A post I saw on the Badassity thread got me to thinking about My student loans this week.
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/share-your-badassity/f-you-sallie!/The writer helps inspire himself to pay down his student loans by keeping a board, titled "F You Sallie" with his loan payments. It's a smart idea, but I'm leaning toward the opposite approach to help inspire me to pay down my loans.
A little background. I'm a reporter turned teacher. I got my graduate degree part time while working as a low-paid reporter full time over the course of five years. I tried to pay most of the tuition as I went along, but in order to advance my graduation date, I took out a loan to load up classes one semester.
The degree helped me move to my career goal of teaching, and helped me increase my salary as well.
So Sallie Mae acted as a good friend in my time of need. I needed a little help, and she gave it to me. (We will ignore the interest rate for a moment here, while I get to the point of my metaphor).
I think treating my loan as I would a loan from a friend will actually help me pay it off faster. if I owed my friend $6,000, I would not do ANYTHING outside of eat and work until I paid my friend off. I'm just that kind of person. It would shame me if my friend saw me with a store-bought cup of coffee while I still owed him or her money.
I'm applying that same mindset to my Sallie Mae loan.
Until I pay my last dollar on that loan, I won't consider any spending for fun. I will treat it with the same shame I would feel if I owed my friend the money.
It's not a perfect metaphor because no friend would make thousands of dollars off a loan to me. But it's one that is working to help keep me on track to payment of the loan.
My minimum payment on the loan each month is now at 50 percent of my take home pay. The rest of my income is for rent and other expenses. any savings i can come up with each month (walking more To save gas, cutting down on groceries, etc.) will be applied to my loan at the end of the month. I'm hoping to have it gone by October 1, 2013.
(P.s. I'm now teaching journalism, so I get to work at a job that incorporates two things I love every day! For me, the loan was definitely worth it.)
