The Paige Pritchard

Money Journey

may 

2011

it all started...

Right after I graduated from college at Texas A&M University in 2011. I entered the real world bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and was ready to conquer corporate america. And by corporate America I mean selling cars at a Cadillac dealership (peep me in my Cadi here).It was the first time in my life I was making a substantial amount of money and had more than $20 in my checking account at any point in time. I was living at home with my parents to “save money”, but the reality was I was doing anything but.

then came the spending...

2011-2012

With virtually no expenses and making a decent salary for a 21-year old I started spending recklessly. I was dining out every meal, going to expensive and frequent happy hours with my co-workers (said happy hour with my then co-worker now husband pictured), and it was a normal practice for me to go shopping on my lunch break to “decompress” from a stressful morning at work. I always told myself “It’s fine… I have the money sitting in my checking account so I’m not spending any money I don’t have”.

january

2012

then came the debt...

Six months after graduation I started getting letters from Nelnet and Sallie Mae telling me “Congrats on graduating! But it’s time to start making payments on your student loans.” Uhhhhh, what student loans? I had gone through four years of college not even being aware that it was being paid for with loans. So you can imagine my surprise when I realized I had $40,000 of student loan debt I needed to pay off from my undergrad degree.

then came the breaking point...

2012

With virtually no expenses and making a decent salary for a 21-year old I started spending recklessly. I was dining out every meal, going to expensive and frequent happy hours with my co-workers (said happy hour with my then co-worker now husband pictured), and it was a normal practice for me to go shopping on my lunch break to “decompress” from a stressful morning at work. I always told myself “It’s fine… I have the money sitting in my checking account so I’m not spending any money I don’t have”.

July

2012

then came the plan…

I realized that no one was coming to save me. If I didn’t start to take control of my money, no one would. That was the day that I sat down and simply started to pay attention to my money and take note of everything flowing in and going out. I started budgeting and made an intentional plan for my finances. I created a road map for paying off my student loans, building up savings, and cash-flowing major expenses that I knew were waiting for me down the road. After the plan was made, it was time to go out and execute. I knew it wouldn’t be a quick or comfortable journey, but I knew it would be a worthwhile one, so I took the first step and started to move forward under my new normal.

then came the comeback…

2013-2018

It wasn’t an overnight process, but I started to make progress. I was working along-side my husband Ryan and we were able to pay off my student loans along with his… $98,000 total. Next we were able to save up for and cash flow major expenses that came our way like my MBA, our wedding & honeymoon, and even the down payment to our first home. All this time I was also putting money away each month into a retirement account through work. It didn’t seem like much at first but saving money out of each paycheck for years built up into a six-figure investment portfolio by the time I was 29. My twenties was truly a time of going from financial hot mess to financial success and establishing a solid financial future to build upon.

2019

then came the movement…

In 2019 I started an instagram page to share the knowledge I had gained along my financial transformation. I had absolutely no idea if anyone would even care, yet alone follow along, but surprisingly people did and my voice started to spread over the following years. In order to better blend the black and white of money with the mental, emotional, and behavioral components of personal finance I obtained a life coaching certification from The Life Coach School in 2020 along with starting my podcast, The Money Love Podcast. In 2021 I sensed that “a perfect storm” had been brewing between the pandemic, the rise in social media, and the advancement in technology (hello Amazon) that was fundamentally changing our spending and consumption habits (and not for the better). 

which brings us to today.

2024

Inspiring and educating a community of ambitious women who are ready to reach their full financial potential and leave their financial self-sabotage in the dust. The Overcoming Overspending movement has grown to millions on social media, a weekly podcast that charts in the top 50 self-improvement podcasts in the US, and hundreds of women inside the Overcoming Overspending Membership. The best part? This is just the beginning.