College may or may not have prepared you for your working life, but it definitely didn’t prepare you for dealing with debt. This is a shame because college is responsible for the first large debt of a young adult’s life. Graduates nowadays have more student debt than has ever been accrued during any other generation.
Older people have experience paying off credit card balances, mortgages and auto loans. Not only have they learned to budget to meet their payments (hopefully), they also have experience emotionally dealing with debt.
For a young person starting their career, debt can be overwhelming. Just out of college, you are facing the challenges of striking out on your own for the first time, budgeting monthly living expenses, scrounging for work and probably living on peanuts.
If you were lucky enough to land a good paying job, this is the first time you’re receiving serious cash flow. You’re working hard and probably seeing much of your money being drained away by taxes, rent, food and utilities. It’s natural to want to spend whatever is left on nice things for yourself. Facing the fact that you need to put your extra money towards your student loans is a painful fact to get your head around.
If you piece together an income with internships and part-time jobs, you’re probably wondering how you can afford to live, much less pay off your debt. Staring at a several thousand-dollar principal and having nightmares about the accruing interest can be a difficult thing to cope with.
Debt doesn’t have to be a terrible burden on your life. It’s an important bill that you will need to deal with. You may not be able to lift the financial weight of paying off your loans for the next several years, but you certainly can alleviate the emotional burden. Here are some things to consider:
1) It’s the twenty-first century and no one will break your knees. They won’t throw you in debtor’s prison either. The worst thing that can happen is you’ll accrue a bit more interest. That definitely sucks, but debt is not going to rob you of your physical, biological life.
2) You’re not going to starve. While your net worth might be in the minus as long as you have debt, be thankful that you live in an affluent country. Food is cheap and available, and you can eat well on $30 a week if you plan your ingredients and meals. There is plenty of food available in this country and much of it goes to waste. People in countries that experience drought and disruption of the food-supply line are really in trouble. You, however, are not.
3) You can make debt manageable. As long as you have some income, you can keep putting money towards your debt. View it the same way you view your rent. It needs to get paid. Lower the expenses in other areas of your life and keep making the payments. If you stay on top of the loan, it won’t last forever. Suck it up, budget, and live well below your income.
4) Don’t forget to enjoy life. Just because you have debt doesn’t mean you don’t have time with friends. It doesn’t mean you can’t take a walk outside. It doesn’t mean you can’t laugh, dance, party run and scream. Life is an adventure. Live it. Your debt certainly isn’t stopping you.
Perhaps the most important thing is to put money in its place. Money is money, and the story of your life is not the same as the story of your bank balance. At the end of the day “loan payments” are just another thing to deal with like “walking the dog”, “picking up the mail” and “driving to work”. It’s manageable.
Tend to it like you would a garden. Get it done. It’s part of the framework of your life, but it’s not the core of it. Don’t get so wrapped up in the drama of your debt that you forget to live and enjoy all of what’s happening around you.