In Love and Out of Debt

Haley Messner and Tanner Cemper do not disagree that 2020 has been a difficult year. But for them, it’s a tossup on whether 2019 might have been worse.

Ms. Messner said she was “pretty homeless” for a while that year. Mr. Cemper, too, spent a solid part of it feeling he had skidded off the rails both financially and personally. Relief from what they call “the dark ages” would find them by Dec. 31, 2019, though not before they vowed to climb out of debt together.

Ms. Messner, 29, and Mr. Cemper, 30, met on June 9, 2013 over beers with mutual friends at Bangkok Poco, a San Diego Thai restaurant. She had just graduated from San Diego State University and had a few weeks to kill before starting an internship in public relations. He graduated from San Diego State the year before and was settling into a career with Cemper Contracting, his family’s construction business in…