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!