#2: From $90,000 in Debt to Financial Freedom—Then Life Fell Apart

In this episode, I’m sharing the full story behind Budget Divas—a story I never thought I’d tell out loud. This isn’t just about paying off $90,000 of debt. It’s about the emotional toll of working a high-pressure job, the moment I realized my family was falling apart, and how my son’s crisis became the wake-up call that changed everything.

I’ll walk you through how I quit my job, found mystery shopping, and used it to help my family pay off debt fast—while still living a life we enjoyed. And I’ll open up about the hardest chapter of all—losing my husband Alden in November 2023. I’ll be honest: I lost myself for a while. But piece by piece, I’m rebuilding my life, my finances, and my confidence.

If you’re going through something hard—whether it’s grief, financial stress, or just trying to find yourself again—I hope this episode reminds you that you’re not alone. You can come back from anything. And you can still live beautifully, even on a budget.

Key Takeaways:

• Why I walked away from a high-paying job that was costing me everything
• The moment I knew I had to change—for my son and for myself
• How I went from hardcore frugality to discovering mystery shopping as a real income tool
• The impact of grief on budgeting, motivation, and mental health
• Why progress doesn’t have to be perfect to be powerful
• How I’m learning to live again—with intention, on a budget, and with joy

Transcript

Hey friends, welcome to another episode of the Budget Divas Podcast, where we talk about money, mindset, and making room for joy, even when life feels like it's falling apart. I am your host, Jan Trinidad, and this episode is super personal. It's a story I never thought I'd tell in full, because it's not just about budgeting or debt, it's about loss. It's about heartbreak and it's about choosing to rebuild when the life you had planned disappears overnight. In this episode, I'll share how I was overworked and emotionally disconnected while drowning in $90,000 of debt.

The breaking point that changed everything when my son was in crisis and I hit emotional rock bottom. How mystery shopping changed our financial future forever. The devastating loss of my husband Alden in November, 2023 and how I'm trying one day at a time to rebuild my life, my finances and my faith in myself. This is the story behind budget divas. This is my story.

So whether you're folding laundry, driving home, or curled up on the couch with coffee, come close. I want you to hear this not just as another podcast, but as a friend sharing her heart with you.

So let's rewind a few years back. I was a staffing manager in Hawaii, a high paying, high pressure job, and on paper, things looked amazing. My husband Alden was working as a driver and our son Brandon was 13. We were living in one of the most beautiful places on earth, but behind the palm trees and Instagram sunset, my life was quietly unraveling.

This job was a blessing financially, but emotionally it was eating me alive. Work just consumed my life. I was always on call. I remember sitting at the beach, watching my son and husband splash around in the water. And there I was, glued to my phone, typing out emails with sand between my toes. My boss and I were closer than my own family. Raise your hand if you've ever been there.

where your coworkers see more of you than your spouse does. Our mornings were also super rushed. Evenings were brief. Alden and I were like passing ships. And one night, I remember it so vividly, he walked into our bedroom while I was answering work emails and he had this look on his face, like sadness mixed with resignation. And he said, it's like we're not even married anymore. We were just roommates and that line echoed in my soul.

But I kept going because money was tight. We were in debt and that's what you do, right? And then life just forced me to stop. It was a regular weekday morning. I was rushing Brandon to school, already late for work, frazzled and annoyed. And he tried to talk to me, but I just brushed him off because I really needed to get to work and he really needed to get to school. But later that morning,

As I was already in the office, I got a call from his school and they said, you need to come now. Brandon is hurt and you need to take him to the ER. My heart just dropped at that moment. He had cut his wrist and he was only 13 and he was stressed. I remember I flew down the freeway like a mad woman crying, praying, panicking that he was okay.

And then in the car, he told me what broke him. He had asked to go on a school trip to another island and I told him we just didn't have the money. That if he wanted to go, he'd have to find a way to pay for it himself. And he believed me and that broke my heart more than anything. So at this point you might be wondering, but Jen, weren't you working a really good job?

Yes, I was, but we had $90,000 in student loan and credit card debt. And after bills, almost every dollar was going to interest payments. We could not afford anything else, not even a school field trip. So I remember once we got home from the ER, I waited until everyone was busy. Brandon was in his room. Alden was busy doing something else and I just shut the bathroom door. I turned off the lights and I laid on the cold floor and just sobbed. I don't even remember how long I stayed there, but something had shifted. First it was sadness, then it was guilt, then it was anger. Anger at the system, anger at the pressure, but mostly just angry at myself for getting myself into this mess. I whispered, life is passing you by and for what?

That night I stood up, I looked in the mirror and I said out loud, tears and all, you need to get your shit together right now. It was my rock bottom, but also it was the beginning of something beautiful.

The first thing that I did was I quit that high paying job. Not because I didn't need the money, but because I couldn't afford the cost of staying. I found a lower paying job that gave me back time with my family. But now our eight year debt plan had turned into 10 years. So I went looking for a side hustle and naturally I turned to websites like Indeed.

And guess what came up? Retail jobs. No, hard pass. Flashbacks to selling makeup at Macy's, caddy coworkers, losing commission, spending my whole check on retail therapy just to make me feel better. I knew there had to be another way.

I went full on Dave Ramsey. We went from Dave-ish to hardcore. And that meant no eating out, no target runs, no vacations, no fun. We were living on rice and beans, sandwiches, cutting coupons and saying no to everything. And it sucked.

I love retail therapy, I love cute things, I love life, but now we were hermits living off of instant noodles and I thought, am I supposed to do this for 10 more years? There had to be a better way. Then came a divine moment. I remember I was venting to my coworker, Jamie, one day and jokingly I said, I wish I could get paid to shop because y'all know that shopping is my love language.

And she looked me dead in the eye and said, Jen, did you know that you can? And I was like, what? I thought she was messing with me, but she told me all about mystery shopping, how her mom would pay for Hawaii trips doing it. So I did what I do best. Research mode activated. YouTube, forums, scam alerts. I read everything. And then I found his and her money on YouTube.

They had a video on how they made $400 in one month shopping. I was sold because I remember doing those stupid swag book surveys that would pay $25 or even sometimes just five or $2. And I was wasting two hours of my life every single night to make $5. And here was a couple that made $400 in a month? Shopping?

I was sold. So my first mystery shop was at Panda Express. I got $8 plus free food. 
When that payment hit, I cried like a baby because it felt like hope.

I remember that first month mystery shopping, made $200. That was a huge deal to me, like $200 versus those stupid swag buck surveys that was paying $5. And then it was 400 and then it was 800 a month. Within the year, I had made over 15,000 extra dollars. Mystery shopping paid for our groceries, restaurants,

staycations, Brandon's school supplies, date nights with my husband, and a full weekend getaway to the Outer Islands, flight, hotel, and rental car covered. It was at that moment that I realized that we had our life back, and we were still paying off debt at lightning speed. Instead of waiting 10 years, we paid $90,000 in just a year and a half because I learned how to hack the system.

But then, that is not the rest of my story. I wish I could say that it was a happy ending. Life hit again. In November 2003, unexpectedly, I lost my husband Alden. It was brutal, and honestly, I'm still not okay. We had worked so hard, paid off all that debt, built a new life, bought a brand new house in 2023. And suddenly he was gone.

I couldn't even look at a spreadsheet. couldn't shop. couldn't record podcasts or plan anything. All I wanted to do was curl up in the corner, eating Doritos and just crying myself to sleep. Because grief clouded everything.

Bills, I still paid them, but I didn't really open my bills. Everything was just automated, which I was so thankful for. And I had to have my friends and family like help me open up those bills because I just couldn't deal with it.

Work, well I was off from work taking a leave of absence but I barely made it through the day. And of course budgeting, I still budgeted but it was so painful and honestly I let a lot of things slide back in 2024. I had spent years building budget divas and now I could barely even function.

But eventually one day I opened up my laptop, I logged into my mystery shopping platform, I took a few local shops, grabbed a coffee. It felt so familiar, safe and hopeful. I still had the trauma of going to those places because I remember Alden and I used to do that together. And honestly, it really, really hurt. But I still had to climb myself back up. I still remember being on the bathroom floor, crying, lying there for hours and just pulling myself up on the bathroom floor, looking myself into the mirror and saying, Jen, you can do this. And that's exactly how I got back into budgeting and starting to relive my life again. Budgeting again, planning again, just living again, not perfectly.

Not perfectly, but intentionally. And now that I'm a solo mom, a widow, a woman learning to balance grief and goals and glitter, this podcast, it's all part of that healing. So if you're still listening, thank you. Thank you for holding space for my story. I share this because I know someone out there is in the thick of it. You're staring at a mountain of death.

You're navigating grief. You're trying to be everything for everyone and losing yourself in the process. But hear me, you are not broken. You have to choose between joy and responsibility. And you don't have to live on ramen until your hair turns gray. You can have a fabulous life while getting financially free. You just need a new plan, a different mindset, and a little help.

If this episode spoke to you, I'd love to hear from you. DM me on Instagram at budgetdivas or shoot me an email. Jennifer at budgetdivas.com.

And if you want to learn how I paid off $90,000 of debt, keep listening to this podcast. I will be having free trainings, explaining my story, going into debt of how we climbed ourselves out of debt. And then also what I'm doing now to live my life again, budget again, and still be financially free.

But just remember that you don't have to give up your sparkle to get out of debt. You just have to be strategic. And until next time, keep your lashes long, your budgets bougie, and your Starbucks reimbursed. This is Jan signing off with love from the Budget Divas Podcast. See you in another episode.