One Woman's Trip toward Financial Freedom
Monica Leftwich says that she became a single mom in 2009. It wasn't something she had planned, but it happened. What she had planned was finishing her masters degree in marketing and getting a decent job to support her family. While she did finish and even got to brag about her success, the awesome job did not follow. What did come were debt collectors. It seems that once you finish your schooling, Uncle Sam wants his loan money back.
Leftwich recounts how her bachelors and two masters degrees amounted to nearly $110,000 in student loan debt. She had two small children and suddenly realized that she needed to "hit the lottery or nail a generous sugar daddy."
Instead of feeling proud and successful, she lived a life of stress that negatively impacted her and her family. "I found myself shamefully taking my frustration out on my kids. I just wanted to find a cliff and jump....I wanted to foot slap myself for being such a *#!* How can I save for two college educations? How can I afford a house or a new car? My rickety 2-door Chevy was on life support and a brand new car was out the question." …show more content…
She decided to stop worrying about it. In her words, "I simply made a decision to not give a sh*t about it [her student loans] anymore."
Leftwich then took the following steps:
1. She enrolled in a student loan repayment plan based on her income. While the balance is barely touched by her payments, after 20-25 years the rest will be forgiven and her credit will remain intact.
2. She signed up for automatic payments on her loans so she did not even have to think about
Monica Leftwich says that she became a single mom in 2009. It wasn't something she had planned, but it happened. What she had planned was finishing her masters degree in marketing and getting a decent job to support her family. While she did finish and even got to brag about her success, the awesome job did not follow. What did come were debt collectors. It seems that once you finish your schooling, Uncle Sam wants his loan money back.
Leftwich recounts how her bachelors and two masters degrees amounted to nearly $110,000 in student loan debt. She had two small children and suddenly realized that she needed to "hit the lottery or nail a generous sugar daddy."
Instead of feeling proud and successful, she lived a life of stress that negatively impacted her and her family. "I found myself shamefully taking my frustration out on my kids. I just wanted to find a cliff and jump....I wanted to foot slap myself for being such a *#!* How can I save for two college educations? How can I afford a house or a new car? My rickety 2-door Chevy was on life support and a brand new car was out the question." …show more content…
She decided to stop worrying about it. In her words, "I simply made a decision to not give a sh*t about it [her student loans] anymore."
Leftwich then took the following steps:
1. She enrolled in a student loan repayment plan based on her income. While the balance is barely touched by her payments, after 20-25 years the rest will be forgiven and her credit will remain intact.
2. She signed up for automatic payments on her loans so she did not even have to think about