I hate debt

Hi, my name is story, and I'm in debt.

Right now, between a car loan and two student loans, my husband and I are over $100,000 in debt. After our rent, our biggest expense is our car payment, and after that it's our student loan payment. Combined, we make less than $40,000 a year. When I think about it too quickly, I get a little bit out of breath.

We budget pretty carefully, and I'm well on my way to being a master penny pincher. I work an extra job. My husband's loan is on a grad student deferment. We don't take out any additional loans, and we don't carry balances on our credit cards. From month to month we do okay, but in the grand scheme of things we're still drowning.

Being in debt limits our options, our choices for the future. We can't buy a house. When we've moved from place to place in the past few years, I've never had the luxury of taking my time to find a job I really like; I've just needed to have a job. When we start trying to have children, I'm going to need to think really carefully about whether I'm financially able to stay home with them. Whether to work, where to work, where to live - these are decisions that I want to be able to make myself, not have made for me by my creditors.

Worst of all, though, I'm afraid that at any given moment, everything could come crashing down. A reduction in income, an increase in expenses, another move, an emergency, any of these things could turn our cash flow negative in about five seconds. I don't want to walk around terrified anymore.

So I'm kicking it into gear. I want to spend the next ten months working my butt off, scrounging for extra money, selling my stuff and taking my penny pinching to the next level. That's not to say I want to stop enjoying my life. Rather, it's to say I want to get my life back. I want my choices back.

I'm making a choice. We're going to pay down a huge chunk of this debt, and we're going to do it sooner than later. One day at a time, step by step, I'm going to make positive progress toward cleaning up this mess.

Keep me accountable, could you?

Freebies

Some Freebies that I found this week:

Free Schick Quatro Razor

Sunsilk Shampoo

Cascade Dish Detergent

South Beach Diet Bar

10 tough things about being a teacher

This is a riff off of and a gentle parody of the post 10 Reasons it doesn’t pay to be the computer guy from my very old friend Shaun at Life Reboot.

10. “Your” accomplishments are always really someone else’s.
You’re only doing your job when you’re helping other people do better. If they don’t do well, you’re letting them down and not doing your job. If they doll, well gee, aren’t those kids just brilliant?

9. You always have to work more hours than they say you do.

You may be told that you need to stay at school until at least 3:30, but you will definitely be staying until 5 some days. You will then be coming back at 7 to chaperone a dance, and coming home from the dance at 11 to grade thirty papers and plan your lessons for the next week.

8. If you need technology, it will undoubtedly be broken.

I have never managed to work in a school that could keep a copy machine working, let alone computers, a network, or a projector. You will however be constantly reminded of the necessity of using a variety of technology to support student learning.
7. Guilt reigns.

The moment you decide that you will not work one more uncontracted and unpaid minute, it will immediately be proposed to you by a child, parent, or supervisor that if you were to do this one little thing it will change a child’s life forever. If you don’t, well (sniff, sniff), I guess he or she will find a way to get by.

6. You are always a teacher

You’re a teacher when you’re at the grocery store, when you’re at the movies. Children will find this an appropriate time to converse, play, or torture. Parents will think it completely acceptable to begin a dialogue about your grading system.

5. You are not a person.

You’re expected to know everything. You’re not allowed to have a bad day. You’re not allowed to be stressed or take it easy. You’re hardly allowed to call in sick, and if you do you better spend at least two days of extra work planning for and recovering from it.

4. Everyone thinks they can do your job.

Everyone you meet has had teachers and since it never looked that hard, everyone thinks they could do your job. They will never actually say that but will make it abundantly clear several times per conversation.

3. You are completely responsible for the lives of twenty human beings for about 7 hours a day.

They are not, however, your children. When they leave your sight, you have very little control over what happens to them, what they do, or who they become.

2. The money. . . well. . enough said.

1. Well, umm. . . .

… There isn’t one. The truth is, I love teaching and I wouldn’t stop. The other day I had a kid tell me that the reason he stopped plagiarizing is that I taught him how to write. The last time I got guilted into volunteering something, I cheered louder than any of my kids when we found out that they won. I can call an audible and talk my way out of a technology meltdown in about 5 seconds and you know what else?

I am always a teacher.

Is it easy? No. Do I sometimes feel overworked and underappreciated? Oh yeah. Sometimes in the morning I curl up on the couch and cry into my coffee because I just don’t want to go to school. But then sometimes at the end of the school year, I get a note from a kid that says “Words cannot describe how much you’ve done for me. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

And then I can’t wait to start again.


More on teaching:
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Graduation Day
You can't save them all
Why I teach

Festival of Frugality!

Yikes! I'm only two days late in posting this link, and I hope that Dawn at Frugal for Life can forgive me. Please check out this week's Festival of Frugality. My post on Scarcity is included, and Dawn did a great job of putting the whole thing together.

The Chocolate Croissant Effect

You read a lot these days about the latte effect, and in theory I completely agree. The idea is that it’s easy to waste a lot of money on small things and that, over time, that money could add up to be enough to make a major difference in your life. If you eliminate a latte every day, then by the time you are 60 you will have a significant chunk of money saved up and in retirement.

It’s a great idea. Small changes really are the way to go because they are psychologically easier and they are sustainable. However, despite all this, I’m about to say something which is the complete opposite.
I call it the chocolate croissant effect.

A few summers ago, I was working an extra job to try to save up some extra money before I moved across the country. I didn’t need the money. I was just trying to work hard to get ahead and improve my life.

Downstairs from the place where I worked was a little bakery. It smelled good, it looked pretty, and it was one of the warmest and friendliest places I had seen. One day I forgot to bring coffee from home, and just NEEDED some (yes, I have a problem), so I stopped into the bakery for a small coffee, and I saw them.
Next to the register, on a plate, with a sign next to them, there was a plate of chocolate croissants. Ooey, gooey, fresh from the oven chocolate croissants. For $1 each.

Oh goodness.

I didn’t need a chocolate croissant. If I didn’t buy a chocolate croissant every day for a year, I’d have an extra $365. I wasn’t working an extra job so that I could afford chocolate croissants. But, oh boy did I want one. So, just that once, I bought a chocolate croissant. It was delicious. It really was just as good as it looked.

For the rest of that summer, I knew that the chocolate croissants were there. I didn’t get one every day, and I certainly didn’t spend $365 on them, but when I really wanted a chocolate croissant I got one. When I didn’t buy a chocolate croissant, I was fully aware that I was not buying one and was very proud of the money I was saving. When I did buy one, I took my time and thoroughly enjoyed it, instead of letting myself feel guilty about spending the money.

The truth is, I was still getting ahead. I was making between $60-$120 extra dollars a day by being there, and if a $1 chocolate croissant once in a while was all it took to make me feel good about it, then it was well worth the expense.