- In student loans, I owe,
I think it's right about $31,000.
- I owe $72,000, apparently, $72,000.
- Well, it's almost like asking me how much I weigh,
but I will tell you.
The total is somewhere around $175,000.
Well, as a single parent of two children,
I decided, when they were little,
that I would do whatever it took
to help them further their education beyond high school
and what that meant for me
is taking on enormous amounts of loans.
It's right around $1,000,
maybe a little more than $1,000 a month.
- I can't take lower-paying positions, one,
because I have a PhD and I deserve to make more money
because I put in a lot of work, right?
But then, two, because of those pieces
of I have student loans to pay back.
I have, you know, a parent who doesn't have a retirement,
so I have to think about that.
- My parents paid. I got grants.
I got scholarships.
I got all of that and I still owe,
you know, this huge amount of money.
Of course, I got the advantage of getting my degrees,
getting my education, but it just feels like
it'll take the rest of my life to pay for it.
- We started putting away money
that would've gone to student loans
and saving that up so that we could purchase a second home.
We have been talking with his younger sister
because she and her now-husband wanted to,
you know, have a home of their own
and so we're like, "You know what?
We're in a financial position
to where we can purchase a home in Alabama
and then have them living in it,"
and so that's what we were able to do,
was to purchase that home.
And so we've also been talking about like,
"Okay, we want to go ahead and both open up a Roth IRA,"
so that's something on our plan
for the next few upcoming months.
And, really, it's we don't have these student loans
that we're paying back just yet,
so we want to really be able to use this money
to work for us for the future.
- It almost felt like a boost, like a raise,
just to not have that particular payment coming out monthly.
With the money that I would have given towards the loans,
I diverted it to places, like I had a little bit
of an outstanding tax debt from the prior year
and I was able to beat that back,
which, I don't know if I could've done as well,
having the other payment, the student loan payment.
And because, like I said, these are unprecedented times,
there were a couple of times during the pandemic where,
at the drop of a hat, I had to travel.
My parents are in their 80s.
They live in another state and, at one point,
there was a medical reason to check on them
and I was able to do it at the drop of a hat,
which felt like a luxury.
- Mainly, I, you know, upped by contributions to my 401(k).
So it's mostly just investments.
So I upped my contributions to my 401(k).
I funded a Roth IRA.
I bought my first house last year
and it was a fixer-upper,
so I like put a lot of repairs into it.
I'm actually planning to buy another one soon, if I can.
There's nothing to buy right now.
And just other investments, like stocks and stuff like that.
So, just having that extra money,
I was able to kind of focus on those things.
- It's a looming thought in the back of one's mind.
I'm 56 years old.
I would like to retire one day.
And it feels like it might be the reason
I continue to work past what I call a comfortable age.
It might be what keeps me in the workforce longer than,
perhaps, I would be if I didn't have
that looming debt in the background.
- Like in your mind, that money is already earmarked
for something else
and like things that I look forward to,
like the investments and, you know,
all the other stuff that I want to do.
So now, taking that same money
and, granted, I took out the loans.
It was my education, so it's not like I'm not responsible for it,
but it's just, I mean, it's putting that money
towards a burden, versus putting that money towards,
you know, my future type of thing.