Last month, I wrote about dropping my student loan debt from $53 thousand to $52 thousand and then this past week I wrote about dropping from $52 thousand to $51 thousand. And while those drops are good and bring me ever closer to breaking through that $50 thousand barrier, they should have been much greater. Unfortunately, my success in 2010 ultimately resulted in an inability to make greater student loan payments today.
And it’s simple, really – in fact, I already wrote about it on this blog. You’ll remember at the end of February when I wrote about the fact that I’m going to owe taxes this April 15th. Hey, it is what it is, you know? And while I’ve been able to reduce my total taxes owed by about two hundred bucks (I forgot that last year I opted to not receive a portion of my state refund because I figured that this was coming), I still owe a lot of money in taxes this year.
A few weeks ago I received a really nice check for teaching at the all-online college. It was the type of check that if I didn’t have this level of student loan debt, I would probably take half of it and put it away in a savings account and then use the other half to update my wardrobe and spend a weekend away on vacation somewhere. However, I have student loan debt so whenever I come into a financial windfall the first thing that goes through my mind is, “Oh wow! I can pay down a lot of student loan debt with this money!”
Some might consider that pathetic, but when you’re stifled with student loan debt you just want to get rid of it as soon as possible.
However, when I received that nice check for the online teaching, I couldn’t even be excited about it. Why? Well, I received that check and immediately knew that all of it would be wasted on the government because I owed just about as much as that check was worth in taxes this year. Let me tell you – that’s a shitty feeling. It’s a shitty feeling knowing that these several thousand dollars that I really should be using to pay down this student loan debt is going to, instead, be wasted on bullshit government programs or inconsiderate assholes who are milking the system (and don’t cry me a river about all of the people who need the government subsidies because I see the assholes who milk the system on a daily basis in the Neptune/Asbury Park/Eatontown area of Monmouth County).
It sucks.
So while these debt reductions have been good and I’m proud of reducing my student loan debt, I should be paying down even more than I can write about here. Unfortunately, the government has managed to get in the way.
And it really sucks.
Leave a Reply