Reusing Things to Save Money While Paying Off Student Loans

This website has already published a number of articles about saving money so that additional cash can be devoted to student loans. Although many people are most interested in the articles on this website about earning income from side-hustles, it is actually more important to save money. As previously discussed, this is because taxes must be paid on any additional money you make. From my own personal experiences, reusing things to save money is one of the most important ways to devote as much money as possible to repaying student debt.

We have all probably heard the expression “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” at some point or another in our lives, and this maxim is really important when saving money. Although it might be more convenient to buy new products to replace obsolete items, reusing things to save money is doable in a variety of circumstances. During my student debt repayment saga, I made things last as long as possible, and reused items as much as I could.

For instance, I have used one television set for over a decade and a half. My father got me this TV in 2003, and the unit is so old, it had a built in DVD-player and VCR. I had this TV in high school, and I took it to college. I expected to throw the TV out at the end of law school, but I decided to keep it and moved that TV into four of my apartments once I entered the real world. The TV recently died, and it served me well for 16 years. By not shelling out hundreds of dollars to buy a new TV, I was able to devote additional money to my student loans, which helped me pay off my debt faster.

Reusing things to save money can also work in other areas of your life. Although many people have a ton of shoes, I don’t. Being 6’9” and having size-16 shoes kind of in itself ensures that I do not have much footwear, since shoes rarely fit! However, I never saw a need to have more “kicks” than one pair of dress shoes, one pair of running shoes, and one pair of walking shoes.

Usually, I would buy a new pair of running shoes every six months during my student debt repayment saga, and I would use my old running shoes as my new walking shoes. When I bought a new pair of running shoes, I threw out the old walking shoes and kept the replaced running shoes as my new walking shoes. By following this “circle of shoe life” I ensured that I only had to buy one set of shoes every so often, since purchasing these running shoes would also ensure that I had a new pair of walking shoes upon which I could rely.

When it came to dress shoes, I also followed the strategy of reusing things to save money so that more cash can be devoted to student loans. I still have a pair of brown dress shoes that I purchased (after haggling the price down!) about six years ago. Rather than buy new brown shoes, I have had the shoes repaired probably five times at much less than the cost to replace the shoes. As previously mentioned, it is extremely difficult for me to find size-16 shoes, so repairing my old shoes also saved me an incredible amount of hassle! In addition, simply repairing shoes ensured that I spent less money on shoes such that I could devote additional cash to student loans.

During my student debt repayment saga, another way of reusing things to save money for me was to reuse clothes. Pretty much anytime someone in my family threw an article of clothing away, I would offer to take it off their hands. I have four brothers, each of whom is pretty tall (although not as tall as me!). It was pretty much understood that if any of them bought an item that ended up being too big for them, they would pass it along to me.

In addition, another way of reusing things to save money was to fix up old shirts and coats that were ripped or torn. I do not know the first thing about sewing, but I have a fantastic grandmother who really gets a kick out of fixing tears in clothing. Anytime I had a shirt, sweater, or other item that needed to be repaired, my grandmother would be happy to help me out. She was especially adept at sewing buttons, which came in handy when keeping my winter jackets in a serviceable condition.

I also reused electronics a great deal while paying off student loans. After my law school roommate and I graduated from law school, my roommate wanted to throw away his printer. I ended up saving that printer from the garbage, and I still use it to this day. In addition, I had a family member who wanted to throw away a computer, and I ended up saving it for my own purposes. I can’t access some of the features of the laptop, since I don’t know the administrator’s password, but I still get plenty of utility out of that computer! This experience shows how reusing things to save money is doable even with more expensive products.

In the end, reusing things to save money while paying off student loans is extremely easy. And if you are willing to use an item for a little while longer, or save something from being trashed, you will have more money to devote to your student debt.