Note: I originally wrote this and other posts about our finances on a personal blog but have decided to share them here. The original publishing date is shown below.
We were married in December 2010 and Phil already had just over $10,000 in student loan debt. We made our monthly payments, but didn't make much of a dent in the debt. Someone gave us The Total Money Makeover as a wedding gift and we both started reading it a few months into our marriage. We liked its teachings and agreed with the principles. We started using a website called Mint to manage our various checking and savings accounts and to create a monthly budget. We still use Mint on a regular basis. At that time we also increased our loan payments by en extra $100 a month, but we both felt too scared to really attack the debt and pay it off. We wanted to save our money for future expenses.
3/24/14
We were married in December 2010 and Phil already had just over $10,000 in student loan debt. We made our monthly payments, but didn't make much of a dent in the debt. Someone gave us The Total Money Makeover as a wedding gift and we both started reading it a few months into our marriage. We liked its teachings and agreed with the principles. We started using a website called Mint to manage our various checking and savings accounts and to create a monthly budget. We still use Mint on a regular basis. At that time we also increased our loan payments by en extra $100 a month, but we both felt too scared to really attack the debt and pay it off. We wanted to save our money for future expenses.
The truth is, Phil never should have taken out those loans in the first place. Had he planned a little better, he could have worked more and paid for school in full with his own money. We were able to pay for my schooling without taking out any more loans. But at the time he really didn't see or feel anything wrong about it. Everyone was getting loans, he did too.
We are all in control of our decisions, but society really does have an influence on us. College has become so much more expensive that it used to be, even compared to just 20 or 30 years ago. I remember my dad talking about how inexpensive school was (relatively speaking) when he was in college. He would work hard all summer to save up and then pay for a full year of school with his earnings. Student loans didn't even really exist, and certainly weren't the norm. Now, the government guarantees student loans, and they aren't bankrupt-able (meaning even if you file for bankruptcy, you still have to pay your student loans, unlike every other kind of debt) so it makes sense for schools to increase the cost of tuition and encourage students to get loans because then they get more money.
Phil and I are wiser now, we see through this scheme. But it has taken us a while to get here, and unfortunately $100,000 more in student loan debt. Despite our reading and budget making, we still made the decision to come to a very expensive graduate school and take on more debt. Over the past two years we have really come to realize how burdening debt can be and are ready to be free from its weight on our lives. We still have a long way to go. This is just the beginning of our journey.
No comments:
Post a Comment