Wife and I started out of college with $120k in debt. School loans ($85k), cars ($37k), and a personal loan ($1k). I was introduced to Dave Ramsey shortly after we graduated and we got on the path to eliminating that debt. We did it in 7 years. Ours was part luck, part hard work. I landed a good job and was never out of work during the recession (graduated in 2008). She got a job at a bank and kept it the whole way (even though it wasn't her field of study). I also got offered to take a remote assignment in Canada for work and took it. That came with a 50% hazard pay bump, but it was 75%+ travel for about a year (thank God we didn't have kids at that time). Took that money and paid off the car loan plus got even more aggressive on paying back the loans.
For us, we committed to paying it off, but I don't feel like we drastically cut back our lifestyle. We were always conservative about it, but we still took a couple budget vacations and bought a house during that period. We ate out semi-regularly but nothing crazy. We kept our expenses low, but never to the rice and beans level that Ramsey promotes.
Since then, we did take out a loan to get her a new-to-us car when we needed more space for the kiddos, but we paid that off in 18 months which was over a year ago. Since then, we haven't taken on any debt and don't plan to. Financial goal right now is to keep throwing 15% to retirement and stock away some extra cash for a future move/house purchase.
