Creating a New Post
Hi everybody! Just a bit of an update:
1. Kev and I decided to not adopt Anthony. Most, if not all, of you know this, and I'll leave it at what was said in the mass email. Since his departure to, hopefully, better and permanent digs, things around our house have been much calmer. Back to normal.
2. The Job has been pretty stressful lately. I haven't been on vacation in over a year (save for a few days at Christmas, which is anything but relaxing) and I'm feeling it. The workload has been non-stop. Not that I mind work--what I mind is not knowing what I'm doing, yet doing so much of it.
3. I just found out a few days ago that student loans don't work like mortgages. If you take 30 years to pay off a mortgage, you move from paying almost all interest, to half and half, until finally you're just left with the remaining principal. Unless you pay off your mortgage in huge chunks at first or pay significantly more per month to be applied toward the principal, by the time you get 20 or so years into it you might as well cool your jets and make the monthly payments for the duration because the interest is already paid.
Stupidly, I thought this was how student loans worked, too. I've been paying on my $22,000 for NINE YEARS. The bill now says "Principal balance = $19,000 (and change)" "Interest balance = $25.00". So I'm thinking I've hit the midway point, right? (Even though, with each new payment, the bill says pretty much the same thing.) I've been paying mostly interest for the last 9 years and have only paid about $3,000 in principal, but now the tide is turning and that sticky principal balance is going to start moving! So, in making my future economic plans, I figure I might as well cool my jets and keep paying $150.00 month for years and years until it (the principal) is paid off. After all, paying it off early is not going to save me any money now, right?
Oh, so wrong. Interest continues to accrue on a daily basis, and the interest has just gone from 4% to SIX PERCENT! Overnight! So I HAVE been paying almost all interest for the past near-decade AND I'm nowhere near being finished. In fact, if I were to pay it off in 10 years, it would cost me $471 a month! That's a mere $56,520. And that's AFTER I've already paid roughly $20,000--$17,000 of which went to interest--for a grand total of nearly 4 times what my education actually cost. So, basically, if you're poor and try to better yourself and society through higher education, OR if your dad decides to put your little brother through school and not you, OR if your dad also forgot that HIS parents paid for his schooling, you're fucked. Of course, I could just lay down the $19,000 and have it paid off, meaning that the price of a college education was just double what it was for luckier youngsters . . . . But, really, who has the time to write that check?
4. On the way into work yesterday, I thought I'd be slick and avoid a bunch of orange barrels by taking the "back" way. I got stopped by a flagger at a one-lane road for nearly 10 minutes. While sitting there, in Park, I watched as the Dodge Behemoth Truck/Small Penis Enlarger behind me crept up, ever so slowly up, and then bumped into me! After Stevie and I felt the little jolt, I opened the door to survey the damage, if any. The truck driver--a young man--didn't even get out until I was almost back in my car. He said "I didn't think it did anything" ("it"--not him. Lord knows he wouldn't want to take responsibility.) after surveying my bumper from his 3-story high cab. I said "It looks all right", and then he got back in his truck without saying anything more, not even "Sorry about that! I was yakking on my cell phone about a matter of national importance and forgot that I was in a 4 ton vehicle on a public road with other life forms." See why I live in the country? People are such assholes sometimes.
5. I adore my husband and look forward to seeing him and talking to him every day. And of course I love, love, love my adorable little child, too. In the end, I have little to bitch about. *
* Still, I reserve the right. Something might come up!
1. Kev and I decided to not adopt Anthony. Most, if not all, of you know this, and I'll leave it at what was said in the mass email. Since his departure to, hopefully, better and permanent digs, things around our house have been much calmer. Back to normal.
2. The Job has been pretty stressful lately. I haven't been on vacation in over a year (save for a few days at Christmas, which is anything but relaxing) and I'm feeling it. The workload has been non-stop. Not that I mind work--what I mind is not knowing what I'm doing, yet doing so much of it.
3. I just found out a few days ago that student loans don't work like mortgages. If you take 30 years to pay off a mortgage, you move from paying almost all interest, to half and half, until finally you're just left with the remaining principal. Unless you pay off your mortgage in huge chunks at first or pay significantly more per month to be applied toward the principal, by the time you get 20 or so years into it you might as well cool your jets and make the monthly payments for the duration because the interest is already paid.
Stupidly, I thought this was how student loans worked, too. I've been paying on my $22,000 for NINE YEARS. The bill now says "Principal balance = $19,000 (and change)" "Interest balance = $25.00". So I'm thinking I've hit the midway point, right? (Even though, with each new payment, the bill says pretty much the same thing.) I've been paying mostly interest for the last 9 years and have only paid about $3,000 in principal, but now the tide is turning and that sticky principal balance is going to start moving! So, in making my future economic plans, I figure I might as well cool my jets and keep paying $150.00 month for years and years until it (the principal) is paid off. After all, paying it off early is not going to save me any money now, right?
Oh, so wrong. Interest continues to accrue on a daily basis, and the interest has just gone from 4% to SIX PERCENT! Overnight! So I HAVE been paying almost all interest for the past near-decade AND I'm nowhere near being finished. In fact, if I were to pay it off in 10 years, it would cost me $471 a month! That's a mere $56,520. And that's AFTER I've already paid roughly $20,000--$17,000 of which went to interest--for a grand total of nearly 4 times what my education actually cost. So, basically, if you're poor and try to better yourself and society through higher education, OR if your dad decides to put your little brother through school and not you, OR if your dad also forgot that HIS parents paid for his schooling, you're fucked. Of course, I could just lay down the $19,000 and have it paid off, meaning that the price of a college education was just double what it was for luckier youngsters . . . . But, really, who has the time to write that check?
4. On the way into work yesterday, I thought I'd be slick and avoid a bunch of orange barrels by taking the "back" way. I got stopped by a flagger at a one-lane road for nearly 10 minutes. While sitting there, in Park, I watched as the Dodge Behemoth Truck/Small Penis Enlarger behind me crept up, ever so slowly up, and then bumped into me! After Stevie and I felt the little jolt, I opened the door to survey the damage, if any. The truck driver--a young man--didn't even get out until I was almost back in my car. He said "I didn't think it did anything" ("it"--not him. Lord knows he wouldn't want to take responsibility.) after surveying my bumper from his 3-story high cab. I said "It looks all right", and then he got back in his truck without saying anything more, not even "Sorry about that! I was yakking on my cell phone about a matter of national importance and forgot that I was in a 4 ton vehicle on a public road with other life forms." See why I live in the country? People are such assholes sometimes.
5. I adore my husband and look forward to seeing him and talking to him every day. And of course I love, love, love my adorable little child, too. In the end, I have little to bitch about. *
* Still, I reserve the right. Something might come up!
posted by lulu | 10:18 AM
1 Comments:
who the Hell is Myron and Eddie?
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