[DTA]

I'm 26 years old with $85,000 in student loan debt. I currently work as a teacher and while I do generally enjoy teaching, the thought of doing it for the rest of my life has driven me into a massive depression. It's not so much the teaching that's bothersome, but more the daily routine. I cannot stand having a routine that is virtually never going to end.

I have always been a restless, nomadic person. My dream is to travel throughout the world, stay in some place for a length of time, then go to another, and so on. That lifestyle is LIVING to me. My life at the moment is sucking the soul out of me.

How do I make the lifestyle I want happen? A few guys here all seem like you're living the life I want, but I feel like I'm too enmeshed in my current life to break out of it. I want to break out of it. I just want to see and experience new things.

Logically, I'd need to get small jobs in foreign countries to allow me to pay off my massive debt/provide living expenses. How realistic is this? The idea of teaching English in foreign places is an attractive thought, as I have teaching experience.

Sorry for the rambling (Day Bang!), but something's got to give in my life. What are some legit, logical steps I can take to get the life I want to become a reality?

[tenderman100]

(09-17-2011 08:28 PM)DTA Wrote:  

I'm 26 years old with $85,000 in student loan debt. I currently work as a teacher and while I do generally enjoy teaching, the thought of doing it for the rest of my life has driven me into a massive depression. It's not so much the teaching that's bothersome, but more the daily routine. I cannot stand having a routine that is virtually never going to end.

I have always been a restless, nomadic person. My dream is to travel throughout the world, stay in some place for a length of time, then go to another, and so on. That lifestyle is LIVING to me. My life at the moment is sucking the soul out of me.

How do I make the lifestyle I want happen? A few guys here all seem like you're living the life I want, but I feel like I'm too enmeshed in my current life to break out of it. I want to break out of it. I just want to see and experience new things.

Logically, I'd need to get small jobs in foreign countries to allow me to pay off my massive debt/provide living expenses. How realistic is this? The idea of teaching English in foreign places is an attractive thought, as I have teaching experience.

Sorry for the rambling (Day Bang!), but something's got to give in my life. What are some legit, logical steps I can take to get the life I want to become a reality?

Go into business.

Make money.

Get out of debt as fast as possible.

Let this be a lesson to everybody on this board. DO NOT GO INTO EDUCATIONAL DEBT. $25 K tops. If it means you have to stop going to school and work at Wal Mart, do it. DO NOT ACCUMULATE DEBT!!

[The_CEO]

http://www.worldteach.org

[thegmanifesto]

"I'm 26 years old with $85,000 in student loan debt."

Ouch.

I would leave the country and never come back.

That alone makes you 85k.

Not bad for never having to see UGG boots and girls facebooking on their cellphones non-stop.

Don't you think?

[Smitty]

I would most definitely explore the teaching english abroad option..but I'm not sure you will make enough to live and pay off that school debt. Give us an idea of what your financial commitments would be if you packed up and moved away.

[Dash Global]

@DTA

Bro you have the fucking golden ticket for travel (teaching license)

You can go teach almost ANYWHERE in the world and make solid income based on cost of living working at private International / Bilingual Schools. Not some shitty pay for a common English Second Language teacher.

Peep the link im about to give you. You can thank me over some beers next year when your in Latin America or some shit!

http://www.uni.edu/placement/overseas/

[iknowexactly]

You need to find out about Income Based Repayment. The banks won't tell you about it.

Search for it IBR, google, dept of education.

You only have to pay 15% of your income OVER 150% of poverty level.

[Brian]

apply for every possible credit card under the sun. pay off your student loan balance w/your credit cards. declare BK. stop paying all your bills. have your credit card debt discharged (student loan debt is not dischargable in BK). send me a bottle of Goose and give a big Fuck you to every tenured professor making 200k a year to show up 7 hours a week and babble to a lecture hall.

[Saladin]

When I am graduate college I want to have 500K in the bank instead of 80 K in debt.

[Dash Global]

^^

good luck wit that...

[Saladin]

Yeah, id say 100k is more reasonable.

[iknowexactly]

You really, really, need to look at this, it's extremely helpful, I'm doing it myself, and I even looked it up for you. Note that this is a government website and this is not hearsay,
it's the law:

http://studentaid.ed.gov/PORTALSWebApp/s...BRPlan.jsp

If you like paying the bankster parasites interest who make 20 times what you make, feel free,
but there is a legal, very favorable way to reduce payments to almost nothing for someone teaching, or making a low income for any reason, and also get forgiveness for
all remaining debt after 10 or 25 years. It's essentially the same as going underground/overseas but you won't
have the banksters after you.

I have had to confront bank/student loan reps on the phone and tell them they HAD to reduce my payments because they were not following the law.
They will NOT tell you about this voluntarily.

They put me on hold, go ask their supervisors, come back and say "OK. Your payments will be zero."

All you have to do is fill out the form, send in proof of income, and they have to do it if they are federally guaranteed loans. It's not optional for them, they have to.

[Dash Global]

OP,

why in the WORLD would you take on that much debt for an education/teaching degree?!? makes no sense to me.....

i can understand doctors, lawyers, ect or people from ivy league schools but teaching?

[DTA]

(09-18-2011 05:29 AM)Dash Global Wrote:  

OP,

why in the WORLD would you take on that much debt for an education/teaching degree?!? makes no sense to me.....

i can understand doctors, lawyers, ect or people from ivy league schools but teaching?

I wound up switching majors midway and lost a whole bunch of credits, and went to a school out of state. Trust me, it's my biggest regret. College is totally messed up. You're expected to make lifelong decisions about your life when you're only 17 years old

[DTA]

(09-18-2011 05:23 AM)iknowexactly Wrote:  

You really, really, need to look at this, it's extremely helpful, I'm doing it myself, and I even looked it up for you. Note that this is a government website and this is not hearsay,
it's the law:

http://studentaid.ed.gov/PORTALSWebApp/s...BRPlan.jsp

If you like paying the bankster parasites interest who make 20 times what you make, feel free,
but there is a legal, very favorable way to reduce payments to almost nothing for someone teaching, or making a low income for any reason, and also get forgiveness for
all remaining debt after 10 or 25 years. It's essentially the same as going underground/overseas but you won't
have the banksters after you.

I have had to confront bank/student loan reps on the phone and tell them they HAD to reduce my payments because they were not following the law.
They will NOT tell you about this voluntarily.

They put me on hold, go ask their supervisors, come back and say "OK. Your payments will be zero."

All you have to do is fill out the form, send in proof of income, and they have to do it if they are federally guaranteed loans. It's not optional for them, they have to.

This seems really helpful. The thing is I have mostly private loans. It seems that they're under a different set of (inflexible) rules than the Federal loans. I'm not sure doing an IBR is possible with them

[DTA]

(09-18-2011 12:56 AM)Brian Wrote:  

apply for every possible credit card under the sun. pay off your student loan balance w/your credit cards. declare BK. stop paying all your bills. have your credit card debt discharged (student loan debt is not dischargable in BK). send me a bottle of Goose and give a big Fuck you to every tenured professor making 200k a year to show up 7 hours a week and babble to a lecture hall.

I have pretty amazing credit, but I can only get small limits on my credit cards due to massive debt my dad piled up in my name back when I was younger and we were in danger of losing our house. He's paying it all back now, but it's still too large an amount to get the kind of credit needed to destroy the loans. Doesn't your credit score repair itself after 7 years?

[DTA]

(09-17-2011 09:50 PM)The_CEO Wrote:  

http://www.worldteach.org

(09-17-2011 10:13 PM)Dash Global Wrote:  

@DTA

Bro you have the fucking golden ticket for travel (teaching license)

You can go teach almost ANYWHERE in the world and make solid income based on cost of living working at private International / Bilingual Schools. Not some shitty pay for a common English Second Language teacher.

Peep the link im about to give you. You can thank me over some beers next year when your in Latin America or some shit!

http://www.uni.edu/placement/overseas/

These look like pretty good sites. I'll check them out.

My dream would be to chill in a village in South America and just party all day/night! You're invited.

[Dash Global]

(09-18-2011 07:37 AM)DTA Wrote:  

(09-18-2011 05:29 AM)Dash Global Wrote:  

OP,

why in the WORLD would you take on that much debt for an education/teaching degree?!? makes no sense to me.....

i can understand doctors, lawyers, ect or people from ivy league schools but teaching?

I wound up switching majors midway and lost a whole bunch of credits, and went to a school out of state. Trust me, it's my biggest regret. College is totally messed up. You're expected to make lifelong decisions about your life when you're only 17 years old

true that.

you learn SOO much much living in the real world, meeting people, and traveling that help define you and shape what you want to do in life.

sadly most kids dont get this opportunity before going to college......

[DTA]

(09-17-2011 10:01 PM)thegmanifesto Wrote:  

"I'm 26 years old with $85,000 in student loan debt."

Ouch.

I would leave the country and never come back.

That alone makes you 85k.

Not bad for never having to see UGG boots and girls facebooking on their cellphones non-stop.

Don't you think?

That's SO tempting. Seriously. I'd gladly wander the Eurasian countryside to escape some of these bitches

[Smitty]

(09-18-2011 07:37 AM)DTA Wrote:  

(09-18-2011 05:29 AM)Dash Global Wrote:  

OP,

why in the WORLD would you take on that much debt for an education/teaching degree?!? makes no sense to me.....

i can understand doctors, lawyers, ect or people from ivy league schools but teaching?

I wound up switching majors midway and lost a whole bunch of credits, and went to a school out of state. Trust me, it's my biggest regret. College is totally messed up. You're expected to make lifelong decisions about your life when you're only 17 years old

You live the consequences of your decisions. It's in the past and you're doing the right thing by looking forward now. Easy for everyone to sit on the sidelines and question your judgment, but as you said in another post, you were making these big decisions when you were 17 years old. I think you've been given some decent options to look into. Good luck.

[Neo]

(09-17-2011 08:28 PM)DTA Wrote:  

Sorry for the rambling (Day Bang!), but something's got to give in my life. What are some legit, logical steps I can take to get the life I want to become a reality?

DTA, I do not have specific advice, however here are some general things to think about it.

What skills do you have that you can market? You have experience teaching, so the first things that comes to mind is doing that abroad. That may not be the answer, but it's an option. It doesn't solve your debt problem however.

I'm not knowledgeable enough in the bankruptcy/credit arena to give advice on your debt. But what you can do about your finances is make better decisions from now on. Do you keep a budget? Do you live beyond your means? Do you have credit card debt or a car payment? Websites like mint.com really help in tracking this area.

Also keep your chin up. I've been there dude, seemingly stuck in jobs that I didn't like with debt and not living how I want to live. It's really been the past year where I began to get over the hump financially and start making headway.

Lastly for the younger cats reading this post. Avoid debt as much as possible. Even educational debt is not 'good' debt. An example of a conversation I heard in a a coffee shop with some college kids...

Random kid: "Yeah I don't mind taking out a lot of loans cause when I graduate I'm guaranteed to make 70k a year."

It's funny cause I used to think like that back then too. It's idiotic how society and the educational systems convince us of this crap at a young age.

[Deb Auchery]

There are so many ways to make a living online these days.

I make money with Ebay, Amazon, my own website, and Freelance Sales and Marketing work/Outsourcing

Making more dough than I was in London and I am travelling the world and fucking as I go, I live like a rock-star.

[Ajiaco]

What do you teach? If you are an actual licensed teacher rather than just some dude with a TEFL certificate, you will have a LOT of options to teach abroad, and you can make bank doing so. Start looking for a job at international hiring fairs. Some schools here in Colombia for example, send their officials to major American cities LOOKING for qualified teachers, and offering to cover transportation costs, visa expenses, apartment, etc. Some very elite schools hire the majority of their foreign teachers this way. Start looking into it. The first step is getting out for a while however you need to do it.

[Deb Auchery]

I heard the best place to teach English, financially speaking, is Moscow.

There's a very funny blog by someone called English Teacher X, this guy was teaching there for years.

http://englishteacherx.com/

[Pete]

if your debt is from subsidized or federal loans you may be able to cancel the debt by working a few years as a teacher. Investigate it. I think some teachers and government workers can cancel the debt by working a few years.