māmā.aloha.ʻāina

Last year, 2020, might’ve been the first year where I put effort into picking a word for the year. I enjoyed the process of picking a word, and often reflected back on that word throughout the year. I decided to continue with this practice this year for 2021.

My word for 2021 is flow.

Flow like water.

When water flows, it flows with confidence in a way that it knows exactly where it is going. And remembers where it has been. (Have you seen Frozen II? hehe)

Flow that nourishes, nurtures, and embraces. Cleanse.

Flow.

With a new year upon us, I find myself reflecting on the year that 2020 was. I am a bit surprised that I have more reflecting that I am doing since it seems like I did a lot of that this year. Didn’t we all? 2020 was the year that flipped all that we knew on its head and forced us to re-evaluate evvvvvverything. There are so many things to say, but I wanted to focus this post on the similar trend related to budgeting and more specifically, student loans.

Since giving birth for the first time, I continue to see how birthing has taught me valuable life lessons. One lesson has come from a metaphor that I learned to help with managing the “wave of energy,” or contractions. It seems counter-intuitive to focus on relaxing when you feel pain and the natural response is to usually tense up. (Our trained and nurtured responses to pain and perspective on pain could be a whole conversation within itself.) But that is essentially the key! And it may sound corny or what ever word you want to choose, but hey – it works for me! With each wave of energy, I envision being in the water and sometimes you can ride it out. Other times, it is easier to get through that rough spot when the wave is so big, by duck diving and going straight through it. This same type of facing-the-problem-head-on-approach has been applicable to many other areas of my life, not just birthing.

Another thing that I’ve been working on that isn’t necessarily visible on this budgeting journey, is changing my mindset. I want to commit to reading more, but one book that I have been reading is Decolonizing Wealth by Edgar Villanueva. Duck diving through the problem that is student loan debt is how I make sense of what I have (re-)learned from this book with re-developing my relationship with money and how to heal.

Coming down from the clouds for a moment, and getting re-grounded in where we are right now, after many months of student loans being on hold because of the pandemic, it seems that student loan payments may become due again starting in February 2021. A few things changed in mine and my ʻohana’s situation where I will likely be eligible for Public Service Loan Forgiveness again. This reminded me of a wound and I share this as part of my healing.

Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) is an alternative student loan repayment method where, among other conditions or stipulations, if you work for a state or nonprofit organization and make 120 on time payments (which is generally one payment/month over 10 years), the rest of your student loan debt is forgiven. On top of that, in Hawaiʻi, there are additional programs that assist with the same type of loan forgiveness after serving in rural areas of need for a certain amount of years for certain professions, one of which is for health professionals.

It has been part of my personal journey with my educational background in public health and law where I am not always seen as a health professional or an attorney. Let’s let that sink in for a bit.

Nevertheless, I was essentially laughed at by a fellow Native Hawaiian and was told how attorneys are not in need for the Native Hawaiian community when I inquired about such loan forgiveness programs applying to someone like me.

I haven’t written a dissertation on the supposed no need for Native Hawaiian attorneys serving Native Hawaiian community, but I would guess that the Access to Justice reports provide data to the contrary. And to my knowledge, I am the only Native Hawaiian with an educational background in public health and law who is working in a capacity to improve Native Hawaiian health.

While I am thankful for these loan forgiveness programs, and the benefits seem obvious, it is not as easy at it seems. One challenge for me is that you have to be working full-time. Full-time is defined differently from one employer to the next, but the federal PSLF defines full-time as 32+ hours (or at least that’s how it was defined the last time I checked). Since our hiapo was born in 2012, I have held full-time work for less than a year that would qualify for this PSLF program.

Another challenge is that typically state or nonprofit organizations are not able to pay as much as a private sector employer. The impact of this is likely self-explanatory, but in short, we all know it is not cheap to live in Hawaiʻi.

And for our ʻohana, another challenge is that my husband and I both have student loan debt. Sure there are other families where both parents or partners have student loan debt, but I would guess that it is more common where only one person in the family has student loan debt.

As we continue on our journey to becoming debt free, I still have no regrets with regards to our student loan debt. But I do hope we continue to find additional ways to student loan forgiveness or cancellation so that our keiki will not have to carry these same burdens.

Here is one question that I have been thinking about for some time and would be interested to know your thoughts.

What are the pros/cons, advantages/disadvantages, in comparing the following pathways to paying off student loan debt with the goal of purchasing a home:

Pathway A: PSLF on an income-based repayment plan

Pathway B: make extra payments toward student loan debt and pay off student loans as quickly as possible

Student Loans. Uuuuuuuggggggghhhhhhhh

Where should I begin?

Student loans make-up most of our ʻohana’s debt. Do I regret it? No. But it continues to have an impact on our (financial) future. And one thing they don’t warn you about when taking out student loans is the possibility of marrying someone with just as much student loans as you–that’s right, double the amount of student loans in our hale. If things had gone “according to plan,” meaning the $250k salary that I wouldy supposedly be earning, sure, we would’ve paid off our student loans by now.

Nevertheless, here we are still with student loan debt.

Then 2020 happens and student loan payments have been put on hold in light of impacts due to COVID-19. Not only that, enter: Biden + Harris which included promises to cancel/forgive student loan debt.

Before re-committing to this budgeting journey at the end of 2019, and there still occasional moments now, it often feels very lonely and a pipe dream to be able to fully pay off our student loans. It also quickly becomes overwhelming thinking about more important goals like buying a house, or saving for our kids’ college funds to set them up for success and not to have to incur the same kind of debt as we have. And in case you didn’t know, student loan payments ain’t cheap! Our student loan payments equates what many pay for their mortgage.

To be honest, I’ve often hoped, dreamed, and prayed for some type of miracle to help with our student loan payments. Did I imagine it would come in the form of COVID-19? No. But perhaps that is another silver-lining that came from this pandemic.

Even in light of the uncertainty and changes that came in 2020, we were still able to pay off one of my student loans that was lingering since I graduated from college over decade ago. It doesn’t seem like much, but it felt huge! This was the first moment where I actually felt like we were making progress to paying off our student loan debt.

Having a plan and recommitting to our journey to become debt free has helped ease some of the feelings of helplessness in ever paying off our student loans. Kamaka Dias launched his Race to $50K, and his story to pay off his student loans by doing various jobs has been so inspiring! That was another source of motivation to stay the course, and reminder that we too can pay off our student loans one day.

I’ll continue to follow Biden+Harris’ student loan forgiveness/cancellation efforts, and find ways to support those initiatives. Sure, me and my ʻohana will personally gain from this type of forgiveness, but I also know many like me who are crippled by student loan debt. The current discussion is around forgiving $10,000. It would take me almost a year and a half to pay off $10,000 of student loan debt. That’s just mind-boggling!

It’s been a little over a year since me and my ʻohana have (re-)committed to budgeting with the goals of paying off our debt, saving for a house, and many other goals. It’s a bit ironic, and in some ways helpful, that 2020 ended up being what it has been. Heck, it’s even strange thinking about how drastically things have changed since I first shared on my blog about our journey to becoming debt free back in February. In many ways, our habits were changed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but many other changes that impacted our finances came with that too. Thinking back on the year that was 2020, I am simply amazed and still trying to wrap my head around all that has happened this year…and it’s not over yet!

I anticipate this being a multi-part series of blog posts, but here it goes…

At the end of 2019, we had set out finance-related goals in 2020 to pay down debt, save, and ultimately just execute the plan, the budgeting plan. I was introduced to Kumiko Love, The Budget Mom (“TBM”), through a friend, and we have been following her Budget by Paycheck method.

Then 2020 happens. Need I say more? We’ve experienced job losses, job gains, changes in income, we started our own business, we moved, and changes in bills. And that’s just the skinny on the finance-related changes!

Despite these changes, I think the greatest thing that we’ve gained is peace of mind. Peace of mind in the sense that we at least have a plan and are more aware about where our money is going.

Reflecting on the financial-related goals we set out to accomplish this year, I am damn proud. Even in light of the changes that came with 2020, we still managed to pay down some debt, reached our goal in saving for our peace fund (which we’ve defined as the amount to cover 3 months of expenses in the event of an emergency), and also fully funded our sinking funds.

But again, perhaps a pandemic silver-lining that we are benefiting from is the ways in which we were forced to truly re-focus on the things that matter most. We stayed home, and didn’t go out and spend money like we would’ve done in a “normal” year. And these change in habits not only benefited our monthly spending/saving, but also the ability to roll over much of our sinking funds to next year. On top of that, much of what we saved for with our sinking funds we ended up just cash flowing.

Habits that we’ve gained this year have definitely changed our mindset on money. Sinking funds have been a huuuuge game changer! This will help us not fall back into more debt. Also, while the TBM’s method typically encourages using cash and cash envelopes, we did use cash at the beginning, but switched to cashless during the pandemic. Something that we also stopped early on in this process is no longer using credit cards, with the exception of Costco gas. Or if we do use our credit card, we pay it off immediately.

It is hard to believe that so many months have passed since my last post. Heck, it’s hard to believe it’s October!!! Can you believe we’ve spent the majority of the year forever changed as a result of this COVID-19 pandemic? And despite these many months, at times what seemed like endless months, it all feels very new at the same time. I guess that’s how it is, like floating in the ocean not really knowing where land or your destination is, not knowing with certainty when this pandemic will supposedly “end.”

But here’s what I do know: I continue to find myself so overwhelmed with emotions and continue to find so much to be thankful for.

I know what I am about to share isn’t part of the majority, or most common trend of what is happening. And for a while, although I wanted to share this, I felt hesitant because I didn’t want my experience to be misconstrued. Nevertheless, I thought this was worth sharing.

In many ways, this pandemic has brought so much abundance and wealth to our ʻohana. This may seem ironic, especially since my husband lost his job earlier this year. But here’s the thing: I’ve been able to work in ways that I couldn’t pre-pandemic. This does NOT mean that we are rich, and does NOT negate the grave severity of the pandemic.

Let me back up a little…

Ever since becoming a mother, I’ve always struggled with finding work opportunities that would allow me to balance my other kuleana (responsibilities). With my hiapo (my eldest child), this meant finding work opportunities that would be do-able while also juggling law school. Thinking back on that time period now, when I was a new māmā with an infant who occasionally accompanied me to class and selectively took a bottle, I don’t know how I did it. Hah! And now, with four keiki, this looked like me juggling various part-time gigs that I could do from home.

Then the pandemic happens and prompted the shift to a work from home situation.

Like never before, I felt seen as others shared their frustrations of the difficulties of working from home with kids also at home. Because you see, this work from home situation had been my normal and actually my desired work set up in many ways. Working from home with kids crawling all over you while you’re trying to type a damn email is certainly challenging, but for me, this is how I feel most balanced. Balanced in the sense of being able to tend to kuleana māmā.

Not only did working from home become more “acceptable,” it seems, but work opportunities that were previously not an option for me became available to me.

I hope that we continue to push forward in working in new ways, in spaces that previously seemed taboo, and making our own paths. And I hope everyone shares their story because while there are likely areas we are similar, there are also differences that should be celebrated broadly. I mean, it wasn’t that long ago that it seemed outrageous for a woman to work outside of the home.

“Normal” seems to change daily these days. I feel like these adjustments and moving with the motion during the adjustment period is an old hat as a mother of four. But this is different, too. In many ways, I feel myself grasping for any and all strengths to help us through these times. The familiar phase of adjusting to a new normal after being (re-) born as a mother with a newborn baby parallels many of the feelings we are all feeling now in these constantly changing and uncertain coronavirus times.

It’s been about 21 days now since my ʻohana and I have been staying home, with the exception of going out for only essentials. Between my husband and I, I have been out even less because my husband has been doing the majority of the grocery runs or errands.

I feel like there’s so much I want to say, but also a whole lot of nothing. I want to go fast and slow at the same time.

On a day-to-day basis, the current normal requires me to be my best self in ways that I have been practicing as a new mother for a few years now. This doesn’t mean that I’ve mastered it, but this feels familiar at least. Being my best self involves discipline, but also forgiveness. And more and more I am seeing how we can only take it one day at a time. Some days I feel more productive than others. Other days all (as if that’s not enough) we do is be with one another. I still feel societal pressure as if we’re supposed to be producing, working, and operating at the same levels we were although we dealing with a pandemic.

While I don’t think we should expect ourselves to maintain the same levels of productivity when we were not experiencing this pandemic, I do think that we should take this time to dive deep and explore what it means to be our best selves — as individuals and as a community.

What if we were to truly focus on taking care of ourselves? What if we planned work around our self-care schedule (instead of trying to squeeze in self-care around our work schedules)? Doesn’t this crisis warrant some deep reflection and planning to how we will live a better life that is healthier for us as individuals, for our ʻohana, for our ʻāina?

I am comforted and also empowered in reading articles about how we are collectively grieving the lives we once had. Especially in these times, it is comforting to know that I am not alone–in many different contexts.

I feel uplifted after having attended a webinar this past week to see this time as an opportunity and that we are not going back to normal. Instead, this is the revolution that we’ve been waiting for. Now is the time to move forward with achieving the lives we’ve dreamed of.

It’s been difficult for me to identify goals or plan in these changing times. But thinking about what I wanted to accomplish or what “normal” I want to return to after all of this is easier for me to think about.

What do you want to be part of our new “normal”?