Don’t Be Stupid. Pay Your Loans.

~ Laura

A number of my grad school buddies took great pride in the financial ignorance. Like thinking for a second about their massive student loans was a dirty, money grabbing sort of thing. Some graduate walked away with as much as $100,000 of debt. They had no idea how to pay off their loans and credit card debt with only a lousy academic job.

Jane Galt gives the definitive guide to managing your money, especially when you have a ton of school loan debt.

I would like to add a few of my own tips. 1. Don’t be friends with people who make more money then you. Choose poor friends. They’ll never talk about their new lamps from Restoration Hardware or broadway shows. 2. If you have a hearty colon (I do), then street food in New York City is an excellent source of cheap, tasty treats. 3. Dumpster dive for furniture. 4. Two eggs/bacon/cheese on a roll from the diner on 43rd street costs $2.50. That plus two cigarettes keeps you going until dinner.

Jane really offers excellent advice. Academic bloggers should pass this one around.

Published by Laura

7 thoughts on “Don’t Be Stupid. Pay Your Loans.”

  1. 11D: Don’t Be Stupid. Pay Your Loans.

    11D: Don’t Be Stupid. Pay Your Loans.: “Choose poor friends. They’ll never talk about their new lamps from Restoration Hardware or broadway shows.” You have to admire that brand of savvy advice. Visit 11D for more advice and a link to a managing your f…

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  2. I will go read her list because despite not being an academic, I somehow managed to have about $50k in student loans and needless to say, I am not making a lot of money. But the one thing about having rich friends is that they will give you their nice cast offs. We had one rich friend sell us their car for four hundred bucks (about 1/8 of the blue book and they would only take the $400 ‘cuz we insisted) and another one tried to give us their Toyota but the $400 car was still working for us. If you can get past the envy and if your rich friends aren’t idiots who expect you to invite them out to eat in nice restaurants on your dime, they can be a help.

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  3. Must add a couple of things.
    1) Street food, maybe. But drinks from street vendors can be rip-offs. Carry a water bottle – NYC tap water is the best. (can’t say the same about NJ, sadly.)
    2) CIGARETTES?? Forget the health issues. Cigarettes are the biggest waste of money God has created since diamond rings. Quit smoking, invest the difference, and become rich.

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  4. I don’t go to theater (not living in NYC anymore, so I’m talking about local theater, though we have a pretty good local scene) and I don’t have Restoration Hardware lamps–but not because I’m poor. It’s because I have kids. I’m away from home enough that I want to spend time with the kids when I can instead of going out, and who wants to buy an expensive lamp that your 3 year old is just going to knock over anyway?
    Re dumpster diving: I’m a freak not because I dumpster dive and love garage sales but because I obsessively and proudly remember where I got everything. My $50 sofa I bought at a yard sale when I was 8+ months pregnant, my free recliner someone was putting out for the trash (he offered us the love seat too, but we didn’t have room in the car), the $40 Ethan Allen bed my daughter sleeps in, my free bed frame (though it kills me that we had to spend almost $300 for the split boxspring because we couldn’t get our old non-split one up the stairs in our new place). My basic practice is never to spend more than $50 on furniture, particularly now that I have kids. They’re just going to ruin it anyway.

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  5. Amy Dacyczyn’s series of Tightwad Gazette books not only gives practical tips on how to save money, but also provides a philosophical framework for living a frugal life and enjoying it. She talks a lot about quality of life issues and making frugal choices that are good for the environment and reinforce values such as anti-materialism, anti-workaholism, independence, creativity, and self-reliance. She shows how frugality can save you more money than getting a higher-paying job (because the money you save can’t be taxed–earning more money means paying more of it in taxes) while increasing quality of life.

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