Well guys, I thought I’d come grace your presence with another article. I feel like this is where I need to be to release some of the stress I’ve been feeling and I really wanted someone to talk to. Unfortunately, the world has come to a halt due to coronavirus (COVID-19) and no one is really allowed to be within 6 ft of one another. I swear, just before this started I was researching trying to find a therapist. I just wasn’t able to find one in my network that I was interested in working with and well… now I fear it may be too late to find one until fall. I’m thinking that doing a bit of a release on my blog might help me sort some things out.

You see… this all started about a year ago, when I realized just what it meant to be in student loan debt. I recognized it was a problem, democratic nominees started talking about it a little more. I saw an article about a women who legitimately had a funeral for her 100k plus in student loans once she’d paid them off and I said, why can’t I do that? I also recognized that well, I owed the same amount in student loans as I owed on my house back home in Saint Louis.

I did the calculations to determine exactly… how much debt was I in? The numbers were STAGGERING to say the least. I nearly lost my breath when I looked at the number… Even as I type this, I’m trying to decide… exactly how transparent do I want to be with you guys? But… maybe no one will ever read this article and it will be okay. I won’t be judged. I won’t be made to feel bad. It’ll be my little secret.. here on the little black blog for millennials. Okay, look. I’m going to do it. I’m going to tell the truth because someone needs to know.. you are not alone.

On my 30th birthday, October 11th, 2019… I was indebted a total amount of:

Student loans: $77,650

Mortgage: ~ $77,000

Consolidation loan through Credit Union: $7,415

Chase Credit card: $2,826

Bank of America Credit Card: ~$3,000

This is a whopping $167,891.

I know some of you will say, a mortgage doesn’t count… But it does. I was renting that property out and I was just barely making a profit… any major repair would have set me back several months profit and never mind when my long term tenant moved out, I was responsible for the mortgage. It was just all too much. I’d decided I couldn’t continue living like that. I just wanted to be free.

I’d been listening to Dave Ramsey (yes, that is where a lot of my stress began, haha) and he has the strongest push to be debt free. Now, Dave my not have had anything negative to say about the rental property, but he most certainly would have had a heart attack had I told him about everything else. So I’d decided, I was going to start my debt free journey. And man, is it stressful.

1.  The first thing I’d needed to do was to sell my rental property at a profit and put the proceeds towards my debt. I was fortunate to have come across an amazing Realtor (do your research guys, and don’t feel obligated to use that family friend).

I put my house on the market on October 10th, 2020 and I said a prayer.

On October 11th, 2020, I got a call while I was out to brunch for my birthday…

We had an offer, FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS over asking price.

She was able to help me flip my very first rental property and I cleared about $20,000 after all of my expenses. It would have taken me EONS to make that much on my property as I was only profiting about $130 a month, which is about $1566 a year. That didn’t include any repairs that are made throughout the year.. so nearly nothing. (*** Just a point of clarification, that property was meant to be my forever home. I did not purchase it with the intention of it becoming a rental property. )

With that, I was able to rid my self of the mortgage debt and I used $10,000 as a first payment on my student loans bring my total indebtedness down to around $80,000 and I also paid off my Bank of America credit card with those funds. I’d put the rest of my proceeds in a rainy day savings fund.

2. Lastly, I received an end of the year bonus from my company and paid the entire balance of the consolidation loan.

With those payments, I was left with the following debt payments:

Student loans: $67,820 (interest accrued)

Credit card balance: ~3700… (***note: I moved my chase balance over to Bank of America because they offered me a 0% balance transfer)

As of February 12th, 2020, I only had about $71,500 left to get out of debt!!!

I’m sure there is someone saying that’s a crazy amount or how am I going to do that? You just watch!!! I promise I will come back with another article about how I plan to achieve this and what you can do to achieve the same results. And when it is all said and done, I’ll have my own little funeral too… Until next time!

photo cred: https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/woman-death-student-loans-photo-shoot