A millennial who paid off $48,000 of student loans shares 3 steps for people who feel like they're drowning in debt

Like many millennials, Carmen Perez started out her adult life in the red. 

After graduating with a BS in finance in 2009, Perez found herself dealing with the cost of her education for many years afterward. "I had a private student loan, and it was $30,000," Perez, now a personal finance blogger, told Business Insider.

Perez was one of seven financial professionals who took part in Business Insider's Master Your Money roundtable discussion on student debt, moderated by senior personal finance reporter and Certified Financial Planner candidate Tanza Loudenback. 

"I've been in every student's shoes, stressing about how to tackle your student loan debt once you get out," Perez said. In her journey to pay off her student loans, she found three steps that helped her to go from feeling overwhelmed to debt-free. 

1. Write out what you owe

"I think the biggest advice is just to get organized around your student loans. Write them all down and see what you actually have to tackle," Perez told Business Insider. "Once you get organized, you can kind of see the big picture a lot clearer. You know who your loans are with. Are they subsidized or unsubsidized, are they private loans or federal loans?" she said. 

Taking the time to write out all of your loans and their details is a good way to not only get a grasp of what types of loans you have, but also start to get a feel for how you can pay them off. Listing your debt is the first step of two popular strategies for debt payoff: the debt snowball, which tackles the smallest balance first, and the debt avalanche, which goes after the highest interest rate first. 

Getting organized can help you understand exactly what debt you have, and give you a better vision for how to tackle it in the next steps.

2. Choose a method to tackle your debt, or look into repayment plans 

Once you've listed out your loans, "put a plan in place to tackle that," Perez said. "It could be very rudimentary, like the debt snowball or the debt avalanche. But, pick a plan, and figure it out," she said.

Picking one of these methods is an effective way to pay off debt. Mandy Velez, a 28-year-old college grad, previously told Business Insider that she used the debt snowball method to pay off $102,000 worth of debt that she accumulated at the University of Pittsburgh. Business Insider contributing writers Melanie Lockert, who ultimately paid off $81,000 of loans, and Eric Rosenberg, who paid off $40,000, used the debt avalanche method to target the "most expensive" loans — those with the highest interest rates — first.

If the payments are too high to manage, you do have options. For one thing, federal borrowers can opt for an income-driven repayment plan to cap payments at about 10% of your discretionary income. "I think that helps take the burden off a little bit," Perez said.

Once you know all of your options, what you'll have to pay every month, and have figured out a method you want to use, you'll be able to start on the next step: making it happen. 

3. Start paying each month according to your plan

Perez said the final step is the most obvious, but also the most daunting: Start repaying your debt according to your plan. 

"Understanding how much money you have coming in, and what's going out, knowing what areas you can cut, and what areas maybe you need to pick up a side hustle in to be able to tackle your goals a lot faster is the key," Perez said. 

Cynthia Loh, the Vice President of Digital Advice and Innovation at Charles Schwab and another member of Business Insider's Master Your Money roundtable, recommends setting up your payments to be automatic. "Automate your payments so you don't forget about them, so you don't fall back," she said. "And, in some situations when you automate payments, you can actually qualify for reduced interest rates."

By starting with these three steps, student loans can feel less overwhelming, more manageable, and be paid off sooner.