My Debt Story Part 2 - The Debt Strikes Back

Continuing my debt drama we come to my next big battle with debt. The Student Loans.

I mentioned in the previous blog post that I was working a job when I received my first credit card.  What I didn't mention was how much I hated this job.  It was brain draining, unsatisfying, and basically killing me inside.  When you are in high school people are always asking you "What do you want to do?!"  They do this so that they can try to sweep you into this "path" or that "track" so that you can get the most out of your education.  Also many times this is supposed to help you get ready to go to a college or secondary school that might help you achieve your goal of becoming a banker, an electrician, a plumber, a doctor, etc.

My answer to this was always "I have no idea!"  In fact if you ask me even to this day I'm not sure that I could answer you with a definitive response.  Although I'm a teacher now and enjoy teaching I don't think I would answer that question with "I want to be a teacher!"  When you do that I feel that it locks you into one choice and that is all she wrote.  Or at least when I was in high school that is what I thought.  So I decided not to choose anything and was never really encouraged to go to college or seek secondary education.  Part of this was also that I didn't want to spend thousands and thousands of dollars taking classes that were preparing me to become something which I had no idea what is was.

Instead, I got a job.

In my small little town near the Canadian border there wasn't really very much for those with no college education.  In fact there wasn't much even for those with a college education.  Unless you worked at the university, the hospital, or an aluminum plant near by your choices were pretty limited.  Many college graduates got jobs at the local Costco as they paid well and had good benefits.

It was around this time that one of the major cellphone carriers rolled up into my town and built a call center.  It seemed like interesting work and I wanted a discount on a cell phone (Seriously!  This was a major reason I applied). I got the job and they started me off at an unthinkable (at the time) $8.25/hr.  This was huge to me!  I also got paid for two weeks of training and there were possible bonuses.  Man I thought I was living the life.

The job quickly lost it's luster.  I was at the bottom of a corporate ladder and it seemed like I was reminded every day where I was.  Customers were usually very rude or sometimes even downright cruel.  Many of my co-workers would eventually leave due to the harassment they received from customers.  Perhaps worse than all of this was just how empty I felt.  Every time I swiped my badge to unlock the call center doors it was like I was giving away a piece of myself I could never get back.  And this wasn't that far from the truth.  I was 19 and I will never ever get back those years of my youth.  After spending almost four years I finally wised up and decided to go back to school.

I still wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to become but the experience I had had at my job taught me that I wanted more doors open to me than what was available and I also looked forward to enjoying the experiences and lifestyle of a college student.  So at 21 I applied and got into the university in my home town.  This also means that I had to file for financial aid.

As I said my family is not rich by any means and it would have been impossible for them to help me pay for my education.  Plus I had a "I want to do this on my own" attitude which kept me from asking for any monetary help.  I was left to deal with financial aid which wasn't looking too good.  I didn't get any grants or scholarships (I didn't really apply either) but the government was all ready to offer me up gobs and gobs of student loans.  At the time I remember thinking that I didn't really understand what I was doing but I wanted to go to school so I signed on the dotted line.

At the end of my college career (took me 6 years with one of those years being abroad at a school in Japan) I was close to $26,000 in debt.  I know that many people have lots more than that, and some people less.  No matter what this is a substantial amount of money.  Add on a 6% interest and it's a VERY substantial chunk of money.

Another thing happened to me at the same time.  I was very lucky to land a job teaching in Japan right out of college but the cost of moving all of my things to Japan was on me.  Looking back I should have done the mustachinan thing and just packed some clothes, a few pairs of shoes, and a book but I wanted to take my Xbox, Playstation, guitar, snowboard, etc.  The cost of all of these was put onto my credit card.  I had managed to run up a $3,500 credit card debt before I even stepped foot off the plane to start my new job.

To be continued...