Former guest Ashley Strahm returns with big news — she is student debt free! After a viral LinkedIn announcement about paying the last of her student loans, Ashley sits down with Talia Molé to share how it feels to be debt free, why she still advocates for student debt cancellation and all of the possibilities ahead.

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Transcript: 

[00:00:05] Shanna Bennett: Hey everyone! Shanna here, your host of Matter of Life and Debt. I’m taking this week off for a much needed break today’s episode is going to be hosted by one of our new, amazing producers and editors, Talia Molé. This is her first interview and we are so excited for you to hear it.

[00:00:27] On this segment, we came full circle with our guest Ashley Strahm, who we first interviewed in episode 22. She shares the awesome news of being student loan debt free. Ashley paid off $128,000 on a $57,000 student loan. She is currently a content marketing manager at BetterUp. I will be back with the next episode. Stay safe and enjoy.

[00:00:53] Talia Molé: Hi, Ashley, welcome to the podcast!

[00:00:58] Ashley Strahm: Glad to be here. I know it’s so much more, I don’t know, fun this time around for obvious reasons.

[00:01:06] Talia Molé: Yeah. To give a little bit of context, last time you were here almost about a year ago, you spoke about the burdens of living with student loan debt and how all of that influences life decisions for you and your partner and your family.

[00:01:24] But today you get to share with us the amazing news that you are student loan debt free. So please, if you can share with us a little bit of the process leading up to this incredible moment and also. The feelings. How do you feel?!

[00:01:45] Ashley Strahm: Mm. Okay. Well, not to, I guess, dull the shine of the first episode that I did a year ago, which the journey has taken over 10 years and again, I am a first gen kid of two immigrants from South America. My parents are immigrants and sacrificed a lot to get me to where I am today. I went to a private college, got half paid in scholarships and proceeded to never miss a payment over the course of 10 years.

[00:02:15] So my lowest payment was $450ish. And, the highest here recently was $2,695. Never missed a single one. I started off with some parent plus loans because I was 16 when I got into college and consolidated about four years ago with a private company. So my husband essentially contributed his entire salary to my student loans.

[00:02:40] And we finally did it. Every bonus, every COVID relief payment, every freelance article that I did. I even had a little bit of a side hustle going on there for a while. So, every article payment that I got went to my student loans, and we finally started chipping away, at a balance that had grown for six years, four years ago.

[00:03:01] So we were finally done. My feelings, because I have a lot to say about this, I think…

[00:03:09] Talia Molé: The floor is yours.

[00:03:11] Ashley Strahm: Okay. Of course, right, hug, the confetti, everybody in my personal circles and even professional circles. Since I did a little bit of a viral post on LinkedIn, which I can talk about in a second.

[00:03:24] But I’m still numb, honestly. I think I’ve been so paralyzed by the crushing mountain of debt. I’ve become accustomed to the weight of that anxiety on my chest. I still feel it . So I had my last payment in early June. It’s July now. And I still feel it, I think. It’s an incredibly triggering feeling too, as a woman of color.

[00:03:46] Ashley Strahm: So it’s this different type of oppression I felt for so long because of this degree that was supposed to offer such an amazing gateway to possibility and privilege. And I attended a private high school and a private college. And my immigrant parents worked very hard to afford me the type of education that set me apart long before I signed for these loans.

[00:04:08] But somehow I can’t get rid of these psychological shackles that I’ve worn for so long. So there was an initial elation, of course. But I dunno what I was expecting when I made that final payment online. I hit submit and it was just so unserious, it was: did I do it?

[00:04:27] Did I actually do it? Did this actually happen? And my student loan company sent me a letter in the mail two weeks later, that I still have magnetized to my fridge, that congratulations. And it’s a 10 point font, you kind of have to squint to see it. And I just sat with it for a while and I’m still kind of processing. I actually had a nightmare that they called me and said there was a glitch in the system and none of my payments had gone through. There’s triggery things that are still happening. So it’s a weird form of trauma honestly. But to be fair, I spent 10 years thinking about what I would do to celebrate. And instead of spending another few thousand on a party, which felt a little boastful, and I felt a little weird about that-

[00:05:09] We took my parents out to a fancy restaurant and treated them to dinner since they’re honestly the other loves of my life besides my husband. And then we had this spectacular debt free photo shoot, where we took all of these photos in front of balloons and signs that said that we were expecting, but instead of expecting a little honey, it says we’re expecting a little money.

[00:05:31] Talia Molé: I saw, I saw it was wonderful.

[00:05:33] Ashley Strahm: Yeah, yeah. So we did that on LinkedIn and that went a little viral. I think I’m up to a million impressions and thirteen thousand reactions to that. But we did that mainly because at 31, everybody assumes that when Cody and I have good news, it’s a baby. So I wanted to say that there are other things that people wait a really, really long time for.

[00:05:51] So the student loan thing went over well. So that’s kinda where I am.

[00:05:55] Talia Molé: And I feel that it’s so important to share these feelings, not just the celebration aspect of it. Because being part of the student loan debt community, I think I can say for most of us, when one person gets out, we all feel it in our hearts, we’re all rooting for you.

[00:06:12] Ashley Strahm: Oh, yeah.

[00:06:14] Talia Molé: But this sort of longer effect, the triggering effect of I’m having nightmares about this, could this truly be true and you hit the nail right there, that there is a psychological impact. That is just so deep and scarring. When we’re dealing with this burden.

[00:06:38] So now that you are, let’s say liberated, free from this- what new possibilities have emerged for you?

[00:06:47] Ashley Strahm: That’s a really good question, because I think two things have happened for me in the past few years. One, COVID obviously has kind of changed the trajectory of work. This idea that I would be commuting to an office for 40 years. And then finally, when I’m 65, I’ll get to retire and then start living this free life where I can go anywhere and do anything.

[00:07:09] That got rocked. Right. I have a fully remote job. Now I can kind of take those trips that I was waiting until I was 65 to do so similarly, the idea that, back in 2019, I was kind of projecting into the future, when I’m retired, I’ll do X. I have the same kind of feelings of when I’m done with my student loan debt, I’ll do X.

[00:07:27] And I think those two dreams have kind of conflated, for some really sad, also complex political reasons as well. I don’t necessarily feel as safe in this country as I used to. And I finally feel I have and to be honest, it’s a privilege, right, the financial capacity to start dreaming about a reality where I don’t live here.

[00:07:48] And I think Cody and I are seriously considering moving abroad. I think the United States has revealed. A lot and I think the particular intersectionality that I kind of occupy in terms of identity makes me feel I could potentially be happier in another cultural framework. So for the next three years, because I work at a remote company with international offices, we’re gonna spend two months in London, Amsterdam and Paris next year. And then the year after that, we’ll go to Portugal and Spain for another 60 days. And then after that, maybe spend some time in Italy and kind of figure out where our next home might be. So that’s kind of a possibility that would never have been possible if we still had a $3,000 a month, financial burden to shoulder.

[00:08:38] Talia Molé: You touched upon something that is just incredible. To me, our generation has to think about a future where, oh, when we pay off student loan debt, if we ever get to that, then we’ll start living life. It’s not anymore, oh, when we retire, then we’ll start to do these things.

[00:08:59] There’s this relationship to money, which obviously is different. It’s oh, we owe this and we gotta get rid of that before we can start to dream big, as opposed to previous generations that are like, oh retirement. Once we reach that pool of money we’ve been saving for, or we’ve had the ability or privilege to save for, then we can start to travel abroad and do all this other stuff.

[00:09:20] Ashley Strahm: Absolutely. And I think to that point, I that’s such a good point because I feel even on LinkedIn and gosh, 99.9% of the comments were super positive, but I did get a few from other generations of people who had very little empathy for what I had gone through because they hadn’t had to go through that.

[00:09:42] They had no concept of, wow, at the age of 31, which to me, it’s what, six years too long. But for a lot of people, 31 is pretty young. To finally be free of what a lot of people have kind of resigned themselves to believe it’s just a burden. They will carry for the remainder of their lives.

[00:10:00] So it’s a little bit of a gut check. I felt a true need to have to stand up to folks and say, hey, I’m speaking for a lot of folks who are my age, who I know you don’t have a lot of empathy for, but at the end of the day, we’re dealing with an entirely different deck of cards we’ve been dealt.

[00:10:16] You’re absolutely right.

[00:10:18] We’ve got different- and, oh my gosh, home ownership. So many other things have been delayed as a result of us going through this.

[00:10:24] Talia Molé: And on a side note to that, I just recently went to your LinkedIn page to see all of this. And there were some comments that, I mean, it was weeks late, so I didn’t wanna answer and then start, crap. Maybe you had already resolved it. So I didn’t want to open it again.

[00:10:39] Ashley Strahm: Sure, sure.

 

[00:10:46] Talia Molé: I saw a lot of those comments as well, that you mentioned. I was gosh, they think this younger generation and the ones following us are dealing with just existential crises that are truly different than the older generations have lived. So thank you for that. And, speaking of which, I wanted to ask you, there are many grassroots movements right now that are mobilizing for full student loan cancellation and free college for all. And I’m wondering how that rings for you, the spotlight that they’re getting right now. What are your thoughts on that?

[00:11:24] Ashley Strahm: Oh my gosh, more, more spotlight, more everything. I love it. I support it wholeheartedly. In my tiny corner of the world, I’ve been trying to do my part to amplify the voices of folks that are involved in this movement. It is work that is necessary. And I will continue to advocate for debt free college education, full student loan repayment, a hundred percent.

[00:11:52] I don’t care if every year that I kind of have experienced this debt free life, I will still advocate for that because I know what that struggle is like. In so many ways, student debt is about power, right? I mean, we have black women like myself carrying disproportionate amounts of debt sometimes for a degree that they haven’t even gotten the opportunity to finish because of so many other social responsibilities.

[00:12:14] And that keeps us settled in debt. That’s about reducing access to generational wealth and so much more. So, I mean, I will still feel for and advocate for those who are still struggling with their burden. Their liberation is bound up in my own. I’ve said this a million times. The only reason I’m free now is because right now we could still somehow afford almost $3,000 student debt payment a month. What a privilege that I am in a dual income, no kid scenario. That is a unicorn financial scenario that a lot of people don’t have. So my gosh, who am I? I’m wholeheartedly behind it. I honestly feel I need to get more involved at this point, because I finally have the capacity, the mind space, right?

[00:12:57] The heart space where I’m not so heads down dealing with my own kind of massive burden where I can honestly pay that forward. It’s incredible.

[00:13:05] Talia Molé: And how special and important and necessary is that heart space and mind space that you occupy because there are also so many people that end up paying their loans or whatnot, and kind of go into that mindset of, well, if I did it, you must also suffer. So to hear you say that, I feel that it’s a beautiful sentiment and we need more people that have, you know, gone through these trials and tribulations and, and are willing to share the voice, so thank you for that.

[00:13:41] Ashley Strahm: Oh, my gosh. Thank you. I just, Ugh. When I hear that, I just think to myself, what is this hazing? What are we doing here? I don’t get it, what is this rite of passage?

[00:13:52] Talia Molé: Yeah.

[00:13:53] Ashley Strahm: It would be one thing, if it were like, in equal yolk, but it’s not. We’ve got folks that have predatory loans, and they’ve been preyed upon by these interests.

[00:14:05] And then we’ve got other folks who, $20,000 of debt to them is the equivalent of $80,000 of debt to me. And who are we to compare what that burden even feels like? So my goodness, just because if I could spare another Ashley out there, who is able to dream big and have the capacity to step into her future with less fear and less anxiety, because she doesn’t have a student debt burden. And there are other children of immigrants that don’t have to have these deeply emotional heart wrenching conversations with their families about choosing between thinking about one financial goal, as opposed to another. My goodness, the whole world would be more light, more free, more capable of being innovative.

[00:14:48] Talia Molé: Yes.

[00:14:49] Ashley Strahm: Sorry if talk all day about that.

[00:14:51] Talia Molé: No, no, no, no. That translates to warrior sister. I hear you.

[00:14:58] And let me tell you, speaking about family, this next question I’m asking you is really dear to me, my heart, because I too am a Caribbean immigrant. And, when my family came here, my parents came here to the United States.

[00:15:14] I already had it inculcated in me, this idea of you must get an education, but you said in the first episode that you sat with us, it’s more than just getting an education. I understood what you said in an ancestral level, in a root level, I am getting an education, not just for the purpose of knowledge, but also for the purpose of letting my parents know that the the sacrifices that they made were worth it, and I hear them and I want them to know that I see them.

[00:15:55] Ashley Strahm: Mm-hmm yes.

[00:15:55] Talia Molé: I think anyone from the island or we always ask about family, even if we don’t know you, we’re like, how are your parents?

[00:16:01] This question has to do with your parents, you spoke a lot about them in the last episode. So I’m wondering how they are reveling in this momentous accomplishment of yours? What are their thoughts and their feelings?

[00:16:18] How are they doing?

[00:16:19] Ashley Strahm: Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I mean, I’m already crying. It’s fine. It’s fine. We were just here.

[00:16:24] Talia Molé: I’m a crier too. So I’ll meet you halfway. We could cry together.

[00:16:28] Ashley Strahm: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I told myself, I need to try to hold it together when we get to this point.

[00:16:37] Talia Molé: No, what? What do I always say? When the tears flow, that’s beautiful.

[00:16:42] Ashley Strahm: Oh my gosh. I love those two. They are everything and they gave us, it wasn’t enough for the whole payment, but they had to kind of cobbled together, almost enough for our final payment to make it happen and gave it to us and two cards.

[00:17:05] They’re so phenomenal. And they essentially wrote us all these cards about how they could not believe that these two young people could sacrifice so much of their young marriage toward this one goal, because obviously when they were my age, they were raising us.

[00:17:21] And weren’t really thinking about what, what could they have done right with $128,000 when they were just raising their kids in Northern New Jersey and living off of one salary and all these other things. And, we had a good talk about their single mother who brought them to America with seven other children.

[00:17:38] How they could not have foreseen a future where they could kind of rise past these circumstances that were obviously rigged against them. They kind of engaged with this racist society, but also coupled with this American dream that they had been promised and could not believe that this golden ticket that they had bestowed upon me.

[00:17:59] This opportunity for me to get my college degree has caused me so much angst and stress for 10 years. So I kind of unpacked all of that with them. And I mean, they just, the word, proud, kept coming up. They were so proud of me and so proud of us really too. Cause obviously you’ve got these two kids who barely have been married for seven years and finances can really drive some divorces.

[00:18:20] We talked about that, how this kind of had the capacity to really weigh heavily on Cody and I, and it hadn’t. It turned out to be our biggest kind of nest egg and triumph together, which was amazing. They’ve been married for 36 years. So it was kind of this full circle moment where I got to really feel two of my biggest accomplishments in life.

[00:18:40] This happy marriage I was kind of nurturing with my husband and this marriage that I had aspired to with the two of them, kind of coming together. And I just remember, in my first episode with Nikki, we talked about this moment where my dad wanted to dip into his 401k to finance my education.

[00:18:58] And I didn’t know much about 401ks. Honestly, I barely knew what they were, but I did know that it was supposed to be a nest egg that my dad had been paying into for my mother and them for when they were ready. And I cannot deprive you of yet another thing. That’s for you guys.

[00:19:16] And it’s for you. And I gotta do this for me. And I’m just so happy that I wasn’t an additional financial burden on them cause they don’t deserve that. So yeah, it’s just so much. And I feel we’ve had this conversation together a number of times and I just feel they’re just phenomenal people and they’re just such a microcosm of so many other parents I know out there that I know are going through the same thing and having the same conversation with their kids.

[00:19:45] But. Yeah, everything I do, I do for them. And I feel happy that I’m free now, so I can make other financial goals to make sure that they’re happy later. So Cody and I aren’t having kids, but they’re gonna be who I’m planning for. I wanna make sure their retirement is a happy one and, and they can kind of do all the go on cruises and all the things they haven’t been able to do.

[00:20:07] Talia Molé: Absolutely. Absolutely. When I embarked as well on this journey of education, those were always my thoughts. My mother raised us as a single mom, my sister and me, and, as my sister was born here, but I’m not from here. So there were just a lot of things that I had to navigate and my mom as well.

[00:20:28] And I just always remembered that no matter what I would do in life, it just could not be another thing that meant as much as school. So, needless to say, I’m in a lot of debt, but we’re not gonna get into that today. is all about you today.

[00:20:48] Ashley Strahm: Yeah.

[00:20:49] Talia Molé: But still, I feel that, when I said to you are at a root level, at an ancestral level. I think that these conversations are when we talk about the idea of releasing burden and being happy, we don’t mean it in this individualistic way.

[00:21:09] We really are talking a community,

[00:21:14] Ashley Strahm: Absolutely.

[00:21:15] Talia Molé: And that includes our ancestors, our parents, our grandparents, and all the ones before them and the ones that will come ahead as well.

[00:21:24] Ashley Strahm: Absolutely.

[00:21:25] Talia Molé: So I guess, I’ll take it to this one question, which really is a little bit of an exercise to do with you and also kind of tap into your writer’s mind, cause I know you are a creative person. So, writing this, this wave of momentum, of just liberated and free of this, of this burden. I’m wondering if you could imagine, holding a crystal.

[00:21:56] And you are peeking into it, right? And your future is being revealed to you.

[00:22:06] Ashley Strahm: Ooh.

[00:22:06] Talia Molé: What are some of the moments that you see?

[00:22:09] Ashley Strahm: What are some of the moments? The picture is so colorful. I see little vignettes maybe. I definitely need to brush up on my Spanish in order for any of this to work, but I see a little Maringa maybe on a cobblestone street. In a little intersection with some live music playing somewhere in Barcelona, probably.

[00:22:34] I see my dad at the grill in our backyard on a sunny Sunday afternoon, maybe with a little bit of wine and no worries, we’re all just kind of sitting and he loves a seasoning. So we’ll have some of that. I see construction of a tiny home, which we’ve been planning for. We’re trying to do an affordable housing kind of co-op thing where we rent a structure affordably to some of our neighbors. Is housing affordable anywhere? Probably not, but that’s kind of our little incubator project we’re thinking about,

[00:23:12] Yeah, I see lots of roller skating. I see lots of going to the chiropractor and physical therapy and Pilates and taking care of my body in ways that I neglect. Yeah, just a lot. Laughter too.

[00:23:27] Talia Molé: Hmm. I love that. I love that. Is there anything else you’d like to say or promote or anything that is still you just need to get out?

[00:23:40] Ashley Strahm: I definitely think it’s worth shouting out the amazing work that the Debt Collective is doing right now. And, also the Prosperity Project, which is essentially a community that is repaying the debt of black women who are saddled with student loan debt right now, which I obviously deeply identify with and think is extraordinarily important.

[00:24:00] I mean, the statistics are there. We disproportionately carry an immense amount of debt. And I think it’s amazing the work that they’re doing to try to level the playing field there. So, I would check those two organizations out.

[00:24:13] I would also love to talk about after the LinkedIn post, I had a number of people, predominantly women, actually reach out to me to message me. And just the question was almost always the same in a roundabout. Which was, how did you do this? How did you do it? And I would probably say I don’t know where it comes from, but the one thing that we could do better, as a community specifically of color, is to talk about money and to be really explicit about it and to ask for help and to, and to not be ashamed. Because I think I had some really big moments. I’m gonna do this myself and I can do this.

[00:24:51] I don’t wanna be a burden on other people. That is a huge thing. I’m unpacking in therapy as well. This whole idea of not being a burden. but I think it is not burdensome to reach out to somebody who is where you want to be and is accomplishing the feats that you hope to accomplish. I kind of poured my heart out there.

[00:25:08] Here are the figures. Here are the numbers. Here is the company that I partnered with, here is my interest rate. Here’s how long it took me. There is no shame in sharing your story. And if there’s anybody in your circle that struggles with student debt, there is power in that coalition and in that community of just vulnerability and this kind of shared decision making, right?

[00:25:27] I’ll just say this. I guess it was six years ago now I went to this student repayment brunch with somebody from my church and he just kind of had everybody bring food and mimosas and he had his letter and he put it up on the fridge and he’s for the next two hours, we’re just gonna celebrate being debt free.

[00:25:48] And I remember sitting in his living room being like, I wanna get there. That’s when the spark really happened. Before then I was like, I’m gonna do what I can and that’s all I can do. And I’m not really gonna be ambitious about this because why even try? And his brunch was the impetus for me to say, there are people in my community that I feel like I can talk to about this.

[00:26:08] And I feel like I probably couldn’t do it alone or Cody and I couldn’t do it alone, but we can do it together. So I don’t care if it’s a LinkedIn post or a brunch or whatever else, if that door is cracked. Don’t be afraid to kind of take the opportunity to have a conversation, cause it just might change the trajectory of how you feel.

[00:26:24] You can actually clear that hurdle. It was a huge turning point for me and I am happy to be that person’s example.

[00:26:32] Talia Molé: Ashley, it has been awesome talking to you. You are a force.

[00:26:41] Ashley Strahm: Oh, amazing.

[00:26:43] Talia Molé: Earlier on in the first episode that you sat with us, you shared your heartache, and it’s just been really sweet to come full circle and witness your celebration. So this has been really, really great.

[00:27:00] And also, for me, I’m gonna kind of plug this in, it’s been really special because as an immigrant and a Caribbean person just hearing and witnessing your triumph is really, really, really important for me and for the communities that I walk through. And yeah. Thank you.

[00:27:19] Thank you.

[00:27:20] Ashley Strahm: Goodness. Thank you. I feel like we’ve just made a spiritual slash soul connection. Like even here on this podcast, I am so grateful for your time for your listening ear, for your compassion for your affirmation means that this is a time capsule. It really means a lot to me that you would help me commemorate this accomplishment in which your sisterhood is strong. So thank you.

[00:27:54] Talia Molé: Absolutely. We’re all here rooting for you, the whole entire team at a Matter of Life and Debt is rooting for you. We’re so happy. And please come back again and again, continue celebrating with us.

Ashley Strahm: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Talia Molé: Thank you, Ashley.

[00:28:14] Shanna Bennett: If you liked this episode of Matter of Life and Debt, subscribe and share it with a friend. It really helps people discover us. Matter of Life and Debt is hosted by me, Shanna. It is produced by Shanna Bennett, Emma Klauber, and Nikki Nolan.

It is edited by Nikki Nolan and Talia Molé, transcripts and writing is done by Emma Klauber. Efe Akerman created the theme music.

Visit our website www.matteroflifeanddebt.com, where you can listen to more episodes, access transcripts, and get additional context for the subjects you just heard about. Absolutely for free the website again, www.matteroflifeanddebt.com.

Thanks again for listening.

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