An Intimate Relationship With Debt
I'm In Debt
- Posted:
11/20/2007
First of all, I'm not a financial advisor. I'm not an accountant, or a bookkeeper. I'm a small business owner providing freelance writing services to other businesses and individuals; but I have an intimate relationship with money and ... debt.
I put myself through college, with a combination of federal and privately funded student loans, earnings from my two jobs, and credit cards. I probablly should have chosen a less expensive college, but what do you really know about anything like that when you're 18 years old? College was considered a good investment, so I felt good about racking up tens of thousands of dollars of debt every year for four years!
So I started out my "adult" life in the real world with about $100,000 in debt in my name. I was 22 years old, a college diploma in one hand and an I.O.U in the other.
Five years later, I have two children- one turning five on the 28th of this month and the other turning 2 on the 22nd of December. (Are you doing the math in your head? Yes, I had my first child just a few months after I graduated college, which sort of put a damper on my plans to pay back that debt as fast as possible!) I've paid a little more than half of what I owed originally... which I think is a pretty good accomplishment considering the normal financial struggles that typically come with starting a new family, buying your first home, and just the day-to-day expenses that are forever increasing that we have to deal with to survive.
Debt and I go way back. I'm looking to leave my debt behind within the next two years- which means becoming more aggressive in my repayments, and I figure I can share my story here and help some other people get themselves out of debt, too.
Comments
