I grew up in Plainfield, MA cross-country skiing and I remember watching the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway. I loved seeing all the different flags and from then I have wanted to go to the European countries that dominated cross-country skiing.

Growing up I traveled all over New England to compete in races and took many family vacations to theme parks in the eastern US or camping trips.

I got my first job in high school working during the summer. I saved all the money that I made and once I got my drivers license I paid for my car insurance and gas. I also then started buying my own skis.

I funded my own college at the University of New Hampshire where I received my bachelor degree in Business Administration with concentrations in Accounting and Finance. I went on and completed my master of science in accounting and became a Certified Public Accountant. From working in the summer and saving the money I was able to pay for my housing and food during college and then I took student loans out for the tuition and fees. I didn’t have a lot of money to spend so I looked to keep my housing costs as low as possible. The summer before my senior year of college I moved a few miles off campus and rented a fully furnished room in a house with Internet and utilities included for $385 a month. At that same time I started my audit internship at Caron & Bletzer, PLLC. I was able to balance work and school and continued to work at Caron & Bletzer, PLLC during my senior and master years. After a year I moved to a studio apartment that was $540 plus Internet and utilities. The funds that I didn’t spend on housing and food went to the interest on my student loans so that interest would not compound.

Even with trying to borrow as little as possible after 5 years of college I had around $80,000 in student loans.

My time working as an intern at Caron & Bletzer, PLLC was a good fit for the myself and the company and my audit internship turned into a full time job at Caron & Bletzer, PLLC as soon as I graduated. At Caron & Bletzer, PLLC I audited employee benefit plans and became a senior manager before taking on this journey. Even with all of my student loan debt, as soon as I could, I started contributing to my 401(k) account to take advantage of the interest that will compound.

After graduation I continued to live in my studio apartment and put as much money as I could to the highest interest rate student loan. I wanted them paid off! I quickly was able to chip away at the debt and after 2 years in the studio apartment I moved to a one-bedroom apartment increasing my housing cost to $775 including utilities a month.

2 years after graduating with my masters I had the student loans down to around $15,000. The remaining $15,000 was all at an interest rate of less than 2%. Instead of paying more than the minimum payment for the student loans I started to invest the money. My goal was that by investing the money, I would have put to the student loans, I could make more than 2% on it.

My savings continued to grow (and I got promotions at work) and I moved to a nicer apartment increasing my housing costs to $1,205 and then to $1,380. This was also the time I really wanted to go on a vacation and use my passport. I had gotten my passport when I was a junior in high school as I was chosen to go to St. Petersburg, Russia representing New England for cross-country skiing. I had so much fun in Russia and knew that I wanted to see more of Europe but not just for a few days in each place. I wanted to go to each country for a week or two to really see the country. My plan was to have a European vacation to one country and another smaller vacation each year.

I decided to travel alone to Greece. I never felt uncomfortable in Greece and couldn’t believe I had waited so long to travel because I didn’t want to go by myself. I then started planning vacations that I knew I would be alone on. I went to Cancun, Mexico; Iceland, Lisbon, Portugal and London, England. 4 months after my London vacation I met Brian and have loved having someone to travel with since then!

Even with my vacations, I have never had any credit card debt, and my savings grew. I bought a new car (going through the Audi European delivery program to get it). The interest rates on the remaining student loans started to go up some so I paid those off.

7 years out of college and I had no student loan debt!!

I continued to save by keeping everyday expenses low (eating out only occasionally, keeping new clothes to a minimum, not having cable) and had over $60,000 in savings, excluding my 401(k). I assumed that my savings would be used to buy a house but when Brian asked me what I thought about traveling for a year, it immediately appealed to me. The hardest decision was if I was going to sell my car or keep it. I paid off the car and looked into selling it but in the end put the car in storage. I’m not planning to spend all of my savings on our trip (check out our budget for the trip) and the funds in my 401(k) will not be touched.