Six months after college is over, the inevitable task of paying back your student loans begins. The moment you get the bill, your heart jumps into your throat. With the economic downfall, many of us searched for a job the entire six months and are still stuck at the dead end job we started out at. Thoughts spin through your head and make a bad situation worse. If you are barely making ends meet, how are you supposed to come up with the extra money to pay off this huge bill?
In my case, an associates of applied science degree in Medical Administration was $45,000. This is because I am a single mom who chose to attend online school. A large portion of the bill for going to school online, is a convenience fee. My local college would have cost a portion of this. However, with kids and working, I was not able to attend a set scheduled class, I pretty much had to wing it. The time limitations really took their toll and I determined that the convenience of online classes was worth the extra bill.
I enrolled in Rasmussen College online and as my knowledge mounted, so did my bill. I have not landed a better job to this day, mostly because of the economy, so I have to pretty much scrape up every penny I can in order to pay my loan.
Each month my loan payment is $256, and the balance does not seem to be going down very quickly. My loan payment basically has caused me to to from eating regular meals, to being very creative. I have 4 nights a week where I make great meals, such as chicken, rice and gravy, and a vegetable and various other items, and other nights, I call grab and go. These nights are sandwiches and soup or leftovers. This really doesn’t put me in the top running for the best parent of the year.
I changed car insurance companies so that I could get a better rate. I switched to 40 watt clear light bulbs to save on electricity. I even purchased a wood burning stove (second hand of course) because I have electric heat.
With these simple changes in my family’s daily life, I have managed to come up with the extra $256 per month to cover this extra bill. I am still actively looking for a new position that will allow me to have a little extra cash, but for now, we are scraping by.