Law careers are traditionally viewed as lucrative and enviable. Yet, many attorneys are saddled with mortgage-sized law school debt after graduation.

About five years ago, Harvard Law School left one law school grad and blogger, DebtFreeJD, with nearly $150,000 in student loan debt. After a few years of payments, she’d made a $25,000 dent in that total. Then, she and her husband made an ambitious vow to tackle her remaining law school debt in one year and two months—about the same amount of time it took to build the Empire State Building. Today, thanks to diligence and a refinance, she has earned her DebtFreeJD moniker.

Editor’s Note: The following article on home renovation and budgeting originally appeared on our web partner Houzz’s website. It is the second part to Houzz’s Dream to Done series – home renovation advice on a budget. Some of the content has been slightly edited from its original version.

Matching your renovation dreams and dollars can sometimes feel like a challenge. But there’s a lot you can do to get the look you want at the right price. In the first story in this series, we laid out the steps in choosing the pros you will work with and setting an initial budget.

New Year’s resolutions come and go, but student loans? Not so much. When next year rolls around, wouldn’t it be nice to see you’ve made a significant dent in your student debt—or have even decimated it completely?

“My partner doesn’t really need to know I splurged on these shoes, so I’ll intercept the credit card bill from the mail before he sees it.”

“My bonus was a bit more than I anticipated, so it won’t hurt if I don’t tell my wife and have some fun with the extra money.”

A one-time money secret may seem like a minor relationship infraction, especially if the amount in question is a small one. But as I know from conversations with my clients, one fib can lead to another, snowballing into long-term deceits, such as secret credit cards or hidden bank accounts. Little flakes of dishonesty can severely ice over a relationship, especially when debt accumulates or credit scores fall.