I didn’t make any progress on paying off my student loan this month. Since I’ve been unsuccessful in finding a job and haven’t been making much money from my other endeavors I was only able to make the minimum monthly payment of $183.16. Since my loan accrues $21.26 in interest each day my loan balance has increased a few hundred dollars this month. That isn’t the direction I want my balance to go. I probably made a mistake by taking out the credit card balance transfer loans to pay down my student loan when I didn’t have a job. I felt certain I would have a job soon. Unfortunately, that feeling was wrong.
For now, I think I need to put my goal of paying off my student loan on hold. I need to concentrate on paying my monthly bills and putting any extra towards paying down the balance transfers on my credit cards. If I’m not able to pay them off before the 0% promotional rate ends then I’ll be stuck paying a ton of interest. That is why paying off the credit cards needs to be my priority now. Next month I will be getting three dental implants which will cost me $2700. The money I had set aside to pay for the implants has gone to pay for my medical bills from being hit by a car and another medical problem. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that the driver’s insurance company is going to offer me a fair settlement so it could be quite a while before I’m reimbursed for those medical bills.
In order to make decent progress on paying off the student loans I need to find a job making $60,000 or more. Although I’m confident that I will eventually be able to find a job I seriously doubt that I’ll be able to find a job paying that much. That is waaaay more than I have ever earned before. A more likely scenario is a job that pays around $40,000 and I make the rest of the $60k from other sources such as blogging, Amazon FBA, and Uber. Until I’m able to significantly improve my financial situation I will need to keep the student loan payoff on hold and concentrate on paying off my credit cards.
You’ve got some tough situations going on, but I hope you’ll find a job soon & starting digging out.
It sucks that the job situation is harder than you anticipated. Is Uber working out for you as a decent source of income until you find something better?
Jamie – Thanks for the support. I got a job the day after posting this.
Jon- The job situation has worked out well. I got two job offers the day after this post went up. I tried to work both of them since one was only part-time and the other one is temporary. I decided to just keep the temp job since it pays better and the part-time job required a three-week unpaid training period. The place I’m working at now I have worked at before and although it is temporary they have work several times a year, maybe even most of the year. I also like this job better than I think I would have liked the part-time job.
I still haven’t given Uber a fair chance since the best paying hours are hours when I’m usually asleep. I think the pay will still work out to be fairly low after deducting expenses. I do like being able to work whenever I want and only when I want though. Sometime later this year when I’m not working I plan to work Uber 40 hours in a week including the good hours and see what the potential is.