This is great!
I'm in a weird spot because I'm hoping to get some student loan forgiveness in 2.5 years (for 5 years teaching in a low-income school). Instead of throwing all my extra income at debt, I've calculated the amount I need to pay each month so that I have exactly the forgiveness amount left over in 2.5 years. So despite having debt, I'm growing my stash through decent sized contributions to retirement accounts and working my way to an emergency fund of $10,000. I'd like to join in this thread, however, because it's nice to connect with others who are in the negative numbers right now AND because I want to save enough in non-retirement accounts that I can immediately pay off my debt IF something changes in my work situation or if the government no longer funds the program I'm counting on.
2011: -38,000 (graduated with BA in History, took AmeriCorps position & deferred payments)
2012-2014: -39,000 (entered 1.5 year graduate program, free w/ living stipend, continued to defer payments)
2014: -40,000 (started full-time teaching job, I enter an income-based repayment plan that declares minimum payments are 0)
** why oh why didn't I pay at least the interest??
2015: -41,000 (lowest point-- now paying larger minimum payments due to increased income)
2016: -39,000 (I discover MMM, start crushing smaller private loan and double payments to federal loans)
2017: -24,500 (results after 1 year of MMM... wow, I hadn't realized just how much I'd paid off!)
Current Situation:
Debts: -$24,500
Assets: $4,800 (Emergency Fund); $8,000 (Investment Accounts); $15,000 (Pension)
Plan of Action:
Step One: Increase loan payments to 2.5x minimum (ETA September 2017, getting a raise)
Step Two: Achieve EF of $10,000 (ETA August 2017)
Step Three: Divert all post-investment extra income to a "loan contingency plan" savings account