Let's take a second to define Impossible, please...

In our group meeting this morning with our supervisor, everyone was talking about how everyone has student loans in grad school. My supervisor was literally like “It’s impossible to live without them. There’s no way you can live off of a grad student’s salary.” And I’m sitting there thinking... um, I do? I mean, I’m not saying it doesn’t suck and it’s not hard and annoying, but it is possible. You can't just blow it off without even trying. It’s just funny to think, once again, how I come from a different place than these guys. They can't even imagine living off of what we get paid, so they think that no one can. Their lifestyles have always been more expensive. But you know what, I’m super proud that I’m not taking out a single loan to get through grad school. AND I still have money for a new car and to travel and all that awesome stuff. AND I will still have money for that later when they are paying off loans. And less stress to boot! :-P

Tackling my Debt

Well, I am finally finished the semester!! I turned in all my papers, computed my students' grades, packed up and left my apartment, and moved home for the summer. Now that the semester is over and I don't have to stress about school for awhile, I thought I'd come up with a new financial goal.

When I graduated from undergrad, I had about $17,000 debt in student loans. By now that’s down to closer to $16,000 (in two years… oy), but by the end of the next school year I want to pay my student loan down to $14,500. This means I have about $1,500 to go in one year, which is basically what I’ve done with the previous two year’s work. It might be a bit difficult, but this doesn't seem like an impossible goal.

How will I do it? Right now I send in $150 each month, and about half of each payment goes to the principal and half to the interest. So, if I multiply $75 by 12, that’s $900 in one year. Then I only need to scrape up an extra $600 over the course of a whole year! Considering I have a large summer stipend coming my way soon, I think this is completely do-able. Maybe I'll even be able to pay off a little more!!

Lessons Learned?

Our department is looking for another linguistics professor, and this week we had two guys come and give mock teaching demonstrations and job talks. It's really interesting to be a part of this process and see it from both sides. We have a little bit of a say in who we like and who we want to come here, and it's definitely a learning experience to watch what the candidates have to do. If I go through with the Phd program and try to get a job as a professor, this is the kind of thing I would have to do to get a job. Certainly more stressful than a normal interview!

Oh, and AES put my loan into deferrment AGAIN. Despite my nasty letter telling them never to do that in the future without my prior approval. Apparently my wishes mean nothing. This time I'm done fighting though; I'm so over it (kind of). I'll just keep sending my payments in as usual. *Sigh*

AES Success!

My student loan is finally back to normal... after about a month of dilly-dallying on the company's part. And yes, I checked into it and I could still make payments (and did, in fact) while it was in deferrment, but it's the principle of the thing. I was really annoyed that they could just do whatever they wanted with my loan, without even checking with me first. But after the polite-yet-borderline-nasty letter I sent a few weeks ago, I am now officially back in repayment!! Woot!

Angry

Earlier this week I received a notice from AES saying that my loan has been deferred, when I didn't even ask for it to be! When I called to ask who had put that through, they told me it is state law that when they receive enrollment information from a university, the loan has to be deferred. I got a little snippy with the guy on the phone, considering this is my own loan and last time I checked, I am responsible enough to make choices regarding it. He told me I should write a letter asking for the deferment to be taken away, and they should put it back to normal. All I have to say is, they'd better.

This just makes me so angry, because they are obviously just trying to suck as much interest money as possible out of people. If you have the means to pay your bill each month, you should have every right to keep it under a normal status and keep paying it off. There's no reason for them to defer it without even asking. If people need a deferrment, they will ask for it themselves.

To defer or not to defer?

As most of you know, I will be starting grad school next month (actually in less than three weeks!!). This gives me the option of deferring my student loan payments until I graduate, which will be either in two or five years, depending. But deferment seems to have some major flaws. These are my options:

a) I can defer and postpone all interest payments, which they will later tack on to the principal of the loan! Needless to say, deferring without paying interest is not an option for me at all- I could end up owing over $23,000 as principal by the time I graduated!!

b) I can defer and still make interest payments, which would run roughly $300 every quarter. I would have to save $100 each month to be able to afford paying off the interest payments, and my principal would stay at roughly $16,000.

c) I can keep right on making payments to the loan, and keep chipping away at my principal. Right now, my payment is only $150 every month.

So looking at it this way, the winner is: C!! I just have to move some things around within my budget to find an extra $50 every month. Hopefully, by the time I graduate, I will have paid off a fairly good chunk of my loan. :)