A woman who wiped out almost $24,000 of debt in 15 months shares the 3 things that helped her do it

In 2009, Anna Newell Jones had $23,605 in credit card and student loan debt that she just couldn't figure out how to pay off.

"Money came in and was gone before I knew it. There was nothing left to pay off the giant pile of debt that was haunting me at all times. I was hopeless and out of options," Newell Jones writes in her upcoming book, "The Spender's Guide to Debt-Free Living."

But she found the "trifecta" that got her get out of debt: crush autopilot spending habits, modify priorities, and pare down expenses.

Here's how Newell Jones, creator of the website And Then We Saved and the trademarked Spending Fast did it: