I've decided to start a blog because I want to document my student loan journey. When I post things online, they stick around for a very long time. Thank you, Facebook. Anyhow, my decision to start this blog was thought out for a long time, but I did not anticipate the fear of kicking it off. I was not nervous about writing or my niche, but I had a fear that my content wasn’t…necessary.
Who cares about my debt?
There are countless YouTube stars in student loan repayment. They have cute journals and countdown notebooks to keep track of everything. So I thought about creating my own channel, but I remembered I am way too boring to be broadcasted on YouTube. Then I remembered that before vlogging, there was blogging. The issue is that I always viewed bloggers as people with extravagant lives who had the best advice to give people. My life is relatively boring, and sometimes I don't know the right things to say to people...
I'm OK with that now.
I do get joy in writing, and I also have a passion for personal finance based upon my life experiences, so why was I so reluctant to discuss this online? Reflecting on this question leads me to one answer: Anonymity.
Writing about my personal finances online put me in a vulnerable predicament. I am disclosing so much of my financial information to a group of people. Additionally, in American culture, discussing personal finances is seemingly a taboo topic. For this reason, I have decided to detail my writings through a hidden persona. I promise I am a real human. I promise.
With the acknowledgement of my fear being pushed out of the way, I'm ready to discuss the purpose of this page and how I look forward to guiding my voyage.
What is my current situation?
Upon starting up and designing my site, I was an unemployed recent college graduate. Now I am an employed recent college graduate (starting in the near future). Hooray! (Class of COVID 2020!). As you may have figured out through the widget on my home page, I am currently a little over $64,000 in debt – 16 loans to Uncle Sam and one to American Education Services. It’s alright though. I’m going to tough it out and make this work. During this really crappy part of 2020, I'm very grateful to have a stable financial environment in our household.
So what are my plans?
As I stated before, I don't have any special advice or tips and tricks that I have created that will change the lives of those with student loan debt. I've lived life recklessly in my 20s, and I'm ashamed to say that I have no clue where the vast majority of my money went. Now that I'm almost 30, it has dawned on me that I cannot live out this decade as irresponsibly as I did when I was in my 20s. Debt is not fun. Debt deterred me from achieving some of the successes that I could have had this year.
I would like to update this blog with my payoff accomplishments, just to track my journey and possibly give some type of inspiration to others in terms of: Skills that I've develop overtime, Excel worksheets that I use, charts that I use to track my successes, and financial information that I gain along this journey.
Ultimately, I also truly look forward to beginning occasional sweepstakes that will help people like me who are swimming in student loan debt. It may take time, but I’m ready to push forward. I'm worried about the process, and I'm still learning a lot about tackling this debt and where to start. Whatever this era throws towards me, I cannot be in a constant state of fear. So here goes nothing!
Photo Credit: Photo by Julian Hochgesang on Unsplash
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