In this series, NerdWallet interviews people about their journey to tame debt. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
Karen Akpan lost her high-paying contract in clinical research in 2019. She and her husband, Sylvester, had no savings and made an estimated $50,000 gross annual income through their travel blog’s Instagram. But that income just wasn’t enough to cover their $4,300 monthly mortgage payments — or to put a dent in their six digits’ worth of debt.
So they made a few bold moves.