So when I started dating my GF a few years ago she had $40k+ in student loans, around $10k in a 401k from a part time job, and was applying to nursing school. I had no debt and around $10k in savings. Over the next 1.5 years she managed to finish up her schooling without taking out any more debt and we both graduated and started full time work. In 2015 we started reading MMM and got really focused on our finances and we developed a plan for her to get out of debt and raise both of our net worths most efficiently over the next year.
To raise her net worth most efficiently we wanted to lower the taxes for the year but there was 7% interest on her student loans. The solution we found was CREDIT CARDS... Her credit score was great so we took advantage of that and she signed up for four 0% credit cards and used those to pay off all her loans while also getting $1000+ in rewards dollars and signup bonuses.
Now that interest wasn't a problem we could start the plan... All her student loans were now essentially on 15 months of interest free loans so she contributed 75% of her salary to 401k and maxed that and also put $5500 in a traditional IRA for 2015. Now that the pre-tax dollars were maxed for 2015 she changed 401k contributions back to zero and dumped as much money as possible into the credit cards and as of today's paycheck she has zero debt and $30k in retirement accounts and she is ready to max her 401k in the second half of this year for 2016. All this happened months ahead of the plan and way before the credit card interest started =)
Also today my net worth hit $50k according to mint... =) it's happy days around here for us and we're looking forward to the future.