I missed Money Monday because my work schedule has been
nuts. On top of that I feel like I’m
going through a financial midlife crisis and I’ve only been on a budget for a 4
weeks! So much has changed in such a
short amount of time that I honestly feel dizzy! For starters, in 4 weeks I’ve managed to put
$800 in my savings account. I’m not sure
how I managed to not only spend that $800 every month but dip into savings
pretty regularly too. I don’t feel as
though I’m super deprived. I am able to
pay all of my bills, grab a burger every once and a while with friends, prepare
healthy whole meals to eat on all week, and still have some cash in my pocket
for fun stuff.
My outlook has changed significantly. Originally, the main reason I put myself on a
budget was to buy a house. Only now, I
just really want to see zero balances on my cards and loans. What finally made me turn a corner into full
on Dave Ramsey mode was the fact that my variable rate student loan just hit
10% interest. Up until now it had always
been the same rate as my federal loan so it didn’t seem like that big of a
deal. Then I sort of fell down the
student loan rabbit hole and discovered that I’m not even paying the monthly
interest on my federal student loans!
Every month $30 or so dollars has been added to my overall debt.
How did I not realize this before now? I seriously berated myself. I SHOULD have been more on top of my balance. I SHOULD have educated myself and became more
knowledgeable about where all my money had been going. I think a lot of my issues came back to
denial. I didn’t want to be almost
$50,000 dollars in debt so I fooled myself into thinking I only owed so and so
much a month. I perpetuated the myth
that everyone has student loans and everyone pays on them for the rest of their
life and there wasn’t a problem with it.
NO BIG DEAL!!! Except now it is a big deal.
Another reason that I didn’t realize what was going on? Trying to get a real monetary number online
from lenders is a real headache. I can
never actually get anybody on the phone.
Finally I was able to get one page up that showed how much interest I
accrued on my larger loan. At first I
thought it was super reasonable! Until I
pulled up my taxes last year and figured out that the tiny number right under
my gross owed wasn’t my yearly interest owed.
IT WAS MY MONTHLY!!! And it was
$30+ more a month than what I was paying!
I take full responsibility for not being as smart about things as I
should have but I feel like most people aren’t going to put in the amount of
time I spent researching to try and get an actual breakdown of monthly carrying
expenses of the loan. And the loan companies want that
because the longer we pay on a loan, the more money they make off of us.
So, long story short, I drank the Kool-Aid. Pass the envelopes, please.
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Did your goals change
on your way to being debt free? It’s
entirely possible that my debt journey could change from what I’m considering
now but probably not until my minimum payment would cover any interest along
with a hefty hit to the principal.
Anybody have any
ideas for a side hustle to help knock this debt out? I specialize in employment law compliance and
writing poorly on the internet. That’s
got to be a money maker, right?!
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