I got a letter from the Student Loans company today. I have finally paid off my student loans in full. Yippee!!!
Now that just leaves my graduate loan, my overdraft, my credit card debt, my car loan, my mortgage, and the loan to pay off my tax debt after my business collapsed. In about 30 years I'll be debt free! ;-)
Ouch...
Purdy on 2002-04-22T12:33:37
Well, congratulations on getting rid of one of the debts. I would target the overdraft & credit card next, as those probably have the higher APR % rate. Depending on your income (& debt), I would set up some "allowance" system, where everytime you get paid, you give yourself some "pocket money" for food, the Penguin Cafe Orchestra CD and what-not. If you run out of money before your next "allowance", then it's PB&J until then. The point is to get you into a different mindset/system so you move yourself towards a cash system only.
When I graduated from college [back in '98], I have a little over $6,000 in credit card debt and about one year later, we whittled that away. Today, my wife & I are totally debt-free, save for our mortgage, which isn't as bad a debt, since the interest is tax-deductible and it's more of an investment.
Anyway, there's a ton of good resources out there ... here's two of my favorite:
Jason
Re:Ouch...
belg4mit on 2002-04-22T21:31:00
Motley Fool has much to say on this sort of thing.
And they would most definitely agree with
targeting the credit cards. They'd also have said not to buy a car ;-)
Congrats on making progess!
jjn1056 on 2002-04-22T18:34:28
As someone who is struggling to pay off the US $60K I had when I finished grad school I understand how frustrating the whole loan business can be. For some reason it's never enough when you are in school, thus the high credit card debt most of us end up with, and when you get out it's suddenly hard to imagine paying it all off!
Peace.
