We all agree that education is important, but student loan debt in the United States recently topped $1.4 trillion. Yes, you read that right. Not million. Not billion. Trillion. That’s enough zeros to make your head spin!

And the worst part is that most students (and their parents) don’t know what they’re really getting into when they sign on the dotted line. We asked EveryDollar budgeters to share what they wish they had known about student loans before agreeing to take them on. Here’s what they said:

When Joanna made the trip from New Zealand to Colorado, she didn’t expect to make the United States her home. “I came over to stay with a lady on a ranch who needed someone to help train horses,” she explained. It sounded like fun, so she hopped on a plane and came over.

Less than a week after she arrived, she met Mark, the man who would soon become her husband.

Valerie and Gary were the typical American couple.

“We had credit cards, car loans and orthodontic loans,” Valerie said. “We made the mistake of refinancing the house and rolling our credit card debt in there. We swore we would never use those cards again. But we did. And then we took out a second mortgage.”

Watch Daniel and Rachel get a complete EveryDollar budget makeover! They got on the same page with money and found $1,500 in their budget to throw toward debt. Find out how!

Start your own budget makeover by creating an EveryDollar budget today!

Before they started using EveryDollar, Rachel and Shawn G. didn’t really budget. They sort of planned what they were going to spend for the month, but they didn’t stick to it. And they definitely didn’t pay more than the minimum on their $26,000 worth of car debt.

All that changed when this Charleston, West Virginia, couple discovered the free budget app. For the first time, they began planning and tracking their spending together. And they soon realized how much money they were wasting each month.

They found enough “extra” cash to bump up their debt payment from $670 to $1,400 a month! That’s more than double their original payment! And after 14 months of hard work and smart spending, they are now completely debt-free (and heading to Disney World with cash in their pockets!).