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I’m living out of my car until I start work, and even then I will only make $41K a year. But I owe $189K in student loans. What should I do?
marketwatch.com ^ | January 18, 2022 | Alisa Wolfson

Posted on 01/19/2022 7:26:30 AM PST by grundle

Question: “I will owe about $189,000 on my student loans when repayment starts. I’m so stressed. I got let go from my job and lost my apartment. I have so much debt and moved from New York to Texas in search of work. I started work in e-commerce with an oil pump company, but I will only be making $41,000 a year. I’m 45 years old and living out of my car until I move into a studio on the 15th of this month. Help.”

Answer: You’ve already made some huge steps in the right direction and have a number of reasons to be optimistic. “Relocating to take advantage of a lower cost of living just shifted half your budget. With no state income tax and a low unemployment in addition to the low cost of living, Texas is a good choice,” says Jen Grant, certified financial professional at Perryman Financial Advisory. In addition, getting your living situation settled will likely improve your state of mind — and help you realize paying down these loans is possible.

First up, the emergency student loan pause is now scheduled to end in May 2022, so you will want to think about how you’ll tackle payments then. One solid option to consider is to “try to get your loans on an income-driven repayment plan, which will cap your monthly payments at 10% to 20% of your discretionary income,” says Rebecca Safier, certified student loan counselor and education finance expert at Student Loan Hero. Since your payments will be adjusted in accordance with your income, they hopefully won’t be as burdensome as they would be on the standard plan.

(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: crymore
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To: grundle
I will owe about $189,000 on my student loans

Get a mental health counselor. Clearly you need mental help after spending close to $200,000 on a worthless degree and apparently you didn't learn much that can be applied to the real world. Have you considered driving a truck?

21 posted on 01/19/2022 7:33:35 AM PST by 1Old Pro (Let's make crime illegal again!)
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To: grundle

“””I’m 45 years old””””


Here are my questions for this 45 year old adult person:

When did you incur that $189,000 student loan debt?

How much have you repaid thus far????

What were your studies???

Why are you asking me and others to pay for your stupidity???


22 posted on 01/19/2022 7:33:43 AM PST by Presbyterian Reporter
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To: grundle

Learn to Code.


23 posted on 01/19/2022 7:34:04 AM PST by left that other site (A Man Without Self-Control is like a City Broken Into and Left Without Walls (Proverbs 25:28))
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To: dinodino

Seriously. They’re paying more than that to work in warehouses around me.


24 posted on 01/19/2022 7:35:44 AM PST by stevio
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To: grundle
Living in a van down by the river ...


25 posted on 01/19/2022 7:36:04 AM PST by plain talk
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To: bigdaddy45

So you took out loans to pay a leftist faculty for 4 years or more? Now you’re thinking you’re an idiot?

I agree, you’re an idiot!

Suck it up buttercup, you took out the loans, you pay the loans!


26 posted on 01/19/2022 7:38:20 AM PST by Bshaw (A nefarious deceit is upon us all!)
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To: grundle

Living expenses will need to be cut. Rent a room in a rooming house situation, or find boarders. Shop at thrift stores, eat beans and rice, share a ride, bicycle, drink out of glass jars. Buy used all wood furniture.

Being military pre-Reagan taught one how to live on the cheap. In fact there was even a book published by the military services on how to get by when your pay and a couple of kids would literally qualify E5 and E6 for food stamps. It was a damn shame. Reagan fixed it.


27 posted on 01/19/2022 7:41:39 AM PST by Clutch Martin (The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.)
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To: PeterPrinciple

look for a partnership in a pizza joint— you’d make more money than at age 45 with 41K as a job? what the hell, that was starting salary in 1985. Must be a really stupid useless degree— like womens’s studies (”my body, my cash— so pay me jacka@@ just...because).


28 posted on 01/19/2022 7:42:44 AM PST by John S Mosby ( Sic Semper Tyrannis)
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To: KC_Conspirator

Like “Dr. Jill”? Or someone who has an actual chance to earn $150k+ a year?


29 posted on 01/19/2022 7:43:27 AM PST by Freedumb
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To: grundle

vote republican


30 posted on 01/19/2022 7:43:30 AM PST by joshua c (Dump the LEFT. Cable tv, Big tech, national name brands)
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To: grundle

My advice to you, is to start drinking heavily.


31 posted on 01/19/2022 7:44:43 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: grundle

He hasn’t even faced the tsunami of medical costs that may be ahead. Never take out a loan to get into a line of work unless you’ve already work in the industry. You have no idea if it’s suitable, no idea if it’s protected from foreign competition. Huge loans = Huge risk.


32 posted on 01/19/2022 7:44:54 AM PST by cicero2k
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To: grundle

NPR yesterday was FULL of the “student loan debt is an injustice” crap. This is a scripted crisis, and all media organs are playing the skin flute from the same sheet.


33 posted on 01/19/2022 7:47:17 AM PST by mission9 (It is by the fruit ye shall know.)
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To: dinodino

His Degree? Something in Gender Studies with a minor in Underwater Basket Weaving.


34 posted on 01/19/2022 7:47:21 AM PST by ArtDodger
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To: PGR88

First question to ask yourself is if you got 189K worth of schooling; the kind that will get you a good job. I look at the amount of your loan, the potential of a 41K a year job & compare it to what I had. A little training in the military which was free, a very mediocre first job finally working up to only a fair-to-middling final career, but....at least I never had a student loan to pay off. I guess it all depends on how sure you are that all that high priced education will eventually pay off. Considering the era when I made my best money, it looks like I may have come out ahead. I was a skilled tradesman; most of my training was OJT at no cost to me except for the somewhat lower pay.


35 posted on 01/19/2022 7:47:51 AM PST by oldtech
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To: grundle

You shoulda asked that question when you started school. And ya shoulda lived in your car at THAT time.

Colleges have become a scam.


36 posted on 01/19/2022 7:52:00 AM PST by Kevmo (I’m immune from Covid since I don’t watch TV.🤗)
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To: rigelkentaurus

Well I’m retired now and debt free. But I’ll say I worked hard to be in this position and went thru the school of hard knocks a few times myself over the years...that’s life.

I recall sleeping in the attic of my apartment and subrenting it for three months ....actually made it quite cozy. This in order to relocate and find work where I was moving. You do what you have to do to make it work.

I think this guys real issue is he stuck himself with college debt....and it’s that which is creating his frustration.

I was raised to always live within your means...and it’s certainly paid off in my life.
My son said just today....”Mom, you’re living your retirement years with more than most wealthy can’t because you’re content with what you have.”


37 posted on 01/19/2022 7:52:08 AM PST by caww ( )
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To: WMarshal

Expats usually are the type to either take advantage of having worked and amassed some kind of 401-like money OR they are old enough to have worked enough years to qualify for Social Security that can be exported somewhere cheaper. The goal of expatting being to live somewhere cheaper where the means of income one has can stretch much further.

The problem here it seems with this twinkie is 1) no history of SS qualified work, and 2) no marketable skills. Life sucks when you make stupid choices and go for the easy way and listen to leftist promises... Frankly, Texas ought to throw her back..


38 posted on 01/19/2022 7:52:11 AM PST by Gaffer
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To: PGR88

Really, that investment that produces a $41,000/year job? $41,000, that’s a McDonalds job with overtime.


39 posted on 01/19/2022 7:52:12 AM PST by hardspunned (former GOP globalist stooge)
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To: ArtDodger

I was thinking the same...or, perhaps, an English Major with a Minor in 19th Century Hispanic Lesbian Lit...


40 posted on 01/19/2022 7:52:12 AM PST by dinodino ( )
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