$140,000.

That’s how much school debt I had. 

And you know what? We’re going to talk about it. 

People are so ashamed to talk about their finances. They think that they are the only ones experiencing stress and anxiety over the debt they have accrued. They hide it away, and often numb themselves out with emotionally eating, or just keep tucking it down where they can’t feel it anymore. Thinking any of these coping mechanisms will make it go away. 

How about instead, we talk about it?

I have shared many times that I had put myself in a place back in the early 2000’s that I found myself almost evicted from my apartment with my daughter who was four. It was heartbreaking. I was devastated. I was ashamed. I had to ask for help. That help was not in a form of one single dollar that was being given to me. That help was given as a roof over my head, as well as my daughter’s, so I could figure out what I had done. It was time I was held accountable and figured out how in the world I was going to dig myself out. 

At that time, my debt looked very different. That debt consisted of all the credit cards you can imagine, plus unpaid utility bills. During that time, I also had gone back to school. I knew that if I bettered my education, I would be able to find a better career that would allow me to be in a different position then what I had found myself in at that time. The thing that I realize now is that I ended up only adding to the balance. But in my eyes, it was “good debt.”

How many of us have said that before? 

Sure, I got to a place that all credit card debts (and utility balances) were paid off in two years. That was huge. I could actually answer my phone again without the fear that it was collections looking for their money. 

The thing was, my debt was piling up, but now it was in the form of school loans. 

By the time I moved in with my family, I already had my associates. I started doing an online program for both my undergrad and my masters. When I graduated a couple of years later, I was close to $80,000 in school debt. 

“But Pam, you said you have $140,000 in school debt. What happened?”

Great question, thanks for asking! 

So I entered into this program that the Government put out there. “Work for a non profit in the social service arena and we will help pay off your school loans.” You have to work for the non profit for 10 years and make payments on time. The payments are based on your income and these payments were very small. The thing was, you were not allowed to pay a dollar more to your monthly payments or it broke the promise to the program. So I sat in this program for YEARS. During that time I never really logged into my account. The payment just came out of my checking account. Who cares! I was going to be debt free in no time! THANK YOU GOVERNMENT!

Wrong. 

What ended up happening was that interest continued to accrue at a CRAZY rate. So that starting balance of $80,000, soon became $100,000, then $115,000, then $125,000 and soon $140,000. 

Yup. 

So together with my husband, we did a ton of research only to find out that the program had a ton of flaws and not a lot of people were actually having their loans paid off. It was at that time that we made the decision to pull my loans out of the program, and aggressively started paying them off. The interest rate is higher than our current interest rate on our mortgage, so we made the decision to really focus on this as these were the two debts we currently have as a household. 

One of our goals as a couple is to be completely debt free by my 40th birthday, which comes up in April of 2022. As you can imagine, this has been a huge undertaking, and something that we have been willing to make sacrifices for in order to meet this goal. 

I have lived in a world that debt has created so much anxiety in my life and I made a decision that I deserved freedom from both. I want to know that I don’t OWE anyone anything anymore. I also want my daughters to learn from my experience and make decisions when/if the time comes for school that they can do it differently. I do not regret my education, not one bit. I worked HARD for my education and am so unbelievably proud of it. I did that, and no one can take it away from me.  I do however wish I would have thought differently on my approach and paid cash in hand as I went or even applied for scholarships. There are so many ways to do it with zero debt. I see the possibilities now, but instead of living in a place of regret and shame, I will come from a place of learning and sharing with others. 

So this is me. This is part of my story. I am putting it out there to show you that you are not alone. A lot of us have it, but none of us seem to be talking about it. So let me start the conversation. 

Tell me, is money something you find that you shy away from talking about?