Teacher Takes on Side Gig as a ‘Beverage Cart Girl’ to Pay Off $40K in Credit Card Debt (Exclusive)

After years of watching her credit card debt climb, teacher Megan Brown decided to confront the roughly $40,000 balance before turning 30. Now, she’s sharing the sacrifices, side hustles and small changes helping her pay it down.

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Megan Brown says her credit card debt began accumulating after she got her first card at 18 and grew significantly when she became a teacher at 22

Before turning 30, Brown decided to confront roughly $40,000 in debt and has since paid off about $12,000

Her payoff strategy includes working weekends at a golf course, cutting impulse purchases, cooking at home and tracking every dollar she spends

Megan Brown used to spend her weekends shopping and her evenings ordering dinner from DoorDash or Uber Eats. Now, the 31-year-old teacher spends many of those weekends working a second job as she pays down roughly $40,000 in credit card debt.

“Honestly, it is a lot,” Brown tells PEOPLE exclusively. “There are days and weeks where I’m so burnt out from working so much that I just cry.”

Brown recently gave TikTok viewers a look at what her life has become in a video titled “ranking things I do to help me pay off my $40,000 in credit card debt.” Her list included working as a “bev cart girl” at a local golf course, reselling clothes, giving up impulse shopping, taking the Metro instead of Uber, selling handmade jewelry on Etsy, borrowing books from the library and cooking at home.

The changes came after more than a decade of using credit cards, beginning when Brown got her first one at 18. She understood that building credit could eventually help her buy a car or home, but says no one taught her how to responsibly manage the card she was using to build it.

Her balance grew considerably when she started teaching at 22 and moved to a new city, where she was simultaneously making friends, establishing a new life and setting up her first classroom. With roughly half of her monthly salary going toward rent, Brown says “a lot” of expenses, both big and small, ended up on her credit card.

By her mid-20s, she knew the balance had become a serious problem. Still, another two or three years passed before she did anything about it.

“I knew that if I actually truly wanted all those things I mentioned — a new car, a house, etc. — I would need to be out of credit card debt to make it happen,” she says. The realization finally pushed her to act in December 2024, about a week before her 30th birthday.

She had watched TikTok creators document their own “debt-free journeys,” so she started sharing hers and asking viewers for advice and encouragement. Then she sat down and made a budget for the first time in her life.

“I had NEVER budgeted before, and this was so eye-opening,” Brown says. Seeing everything laid out meant she finally understood exactly what she earned each month, how much went toward bills and what remained afterward.

By February 2025, she was fully committed to paying down the debt. About a year and a half later, she says she has paid off approximately $12,000, sometimes chipping away at it with payments as small as $10 or $30 and other times putting $100 or $180 toward the balance.

The same lesson applies when she spends money. A quick Target or CVS trip for toothpaste, laundry detergent and body wash can suddenly become a $75 to $100 receipt, she says, something she notices far more now that she tracks her spending.

Her biggest financial commitment, however, takes up nearly every day of her week for much of the year. Brown teaches from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, then heads to the golf course on Saturdays and Sundays, where she works from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. as a beverage cart attendant.

The golf course job runs from March through November, leaving several winter months when she can slow down and put more energy into her Etsy jewelry shop, reselling clothes and other side hustles. She also genuinely enjoys both of her jobs, which makes the demanding schedule easier to sustain.

On weekdays, Brown comes home from school, takes her dog on a long walk to decompress and makes dinner before trying to squeeze in something she enjoys, whether that is reading, watching a movie or spending time with friends. Cooking has turned out to be one of the hardest parts of her financial overhaul.

“As a teacher, we make HUNDREDS of decisions every single day and the last thing I always wanted to do was decide what to cook for dinner,” she says. Meal prepping and being more intentional at the grocery store now help keep her away from the delivery apps she says she once used “all. the. time.”

Shopping has required another reset. Brown says she once went shopping nearly every weekend, while now she sometimes feels like she is cycling through the same 10 pieces of clothing.

Those sacrifices can feel especially noticeable around friends who do not have to approach spending the same way. She admits that watching someone buy what they want without much thought or plan a vacation on a whim can be difficult when Brown knows she would need months to save for the same trip.

“I think the biggest thing is how lonely it can feel,” she says. “That is not my reality now, and sometimes it feels like no one else understands it.”

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It is also one reason Brown continues talking about debt publicly on TikTok. After spending years feeling ashamed of her own balance, she wants other people facing credit card debt to know there are “thousands upon thousands” of people working through the same thing.

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Her advice starts before the spreadsheets, side hustles or extra payments. She believes getting past the embarrassment surrounding debt is what makes it possible to finally confront the number sitting on the statement.

“Once you accept it is when you’ll start to be able to make a difference,” Brown says. “Then make a budget and track ALL of your spending. I’m talking every penny.”

She plans to continue budgeting and tracking her spending even after the debt is gone. And after years of avoiding the problem herself, the message she wants to leave with someone staring at an overwhelming balance is simple: “Most importantly, believe in yourself because you can do it!”

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