Submitted by CardiologistCalm5054 t3_122m32k in personalfinance
24F, I’ll be transparent and admit I’m not the best with money. I was in debt before and got myself out of it within a year. And now I’m back. I feel so bad and ashamed about it, I can’t breath sometimes nowadays. I don’t know how I let this happen again! I will say that most of it was centered around my not knowing what I wanted to do, so I took time for granted. I graduated college about 3 years ago and was pre-med. Realized I wasn’t going to apply to med school and took some time off to soul search (how i accrued debt the first time). I didn’t have a care in the world with regards to money back then. I traveled, I ate out, I bought things etc. After about a year of doing this, I freaked out and realized I may have been self-sabotaging. I got hired at Amazon and began tackling my debt. Fast forward to last summer (August ‘22), something similar happened to me. I realized I disliked my role and my plan to climb the corporate latter shattered pretty quickly after that. While I learned a ton about business/data analysis (I studied the opposite so that was nice) and developed a lot of soft skills (first job out of college), working for them was kind of a nightmare. It was very extractive and demeaning work to me, I didn’t connect with the goal at large and the work became dull. I went on another sabbatical in August and have been on leave since August of last year. In this time, I’ve had even more clarity on what it is I want to put my time and focus into. My biggest internal struggle was whether or not I dive into my passion (researching systems at large/writing/ theorizing) or work and save up and manage to still work on my passion on the side. I decided I was being naive and downplaying the importance of money. I cant work on what I love if I’m struggling financially 🙃 Now today, I’m pivoting into tech for a higher paying position. I’m currently studying software engineering and graduate end of May.
However, between now and when I land my next role I really don’t know how I will SURVIVE. I’m 30k in debt, no income since I’m in school right now, and using my savings to pay for rent/groceries. I even got rid of my car to minimize expenses. I started cutting my own hair and blow drying at home, I do my own mani/pedi now, I rarely eat out, etc. my expenses are very minimal right now. I cant afford to do more than minimum payment on my cards since I don’t have income. The interest is coming fast. I don’t know what to do! I feel like I can’t breath sometimes. I’m putting all this pressure on myself to land a role by the summer and start paying this off asap, but I don’t think I’ll make it with what I have left (4 months tops of rent and groceries money). My monthly expenses now come out to be ~$1700 (rent groceries and minimum payments). Getting a part time is not realistic for me until end of May (when I graduate). After then I have the option to return to work (im still employed just on leave) and start making my full salary (~$4300 per month), or stick it out a little longer and focus on landing a development role. Going back to work would mean having to get a car again or spending money on Ubers (im calculating ~160-240 per week), sticking it out would mean applying aggressively and look for a remote job maybe even work on the side since I won’t have school or my current job hanging over me.
Again I have no income and can’t put any of my savings towards debt right now. I have ~3k in 401k, and about 8.5k in stocks. I didn’t want to touch any of those since the market isn’t that great right now. How can i pay off this debt in the least amount of time to reduce interest rates? I really don’t want to apply for bankruptcy. I already called my banks to see if we can negotiate the accrued interest thus far. The most they could do is lower apr and then freeze my cards. I feel like debt collection might hurt my record as well. What is my best option? I am on my knees.
TL;DR: I’m just now starting to understand how money works, and would appreciate constructive advice on best way to get out of this 30k in debt. The interest is coming too fast. I’ve heard of line of credit, stop paying all together and negotiate with collections, 0% balance transfer credit cards, tackling the debt myself, etc. Thank you to everyone thats been offering best practices 🙏
Edit: Thank you to everyone who took the time to respond! I really appreciate it. I’m still sorting through all the comments and mapping out my plan. It’ll take time to get out of this hole i put myself in, but at least I’m digging :) If anyone is going through the same thing: sit in it and learn what this lesson is teaching you, get back up, and start being your best self 😊