You’ve probably seen those articles that go around once every other month in which someone claims to have paid off their student loans through a mix of frugality and discipline, and then buried someone in the eighth paragraph it’s revealed that they also had a millionaire grandma or something. Yes, unfortunately, given the state of college costs in this country, financial savvy doesn’t get you quite as far as it used to. But one California man named Dylan did manage to find a unique financial hack, no wealthy relatives required: eating every meal at Six Flags.
In 2014, Dylan was working as an intern near Six Flags Magic Mountain when he dropped $150 for an annual pass. The annual pass includes parking and two meals a day, Dylan told Mel Magazine. So, if you time it right, you can eat two twice a day, every day, all year long, for what comes out to about 50 cents a meal.
Over the next seven years, he estimates that he ate about 2,000 meals at Six Flags. It wasn’t the healthiest diet (he told Mel it was “rough”) but he not only paid off all his student loans, he bought a house and got married. Dylan didn’t say exactly how much debt he had to pay off when he started his experiment, but it’s more or less over now. Since getting married, Dylan has calmed down a little on the diet, but says he still eats at Six Flags for lunch “around three times a week.”
“We just bought a house here, so I’m not really going anywhere,” Dylan told Mel Magazine. “As long as they keep changing the menu, I’m happy.”
Obviously, most Americans don’t live and work within walking distance of a Six Flags, so this hack isn’t available for everyone. And the jury is still out on whether or not this won’t result in some sort of expensive gastrointestinal catastrophe in the near future. But it is an impressive commitment to the bit.
