More than what you need: Building a life beyond debt
When money feels tight, Kat focuses on the one thing she can control: the next decision. Debt is part of her reality, but it isn’t the thing she lets run her life.
Intentionally looking ahead
When money feels tight, Kat focuses on the one thing she can control: the next decision. Debt is part of her reality, but it isn’t the thing she lets run her life. Instead, she moves forward deliberately—thinking through her options, weighing tradeoffs, and staying focused on what comes next rather than what’s already behind her.
She’s living in Chicago now—the city she was born in and keeps returning to after time spent elsewhere. Kat dances. She sings. She plays instruments. She watches anime, plays video games, and teaches her cats tricks. Her life is intentionally full—not as a distraction, but as a way of staying grounded when money decisions feel consequential, and the margin for error is thin.
Kat’s path into adulthood was shaped by the student debt she took on during college. “I stayed on campus for as long as I could,” she says. “The only reason I left was because they hit me with a bunch of fees one semester, and I couldn’t get any more loans to cover it, so I had no choice but to leave… I had already taken out a loan the previous semester on top of the loans included in my financial aid, so I didn’t have any more money to give them. I just called my dad and said, ‘Hey, I’ve got to come home.’
Kat carries multiple kinds of debt: student debt, medical debt, and debt that grew during the pandemic—credit cards and loans that helped her survive a time when work disappeared. She doesn’t talk about that as a personal failure. She talks about it as reality. “The pandemic was insane for me,” she said, and like so many people, she had to figure things out quickly. Her experience wasn’t unusual. In a survey of SaverLife members conducted between June and December 2020, most members reported being unemployed, furloughed, or working reduced hours as the pandemic disrupted work across the country.
What stands out most about Kat isn’t the debt itself. It’s how she refuses to let it define her.
Most days, she tries not to spiral. “It feels pretty light in the moment most of the time,” she said—especially when she has what she needs. But the weight shows up when she has to think about priorities and tradeoffs. A concert. A night out. A choice. That’s when she feels the limits of carrying debt: not just the money owed, but what it blocks.
“I would get them,” she said about Paramore concert tickets she wanted, “but $300? I was like, I can’t throw that much money at something and know I’ll be okay after.”
Kat makes decisions like someone who’s had to become her own safety net. When she’s tight on money, she prioritizes what keeps her life functioning—Wi-Fi, phone service, her car. Those aren’t luxuries to her; they’re access. They’re how she works, stays connected, and keeps options open. Everything else gets pushed back until there’s room to breathe.
That same clarity shows up in the way she thinks about her debt. She wants to get rid of it—she’s not avoiding that truth—but it’s not the only thing she’s working toward. “It’s just not the most important thing to me at the moment,” she said. Because for Kat, the point isn’t just being debt-free. The point is building a life where she has more than what she needs.
That’s her definition of financial health: “Having more than what you need.”
It’s simple—and it’s powerful.
Kat has done the research on what it would take to get there. She’s looked into consolidation. She tried payment plans. She even reached out to a debt consolidation law firm, hoping they could negotiate with creditors—but the catch was still the catch: she had to pay the firm. “I’m here because I need help paying,” she said, and it didn’t make sense to add another bill to the pile.
So she kept looking, because that’s what Kat does.
Partnership with Purpose
To help members navigate similar situations, SaverLife partners with nonprofit credit counseling agencies like Money Management International. With MMI’s trusted counseling and support, SaverLife members were able to explore debt relief options, get personalized guidance, and take steps toward a stronger financial future.
The plan she’s building now is bigger than budgeting—it’s about geography, opportunity, and the kind of future she wants to grow into.
Kat is trained as a Registered Behavior Technician, working with kids on the autism spectrum. She loves the work. She recently got recertified and wants to continue in the field. But as she puts it plainly: it doesn’t pay well in Chicago. And after years of trying to make it work in a city that keeps getting more expensive, she’s thinking seriously about moving.
Through research, she’s found cross-country opportunities that might relieve her of some of her financial stressors: higher pay for her work and housing that wouldn’t feel like a constant squeeze. In her mind, the path is clear: if she can make more and pay less for rent, she can finally create space—to save and build stability.
Of course, Kat knows moving is expensive. She doesn’t romanticize it. She’s thinking step-by-step: secure an apartment first, then build the money she needs to physically get there. She’s practical about what it will take—and she’s honest about the pieces she’s still figuring out.
Kat’s story isn’t about pretending debt doesn’t matter. It’s about refusing to let debt shrink her life down or limit her goals. Kat is still building. Still learning. Still working. Still carrying debt while trying to move through a world where everything—from groceries to rent—keeps rising.
But she’s also planning. Not wishfully. Not vaguely. Intentionally.
And maybe that’s the most important part of her story: she isn’t waiting for life to get easier before she starts dreaming. She’s dreaming anyway—then doing the work to make it real.
**SaverLife fielded a survey among young adult members ages 18 to 24 (n=155) between July and October 2025, focused on experiences with debt and financial circumstances.