• Seleni@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    What year did you graduate?

    How much was your debt?

    What were those ‘shit wages’?

    What were your other expenses? How much of those ‘shit wages’ were you able to put towards the loan vs. your cost of living?

    What year did you pay it off?

    I’m quite curious.

    • fender_symphonic584@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I graduated in 2011 from a state school in Minnesota. $90k in student loans. Private, parent plus, the works…first job out of school I averaged $50k on an hourly job, and only got up to about $65k by 2017. Got married with that debt, my wife had none. We both worked, my job and hers gave us combined income ~$75k. One bed apartment rent was $950 back then, we owned 2 cars, both beaters, no debt. Paid it all off in late 2019. No debt since then except a mortgage.

      • Seleni@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        $50K is not shit wages. Minimum wage is, for example, $13.25 in MD. That is shit wages. And lucky you to find such a cheap apartment, and be able to share it. Nowadays, using MD again for consistency, you’ll be paying $1450-$1600 a month for a studio, if you’re lucky. And what if you don’t have someone to share that with?

        And don’t get me started on the mercurial rise of food products. The luck you have to roll to have a beater not die on you with no way to revive it (mine just did; I can revive it, to the tune of $4,000).

        You didn’t have it trust-fund-easy, but you still didn’t have it all that bad.

        • fender_symphonic584@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Well, thats perspective. Thanks! Beaters did die, more than once…wasnt a cake walk.

          The context here started with college debt. I stuggle with the idea that a college graduate only find a minimum wage job. Or if they do, that that will be their wage the entire time they’re paying off debt. Am I being naïve?

      • ZombieTheZombieCat@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        parent plus,

        We both worked, my job and hers gave us combined income

        That’s so nice for you that you had other people to carry your debt burden for you.

        • fender_symphonic584@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          It was so nice of them that I paid those loans off too! They didn’t pay a cent. Also, I was upfront about my debt. She didn’t have to marry me. I’m grateful she did.