Life Situation: Filing status - Claim 1 Dependent, Dependents - Wife and 1 child @ 11mths, I am 31 years old, currently in Washington State
I could give my whole life story as to why I'm in my current situation but it boils down to not doing my research and making choices without a plan. If I do go back to school the top contenders were web development, accounting, or software engineering. I'm not sure this is the place to ask for career advice, but I would like to know if its even a smart move. I have done my research for each one of these and for the most part what careers lie ahead for each. Just taking a look into the future hopping from one job to another and only being capable of getting 10-12 bucks an hour at most is scary. Downsides to software engineering and accounting is I have little experience in both, but it looks like there are a lot of well educated people on the forums here, would I be expected to know much about these fields before I signed up? I feel like the cost of the education is actually holding me back confidence-wise in whether I could complete the degree for any of these, even though I have done extensive research in the computer science fields and I never had issues learning math during my years in school. Any advice would be appreciated here - small note though, I am looking for something that would allow me to have a life with my family :) I'm a big dreamer
Staying with family and only paying 100/mth - Not sure how long this will last and would prefer to get out on my own with my family as soon as financially possible.
Gross Salary(Adjusted Gross)/Wages: 25,480/yr or 980/bi-weekly (This is an average)
Pre-tax deductions: None
Other Ordinary Income: None currently
Qualified Dividends & Long Term Capital Gains: None
Rental Income, Actual Expenses, and Depreciation: None
Taxes: 1300 Federal, 1586 ss, Medicare 390 for an average year or 50, 61, 15 respectively per pay period
Current expenses: School Loans 177 and 146, Cellphone 95/mth, Auto Insurance 59/mth, Baby Needs 300/mth, Grocery 80/mth, Gas 80/mth, Entertainment/Dining 200/mth(knocking down some of the monthly recurring stuff), Rent/Other 100/mth
Current expenses I don't have but could change based on increased income: Health Insurance - currently provided free to my family by the state, School private loan @ 3% based on hardship would increase back to 9% (I am assuming and hope it does not go higher than it was previously)
Assets: Yr-2000 Truck (worth 4,500), Savings 350
Liabilities:
School Loans 42,891 Total
22,509 Private @ 3%-specialized rate currently, was 9% - Unsubsidized (Original loan 20,874 - First bill due 9/28/2006),
20,383(2 loans combined) Federal @ 2.875% Subsidized (Oiginal loan 9,792+11,838=21,630 - First bill due 9/19/2005),
Just signed up for Income based repayment on Federal and required payments starting out are 0,
Monthly Payments 177 Private and 146 Federal(before IBR),
My current plan is to try to get back onto the 3% specialized rate for my private loan for another year, it ends in June and its based on hardship,
the Federal loan I want to pay the smallest amount I can to prevent payments skyrocketing throughout the rest of the loan life, but the reason for this is to put the extra money toward my higher interest private loan that may end up going back to 9% if not approved, but its still a higher interest and Federal may disappear if my situation doesn't improve enough to just pay it off early.
Payoff Dates
Private (no longer shows up due to specialized rate which requires auto-payment but last time I was able to check it was 2028-2029)
Federal 2026
Specific Question(s): I'm asking for advice on whether I should go back to school for a higher paying career since I have 35+ more years of work ahead of me. My goal would be to own my own home w/ FI and if I get lucky ER but I don't currently have plans for it since I'm so far behind financially. My other option would be work my heart out and just pay loans for a while and hope that my living situation doesn't change during this process, I may not have the opportunity to go to school when we are on our own.
Thank you for any advice on my situation even if not related directly to my specific question.