

If it were easy, then everyone would do it! Check out Michelle’s course!

Want to start you own blog?

Blogging can be an awesome income that you can take with you anywhere in the world. But, it’s so important to take the right steps when you get started.

The absolute first step in starting a successful money-making blog is just getting started! How to start a blog.

The next step is to get as much training as possible. I know this totally sounds like a scam and I believed it (kind of) was when I first started blogging. The truth is, the more knowledge you can have going into this, the better off you’re going to be.

Pin this!