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Facing a five-figure mountain of credit card debt, many might move home with mom and dad, pick up a second or third job, or maybe go back to school.

But sometimes, extreme problems call for extreme solutions.

That was the mindset of Charles Johnson, a Seattle transplant living in Cambridge who two years ago took drastic measures to shed $25,000 in unpaid bills.

Johnson, now 27, left his apartment in the Fenway, gave away most of his furniture and schlepped out to an undisclosed location off the bike path in Cambridge.

“I ended up sleeping out in the woods for four months,” he told Metro.“Four months later, I was debt-free.”

Now, Johnson wants to be a life-coach for the debt-ensnared, launching a new group he’s calling Boston Debt Destroyers, at a time when student loans are bigger than ever and the average American family is in debt by more than $15,000 on credit cards alone.

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Johnson imagines the Debt Destroyers meet-ups, which start this week, will be part AA-style support group, part strategy think-tank, part club for those willing to commit to life-hacking their way to financial stability. They’ll be free and he isn’t selling anything, he said, although he’s also launching a website and said he may eventually offer paid services.

The meetings, he said, will focus not just on radical life-changing decisions, but on smart moves: paying off credit cards with the highest interest rates first, for example, or driving for a ride-sharing company on weekends.

“Some people are going to want to take more of a laid-back approach,” he said. “That’s OK. We’re not going to exclude anyone.”

Because his method, obviously, isn’t for everyone.

Throughout the fall of 2014, Johnson said, he slept outdoors in a weatherproof bivouac sack (a “body condom,” he called it), showered at the gym and packed clothes and other belongings in a storage unit.

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