It's been one year since I graduated college with an outdated degree in print journalism. The future of journalism unraveled before my very eyes, yet I was oblivious to it believing that a college degree would be the answer to my financial prayers.
Go to college, get a degree, earn a starting salary of $35K a year - that was the propaganda that I was brainwashed with during my youth. How foolish I was to believe such nonsense!
A year later, my student loans are entering repayment status and I don't make anything close to what I need to be making to pay off my student loans, which I've calculated to be about $800 - $900 a month, which is about how my rent is. Of course, I could always live in a cardboard box if I wanted to get out of "good" debt ASAP.
Instead, I've opted to go to graduate school (putting myself in further educational debt) since it was my only viable option to postpone my student loan payments yet again. I'm nervous about this decision but its either go back to school, or default on my student loans and lose any chances of financial aid in the future should I decide to return back to school later.
I hope I made the right choice. I think I did because I have a good feeling about the New Year.
My New Year's Resolution is to actually save money for once in my life. My first step involved debt consolidation in an effort to reduce my monthly credit card payments. My second step involved getting accepted into grad school. My next step is submitting my deferral request ASAP since all my payments are due next month!
After the New Year Rings in and I've assessed my financial situation (which I do about once a month), I will be posting my next steps.
My goal is to achieve some sense of control over my finances because it seriously spiraled out of control during my time in college.
I've learned my lesson the hard way, and I promise I won't make the same mistakes this time around.
2010 game plan
December 28th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
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Do you have a lot of separate loans to repay?
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I have about 4 loans to repay currently, one of which is a federal financial aid, the rest of which were private loans. Back then, because of psychological issues, I was not in the right frame of mind to make smart financial decisions, so I convinced myself that I needed these loans (and even convinced my poor father to cosign an all three private loans).
I am currently making payments on one loan at about $60 a month, but that's only because I used $10K of my most recent private loan to pay that one down.
I currently owe about $85K in student loans, so its hard not to feel overwhelmed by the number. At the same time, I sort of feel blessed that I don't have it as bad as those whose student loan debt is more than $125K.
Other than debt consolidation, I don't really have any other steps in place other than to freelance like a motha and bring in more of an income and try to spend less. My new years resolution is to spend less than I make and limit my credit card activity to none!
January 10th, 2010 at 04:45 pm 1263141909
Unfortunately this sounds like a very common problem. Especially using graduate school to postpone the inevitable payback of college loans.
My family is in a very similar situation (I am the parent). I plan to help my girls pay their loans back as much as I am able, since we are using loans rather than me killing my retirement savings for their college. Ideally we would have saved for it, but that didn't quite pan out.
College costs are just totally out of control and it is wiping out much of the middle class IMO. And even without astronomical college costs, most of us are in horrible shape for retirement since corporate America has basically stolen our pensions and doled them out to CEOS and other top management. Bitter much? YES!!
Anyway, I love this little corner of the Internet for trying to figure ways out of financial messes with the good people here. I hope we can learn a lot from each other, and I wish you all the best.