Budget Featured in Business Insider Again (Woot!)

Here's the budget of a 29-year-old who finished
paying over $100,000 of student loans

Two updates as to where I am since paying off my loans a few months ago was written up by Libby Kane and published in Business Insider. Their audience is not hesitant at all to write to me and tell me all about their own debt journeys while asking for a quick piece of advice on an area they may be struggling with. I love connecting with them! I have SO MUCH to learn in this big world of finances, but the things I have learned so far, I am always willing to share.

I love the folks that realize I am a 29 year old woman who assessed her situation and did what she thought was best for her. And that’s all I did. I am not cramming advice down throats, I am not saying it is my way or the highway. I do me. You do you. If you look at my journey and you want yours to resemble mine, awesome! Let me know if I can help. If you look at my journey and want nothing to do with it, also awesome! I hope we all win with money in this life no matter the approach we take to get there. I simply happened to start blogging about my journey on that faithful August 1st Sunday back in 2010; the day I was struggling the hardest and decided to find an (anonymous) outlet for my student loan battle.

For those just reading about my story from the latest Business Insider article wanting more detailed information on my budget, click here to read where I elaborated on the first BI article surrounding my budget.

Also, between us, I spelled 'restaurant' wrong in my now public budget (Ha!)

Click here to read the latest main Business Insider article: "Here's the budget of a 29-year-old who finished paying off over $100,000 of student loans"

Click here to read that same article in Yahoo Finance

Find the latest spin-off Business Insider article, "A 29-year-old who paid off over $100,000 of student loans gives her 3 best pieces of debt-repayment advice" by clicking here.

I Spoke at My Alma Mater!

One of my close friends has been such a great cheerleader for me during my debt pay-off process. She encourages me and lets me pick her brain a little bit on how her and her husband run some of their household budget. She works at a well known bank and was appointed to take charge in their ‘Women in Wealth’ initiative. She felt a great starting place to get the message out would be at the college level. SO, since we were both Phi Mus at Belmont University (she was our chapter’s president), she decided to start there by speaking to the current Phi Mu Theta chapter, and invited me to speak alongside of her.

 

It was great to be back on campus talking about all things finance and student loan related to those who are quite literally in the exact same place I was a cool 7 years ago. I hope my story resonated with them, and if anything, I can be a resource to someone who might feel a bit like she is starting to drown here in a couple of months after graduation. I know from memory, and from reading back on this very blog, that I was completely lost and had no one to turn to for guidance. It might have taken me 7 years to get back to these girls, but at least I am here now and can be a lighthouse for this wave of Belmont graduates to find their way back to shore.

 

I snapped this photo of the renovated music business building entrance as I'd like to think I AT LEAST paid for the gold that now lines the stair railings OR the glitter that now covers every inch of the floor :)

I was in The Wall Street Journal!

Does It Pay to Start at Community College? Maybe

"Does It Pay to Start at Community College? Maybe"

A reporter reached out to me back in June about interviewing for a piece she was writing on transfer students for the Wall Street Journal. Of course I agreed, and I am glad I did! Although the interview process was quite lengthy, the portion of my story in the whole piece is quite small. I am in no way complaining about that though; it's just an FYI!

Late last night my mom wondered if my article made it to the actual printed Wall Street Journal. I hadn't even thought about that and wondered myself, so I emailed the reporter, and sure enough! The article I was in, as well as my picture, was printed in the wealth management section of every Wall Street Journal nationwide. So naturally, I drove to Nashville's Barnes and Nobel as well as a Starbucks and picked up the few remaining papers for my family :)

That was a very cool feeling and a very humbling day. Big thank you to Jillian Berman for reaching out to me!

Click here to view the article!

I Was Featured on CNN Money!

"4 Steps to Paying off Your Student Loans,
from Someone Who Crushed $100,000"

"4 Steps to Paying off Your Student Loans,
from Someone Who Crushed $100,000"
After connecting on Twitter, a CNN Money reporter reached out to me via email and asked for an interview. At first I thought the email must have been spam. It wasn't. So of course I said yes.

The phone conversations and emails that transpired woke me up to just how much I have paid off. Not that it didn't sink in before, but saying my financial story aloud from the very beginning to present day was quite the humbling experience.

I started this blog in 2010 and was so... ashamed isn't the correct word... sad. Sad about the amount of debt I had and therefor did not want anyone to know my feelings about it. After all, many of my friends had the same situation going on, but for whatever reason, no one spoke up about it other than the occasional griping over hefty monthly payments. I needed an outlet. So I created this blog. I had no idea that 6 years later it would land me on the front page of the personal finance section of CNN Money. But I am glad it did. Now that I am out of the woods, I am okay with everyone knowing this blog, and all of these words, are mine. The encouragement I received after the article published was simply unexpected and overwhelming.

I do not have a business set up where I charge people for financial advice. The article does not lead you to a website where a company I created can help you. It leads you here, to this blog; it is simply my story. And Katie Lobosco, the reporter, broke all of my ramblings into 4 simple steps. Those simple steps are what got me to where I am, and I hope others can follow suit from that. I have spent several hours with several different friends in the last 2-3 years quietly helping them create their budgets and debt pay-off plans. I have no idea what the future holds for me, career wise. It could be staying in corporate sales, singing/songwriting, music business, or it could be becoming a CFP and starting my own company; I just don't know yet. All of that to say, right now I am simply focused on the next 5 months of getting these loans out of my present day life.

If you would like to give it a read, you can find the article here.

The First Real Mistake I Ever Made

The sky was the limit and the world was my oyster. I was going to be a star. A country star. And country stars belong in Nashville, Tennessee.

 

However, I was not going to be one that signed a horrible record contract I would spend my adult years trying to get out of. I was going to be smart by getting my education at Belmont University. No one will be able to take advantage of me because I will 100% know better. Music business here I come.

 

I didn’t let things like an 8-9% interest rate on a loan stop me because “you can always refinance after you graduate.” I learned the hard way that was indeed not true. I had made my first mistake before ever even stepping foot into the alluring spotlight of the music business. I made my first faulty steps by entering into a life altering contract with Sallie Mae. The worst part about it was I didn’t realize I had made this grave mistake until about a year or two after I graduated.  Who knew my ‘be an educated artist’ plan would get derailed from a school loan long before a record contact was even visible? They did. Sallie Mae sees people like me coming every day. They capitalize on those people. And I don’t blame them. It was a bad decision on my part. Period.

 

Fast forward approximately 10 years and I am almost done paying that demon off. But you know what I lost in the meantime? That hypothetical record contract I so longed for as a young adult. I am still young, technically; I am 29. I was so screwed over by my first mistake with college loans I could not concentrate on how not to make another mistake in the music industry. All I could think about after graduation and the years to follow was how in the world I was going to right this financial wrong of mine. So in essence, that first business mistake robbed me of my chance at not making the mistake I was trying to avoid by learning the business side of the industry. Pretty ironic if you ask me. Maybe saying student loans are the reason I didn’t get a record contract is an excuse. There are so many country artists and songwriters who have ‘made it’ by doing whatever it takes. And whatever it takes most times means getting your car repossessed, defaulting on loans, and borrowing money from your family. I just couldn’t do that. I could not make that sacrifice. When advised that I should choose between my dream and my credit score, I picked the latter. I picked not defaulting on my loans, keeping my car, and leaving my parents and relatives out of my financial mess. I chose the safe road.

 

So here I am, 6 months away from closing my student loan chapter and about 7 years late on opening my music business chapter. There are outliers, but for the most part, music professionals will tell you your window of record contract opportunity becomes exponentially smaller once you surpass the age of 25. And about 10 times harder if you are a female.

 

So that’s great news given I am a 29 year old female.

 

I am very aware these loans were my decision. A decision that haunts and taunts me daily. I got a brief taste of the industry I so love right after college and then before I knew it, I was ripped out to work in boring corporate America with my business degree so that I could afford my new ‘welcome to adulthood’ loan payments. I have hustled by working 2 jobs and budgeted unlike anyone I know. Did I have to pay off my loans 15 years early? No. But I was so incredibly infuriated by them that I needed them gone.

 

I have many friends who are still in the music industry, and for the most part, they love what they do every day. I don’t know many success stories of singers who have ‘made it’ quite just yet, but the majority of my college friends stuck with music. However, they are also all still stuck with their loans and very much so living paycheck to paycheck. Perhaps there was a better path for us to have taken back then that didn’t include college. Perhaps there is a better path now we could be taking. Who knows, but what I have learned from all of this is that there is indeed such a thing as not being able to afford it. And although college is something that has been programmed into us as a necessity, there are other routes to explore that may not have college in it.

 

I do not regret my decision. I learned and experienced things at Belmont that will stick with me forever. However, to all who are reading this, I urge you to look for any and all possible paths before signing your freedom away to attend the college you think you “just have to go to.” I promise, there will be people around you who are successful that don’t have a minute of their time or a dime invested in a university; and there will be successful people around you who seem to be in a perpetual state of higher education. If you think you have the drive, determination, and the entrepreneurship to at least attempt your dream without the textbooks and professors, by all means, you owe it to yourself to try and blaze that trail. If the security of a degree is something you know you will need in order to stay sane, do it. But take it from me, (Ivy leagues aside) there is no real difference in having your degree come from an expensive private Christian university versus an affordable public university.

 

If you are just finishing high school and determining where you want to continue your education, please consider your choices very carefully, and don’t listen to the lenders and school advisers who will tell you and your parents how easy the repayment will be upon graduation; they cannot guarantee a thing. I made a mistake, and it took me a while to come to terms with that. How did I get to a place of acceptance and forgiveness? I learned from it. I learned to do the best I could in my situation, and try my very hardest to not have regret. The past could not be changed so I figured out how to make lemonade from my lemons. My hope is that if you are in a similar situation, you will try to find the positive, too. Fix the mistake with intention and grow from it.

9 Months Away From Debt Freedom!

I borrowed 68k in August of 2007, started repayment in December of 2009, and will make my final payment in December of 2016. How much will I have paid in those approximate 7 years you ask? $113k. Yep. That’s 45k more than I borrowed. The scary part is, so many graduates are in the same boat I am, but they do not do the math to figure out the numbers of how upside down they are. They simply pay their minimums each month for years on end without actually seeing just how much they are paying the lender. I know 45k is bad, but trust me, there are friends in my circle alone who are already at that total with 15+ years to go. 

I am at peace with my numbers. I will never do something like that EVER again, but I am finally at peace with it. If you have followed me from the start of this blog in 2010, you know that peace was not something I had; I had hate, envy, bitterness, and deep regret.

I am okay with the fact that I attended Belmont University. I do not have any hate towards them or myself any longer for the debt that I got into. I have forgiven myself for the mistake I made. I am done overthinking the past because there is nothing I can do about it. There is no time machine, just the breath that God has chosen to give you each morning, and for that you must be thankful and move forward with your life.  

I am truly grateful that I found out about Dave Ramsey when I did in 2013. I honestly can’t remember how I stumbled upon his teachings, but I for sure know I will be forever thankful that I did. 

This is not me signing off, but merely keeping you all updated. I hope you are all doing well on your paths, and as always, feel free to email me if you need any advice or want to know more about my debt payoff process. I am 100% happy to help.

ohthesestudentloans@gmail.com

Allow me to introduce myself...

Hello out there! I am an average college graduate who, believe me, has PLENTY of other things to do besides blog, but this is the only thing I can think of to do in order to reach out to others outside of my network of friends.

That being said, I have absolutely no idea what I am really going to write about on this site. I am sure I could fill up a weeks worth of posts about anger and hate towards lenders and their inability to relate to their customers, but I don't think that would be very productive. However, I am not saying that will not happen from time to time :)

Since I am so nosy when it comes to finding out how much money my friends owe for college, I will go ahead and lay out some of the basic details of MY debt so you can to compare it to yours. You are welcome :)

Quick background information: Through various scholarships from high school extra curricular activities, academic achievement awards from the university as well as a couple of grants, I had an almost complete ride for all 4 years at the University of Alabama. I knew I wanted to attend this little school called Belmont University in Nashville one day in order to pursue my dreams of music, so I was reluctant to attend Alabama. I knew I would be moving 4 and a half hours north with basically everyone from my high school since it was indeed the 'cool place' to move off to after senior year. I saw myself settling into a major I would ultimately not want to reside in (they did not have a music business program) just for the sake of having to choose one. So, in my mind, although the funding was present, I ruled out the University of Alabama. In addition to those scholarships, I was also offered a full-paid scholarship to the local community college in the same city where I went to high school. Although it was hard to think about still living at home and watching the rest of my class move off to freedom town, I (with a huge nudge from my mom) decided to stay home and accept the community college scholarship. BEST DECISION EVER MADE.

After 2 years at community college, I was debt-free and Belmont University bound. And right about here is where my loan story begins. I attended 2 years of college at Belmont University (a private christian institution) 7 hours from home in Nashville, Tennessee where I majored in Music Business. Both years at Belmont I studied full-time taking approximately 17 hours each semester (and enrolling in summer classes, too.) Only once did I go into the "academic overload" category taking 19 hours during the spring semester of my junior year. I knew the quicker I got through school, the less amount of money I would have to borrow. I made good grades, stayed involved in the university and graduated with my bachelor's degree in May of 2009 (exactly 4 years after I graduated from high school.)

So, now that you know where I went to school and for how long, I will let you know how much that cost me. Keep in mind that even though I was on the dean's list at my community college, graduated with Phi Theta Kappa honors (associate degree) and had an impressive list of extra curricular activities, I was awarded no scholarships for Belmont. For the 2 years total I was at Belmont, I owe Sallie Mae $68,000. Also, now that it has been a year and 3 months since I have graduated, I will give you a little update - I am now at $73,000. Which means in just 1 short year I have gained $5,000 in interest. I always knew it sounded bad coming out of my mouth, but typing it all out is even worse. Ouch.

So there you have it. I am sure the coming blogs will be more in detail about my interest rates, consolidation attempts, etc, but for now that is my student loan story in a nut shell. Off to dinner - Ramen Noodles again tonight :)