Help Me Work My Way out of 200k In Student Loan Debt in Just One year

Time to get ambitious.  Perhaps even crazy.  It’s the Debtpayer Challenge.

 

The BackStory

As of today, my wife and I have $161,431.05 in student loan debt. We used to have about $200,000 so we’ve made some progress in paying off our student loan debt.  The problem is, it’s not enough.  Although we are lucky to have no car or credit card debt, our combined 14 years of higher education have been a burden from the day we graduated graduate school nearly two years ago to the present.  We’ve tried through our blogs, including our former site Broke Professionals, to educate current and prospective students about the dangers of student loan debt.  We were naive and thought that “education” would take care of everything.  In stead, we’re stressed beyond belief, working every day to try and pay off debt that seems like it will never go away.

The Exposition

Perhaps you’re familiar with the “Million Dollar Website.”  Essentially a 19 year old British kid sold 1 million $1 pixels on his website.  Another person burdened with student loan debt, Kelli Space, became somewhat infamous online for her attempt to have people pay off her ridiculous student loan debt.  We interviewed her back when we owned and ran Broke Professionals.

We’re going to try something new.  We’re going to try and really work off our debt.

Starting August 1, 2011 through August 1, 2012, we want to pay off our entire debt load.

I am, besides my demanding day job, a freelance writer.  My wife, besides her demanding day job, often contributes.  Our goal is to promote your products on this and FreelancePF.com, perform our usual quality work (although at a slightly higher price), and pay off nearly $200,000 in student loan debt in one year.

The DebtPayer Challenge

From August 1, 2011 through August 1, 2012 we are going to attempt to work off our $161,431.05 student loan debt in its entirety.  We are going to be seeking two individual/blog/company sponsors per day for those 365 days.  We will be charging $250.00 per sponsorship.

What You Get From SponsorShip

For the $250.00 sponsorship you will get:

• One freelance post, demand letter, or press release written by us on the specific day as per your specifications.
• A link on the front-page of this Google Pagerank 2 site ,along with the other sponsors listed by day of sponsorship.  Some sites charge $100.00 just for the do follow backlink.  We will keep the backlink up, barring unforseen events, for at least the next five years.
• A link on a page on FreelancePF. (also do-follow, also currently a Pagerank 2 on Google).
• If we complete our goal, a t-shirt at the end of the year with the name/logo of every person/blog/company that wishes to participate.
• Hopefully attendant publicity from being involved in the project.

How Else You Can Help Besides Sponsoring

If you don’t need freelance work or find that the price is steep, you can also help us by helping spread, both online and offline.

We will also be accepting donations that will be paid towards our student loans, the costs associated with the project, interest on the loans, and if any money is leftover after we have paid our student loan debts in full–we will give the money to a worthy student in the form of a scholarship.