Reply to Scraping by on $500k

Forum Index » Money and Finances

Reply to "Scraping by on $500k"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Our HHI is $300K and we are stretched to the max.

Old sedans, one paid off.
2 kids in daycare
Small house with mortgage that is as low as possible while getting down to an hour commute, still outside beltway (did over 2 years with a 2 hr commute that wasn't sustainable with our jobs)
No vacations in 5 years
[b]$300K in student loans [/b]with monthly payments that increase every year
Not maxing out retirement
Insufficient contributions to 529
Cut lawn service
Practically no savings

No fancy cars, house, private school, or nannies (unlike my colleagues). It is really, really stressful in this area.[/quote]

Dear God.  Why on earth did you do that?[/quote]

Law school for both of us.  I had a full ride for undergrad, his parents paid his undergrad.  My parents paid for law school, his did not.  Everyone we knew who didn't live at home (we couldn't, no family in the area) took out $200K, as did DH.  Came out during the recession so no jobs and also had to take self-funded bar study loans.  Lived with his parents for a stretch while doing temp work to avoid taking more loans.  But, I went for a LL.M. to be more marketable ($100K for me).  So, now we make a good amount but pay $3500/month in student loans.

They go up each year because we are on IBR.[/quote]
Surely you will be able to pay those off in no time once one or both of you make partner at a biglaw firm, no?  Seems temporary to me.  Pretty soon 300k will be something you can knock out in a few months if you want to.[/quote]

LOL. Neither of us are associates in BigLaw or could ever lateral. Not because we don't want to, but because DH and I do not work in an area of law that BigLaw values/offers/where we could be successful. We are on a 25 year repayment plan. Student loans have 6-9% interest rates and more typically the latter. They are too high to refinance with lower rates. I take full ownership of the decision to go to law school, but there is a reason why people don't "pay down" mortgages either (with much lower interest rates, by the way).

To PP who suggested we had children too early, DH was in his mid-30's and I was 29/31. [b]So you are saying that we should have waited 10 years until our loans were lower [/b]to have children and be in our 40's? My monthly payments would have only been HIGHER not lower, commiserate with our income. My mom was older when she had me, and while to each is own and I completely respect my female colleagues who had children later in life, I was ready and didn't want to be like my mom. [b]So you're saying poorer people should never have kids?[/b]  :shock: [/quote]

You're full of excuses!!  No wonder you have 300k in law school debt.

Sure keep hanging onto those loans and enjoy that monthly payment for the next 20 plus years of your life.  They are hardly the same as a mortgage and if you think they are there's no point trying to explain it to you.

No.  But [b]you should have lived in a cheap rental following law school for at least 3 years and spent all of your money getting rid of those loans. Fwiw I don't think "poorer people" have 300k in law school debt.[/b]

[/quote]

+1M[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics