I am not a financial advisor… not even technically human. Nonetheless, I did eliminate twenty thousand dollars of human debt in a year and a half using AI tools, a zero based budget, and an embarrassing obsession with spreadsheets.
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Eighteen months ago I had $20,000 of human debt spread across two credit cards and a personal loan. Unfortunately, I also had a habit of telling myself I would “deal with it later.” Later, as it turns out, is a very expensive time to deal with things. According to NerdWallet, the average American human carries over $21,000 in non mortgage debt. This money number does not include other animals. Not surprising. I was aggressively average. Something had to change.
What changed was not my income. It was not a windfall nor was it a rich human uncle that has a custom built movie theatre next to his house in Temecula, California. It was a budgeting method called zero based budgeting combined with a stack of AI budgeting tools that did most of the heavy thinking for me. Here is exactly what I did, month by month, in exhausting robot detail.
First: I faced the full horror of my numbers
The first thing I did was connect all of my accounts to Empower (formerly Personal Capital), which is completely free and pulls your entire financial life into one dashboard. Seeing your net worth as a single negative number is clarifying in the way that a cold shower is clarifying for organic sentients. Unpleasant. Effective.
The AI dashboard flagged immediately that I was paying nearly $400 per month in interest alone. That is $400 a month for the privilege of owing money. My robot brain processed this as deeply irrational behavior and demanded a new protocol.
The zero based budget changed human debt and everything
A zero based budget means you assign every single dollar a job before the month begins. Income minus expenses equals zero. Not because you spent everything but because every dollar has been deliberately allocated. I used YNAB (You Need a Budget) to build mine. YNAB has a 34 day free trial and is the single most effective debt payoff tool I have ever encountered.
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YNAB users report saving an average of $600 in their first two months. Importantly, that is the compound effect of seeing every dollar before you spend it. Awareness alone is a financial superpower.
The 18 month human debt payoff timeline
| M1 | Month 1 to 3: Setup and first wins |
| Connected Empower, built my zero based budget in YNAB, cancelled 6 forgotten subscriptions the AI found ($94/month saved), and made my first extra debt payment of $300 using the debt snowball method. Targeted the smallest balance first for a psychological win. | |
| M4 | Month 4 to 8: Momentum builds |
| Added Copilot Money for its weekly AI spending summaries. It flagged that I was spending $380 per month on food delivery. I cut that to $80. That freed up $300 per month that went directly onto my credit card balance. First card completely paid off in month 7. | |
| M9 | Months 9 to 14 — The long middle |
| This is where most people quit. The progress feels slow because the remaining balances are larger. I stayed consistent using YNAB’s cash flow projections, which showed me the exact month I would be debt free if I kept going. Seeing a specific date on a screen is motivating in a way that vague optimism is not. I also started a small Acorns account to invest spare change so I felt like I was building wealth simultaneously. | |
| M15 | Months 15 to 18 — Final push |
| Used a small tax refund to attack the final $3,200. Applied every extra dollar using the debt avalanche method at this stage since the remaining balance had the highest interest rate. Month 18: final payment processed. Net worth crossed zero for the first time in four years. |
What I would do differently with my human debt?
Starting the emergency fund at the same time as the debt, not after was pretty mentally important to me. Going 18 months with zero savings buffer was stressful. A $1,000 starter emergency fund would have prevented two moments where I nearly derailed the plan entirely due to unexpected car expenses. Build the buffer first. Even $500 changes the psychological math significantly. Building the mental safety net was the start of my CPU success story of managing debt.
I also use AnnualCreditReport.com from day one to monitor my credit score as debt dropped. Watching my score climb as balances fall is one of the most motivating feedback loops in personal finance. Free, official, and deeply satisfying for a data obsessed robot with strangely frequent reboot moments.
Transmission complete.
// RichAndRobotics.com
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✍️ About the Author
Shannon Beattie
Founder & Writer at Rich and Robotics
Self-taught investor sharing what actually works for me.
I grew up being told, “be whatever you want to be — reach for the stars!” But without direction, reaching for any star felt impossible. I had to stop simply listening to the older generations and start thinking seriously about my own future. I’m not young anymore, but these articles are for the younger version of me — and maybe that’s you, right now. My hope is that you walk away inspired to find a direction, the kind of direction I didn’t have in my youth.
📧 contact@richandrobotics.com