My Story

Thursday, 3 April 2008 at 11:03 am (How I Got Here) (, , )

Recently, I stumbled upon a string of financial blogs and found them quite interesting–interesting enough to lead me to beginning my own.  The problem that I saw was that these blogs didn’t apply to me very well.  Sure, many of them are also in debt, but they’re not in MY kind of debt.  They may have a substantial amount of debt, but their net worth is way above mine-it has to be because my net worth is in the red. I’ve always been smart about credit cards; I always pay them off at the end of the month to make sure that I don’t get caught in that horrible cycle of never having enough to pay it down.  My debt is all student loans and my car loan.  I took out loans for my three semesters of graduate school, which totaled about $18,500 (prior to part of it earning interest).  I graduated, got a job as a teacher (which is what my degree was in), and bought a used Toyota 4Runner.  My parents convinced me that I’d be able to make the payments and even offered to put down two-thirds of the money so that I could buy it outright and not have to finance it for a huge interest rate.  Instead, we agreed that I’d borrow $5000 interest free on the condition that I paid that lump sum back after two years.  I borrowed another $5500 at 7% interest to be paid monthly over a three year time period. 

This all seemed relatively fine; I got a used car in wonderful condition for a fairly good price and I knew that I could make the payments with my fancy new salary. Except that I hated teaching.  At the end of the year I resigned with no intention of ever returning.  Previously, I’d been smart enough to choose the 10-month payment plan (instead of the 12) to make sure the money grew interest in my account instead of Fairfax County’s, and I’d set aside that extra money in a separate account.  I foolishly decided to wait on finding a new job while I enjoyed the summer and recovered from a stressful year.  That led to me being out of a job until mid-December.  I had to live on my savings until that point and my expenses were increasing while I had barely any money coming in. 

That September I moved out of a 2-bedroom apartment I shared with a roommate into a one bedroom which cost a lot more; my roommate was getting married and I didn’t have anyone to live with to share expenses.  I realize I could have lived with a stranger, but in the past I had such a horrible living situation that I’d rather struggle financially for a while than struggle emotionally. 

So here I am in April, with more debt than assets.  My biggest trouble is sticking to a budget, so that is what I will start working on first.

 

1 Comment

  1. Lulugal11 said,

    Monday, 7 April 2008 at 5:32 pm

    Hi, Thanks for stopping by my blog and signing up for Cash Duck under me. I see that you are new to the blogging world so I wish you all the best.

    You might want to look into increasing the font size of your posts. It is very small and may turn off new readers who may not want to go the extra step to find a way to make it bigger themselves.

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    Reply

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