The creator started her journey in 2023 and continued until 2024 until she was debt free.
While most struggle to muster the financial discipline needed to pay off debt, one woman managed it with a notebook and a trick. In early 2023, TikTok creator Angela Szot (@dropitlikeitsszot) decided to take a “no-buy year” to pay off her debt. Throughout the year, Szot tracked all of her monthly expenses in a notebook and categorized every dollar she spent. While she initially started with 2023, she continued her journey through 2024 until she was debt-free.
How to become debt-free with the “No-Buy” method
Szot told Bored Panda that she worked 40 hours a week as a baker and made $45,000 a year. She wanted to account for every dollar she spent and save money to pay off debt. In her first video, she shared that she stopped buying anything for the entire year of 2023 and successfully paid off over $19,000. She says she’s not a good financial expert and doesn’t know how to use spreadsheets. “I got this $2 notebook from Walmart. And it was my lifesaver,” she says in the video.
She then describes how the method works. She says she spent three pages a month documenting all of her expenses. On the first page, she lists all of her bills, paydays, and the hours she gets paid, along with her total savings and outstanding debts.
“Every time I pay something off, I tick a box. And that’s perfect,” she says.
On the second page, she divides her expenses for all her purchases into different categories. She writes down the total amount of each purchase and assigns it to the category she thinks is appropriate.
On the third page, Szot writes down the total at the end of the month and adds up all the expenses from the categories. She also writes down the outstanding debts at the end of the month and her updated savings.
In a follow-up video, Szot explained the rules she set for the “no-buy” method. In the video, she explains that the rules were extremely strict because she wanted to get out of debt quickly. The rules even prohibited her from buying makeup or new clothes unless she needed them for work.
Does the method work?
Although the method doesn’t yield much, Szot claims that it helped her be honest with her finances and pay off her debts. In a July 2024 update, the author shares that she successfully paid off all of her debts, which totaled over $30,000, in 558 days.
She says she also paid off her “fun debt” of just over $4,000 at the same time. This meant that her purchase freeze, which began in January 2023, ended in July 2024, when she was completely debt-free.
Szot said she received amazing feedback from her viewers throughout her journey. “This girl will be a billionaire by 2030. We should all watch and learn,” commented a viewer @julesburnz on one of her videos.
In the Buzzfeed report, she gave some advice to people who wanted to try the method. She recommended setting realistic and achievable goals and writing down all the rules to help you stick to your goals and stay on track.
For more updates, vlogs, and more hacks like this, follow Angela Szot (@dropitlikeitsszot) on TikTok.
