I'll try to lay this out accurately and concisely:
TL/DR: made some not smart financial moves, had a huge amount of student loans, busted my ass to make extra money, tired of doing it.
Over a 9 year period from 2001-2010 I went to college three times and ended up with three degrees. First degree I didn't ever use. Second degree I used for a couple years. Third degree is my current occupation.
In 2007 my wife and I married and bought a house. Still not sure how we got the loan with zero down and our awful debt to income ratio. I had about 70000 in student debt at the time just paying minimum payments.
From 2007 until 2012 I went back to school, we had three kids, and my debt went to the 100,000 mark. This is when panic set in. We were both 30 years old. We weren't getting anywhere. My wife was working part time, retirement accounts were zero, kids were expensive so something had to change. Thankfully I had been smart enough to get most of my loans to sub 4% interest but there was one at 6% with 30000 to be owed. It was all so suffocating.
I started working extra. My wife went full time and we started at the loans. Every extra dollar I made went to the loans and continues to.
Between 2015-2017 my wife battled breast cancer. She was barely working but I kept up with my extra job to get at the loans. She's fine now but tack on some medical bills and crazy amounts of stress.
Fast forward to now. I'm burnt out. I'm wrecked with anxiety about money and trying to balance extreme financial responsibility with a sense of wanting to be more free. Not crazy, max out credit cards free just to live a little more free. I have worked a combination of 4 jobs (1 main and 3 per diem jobs) to get these loans paid down. We have put everything on hold. We have been on one trip in the last 10 years. Our house is at the point where it need major work because we keep duct taping stuff together essentially. Most of every extra dollar that has come through has been combed over to see where it should go. Now that my wife beat cancer she wants to live a little. I can't blame her.
So we have reconsidered getting all the way to 0. We are done. By the end of this year I will have one loan with about 18k and 3.5% and I have another loan in the PSLF program that will be forgiven in 2020 that is $180 a month. That's it. I have a paid off car so I'm going to consider it a car payment. We are going to re adjust our budget so we have an actual entertainment section.
Some other info:
We have averaged anywhere from 75k- 140k in combined annual salary depending on the year.
We have leased vehicles in the past but now have one paid off car and a used car that has a note on it.
We have allowed ourselves evenings out at times but we are ready for more.
We could have probablly paid more off sooner but we slipped up after my wife's cancer with some celebratory dinners and purchases.
Should have obviously waited on the house and kids but what can you do?
Ask me any questions if you want or if I left someone out.
Thanks for reading.
Submitted March 09, 2018 at 10:55AM by triessohard http://ift.tt/2FmRad6
