Chances are you won’t find a single postgraduate in the nation who doesn’t audibly groan and wince like they stepped on a Lego at the mention of “student debt”. The truth of the matter is that student debt actually has even more dire implications than people are aware of. Aside from simply needing to struggle with paying back their personal debt balance, student loan debt impacts your budget in ways that are far more expansive than you may know.
Less opportunity for independent proprietorship
Historically, people have been able to survive periods of economic destitution by starting small businesses to supplement their income. However, due to the costs for college skyrocketing in such a short period of time, the windows of opportunity for you to overcome a saturated job market by opening a small business are shrinking. Student debt isn’t just something that you need to pay back, but also an anchor on the amount of money that you can safely invest into improving your overall standard of living in general. The higher your debt grows, the less freedom you have to use innovative and independent methods for fighting it.
Inability to set aside money for a buying home
In the face of soaring student debt, you won’t have nearly as much of an ability to think about becoming a homeowner. Without being able to set aside as much money as you would if you were debt free, the costs of home ownership will likely be far higher than what’s reasonable. Without being able to escape loan debt, chances are that most postgraduates will have to resign to renting for the rest of their lives.
A much lower chance of getting any other kind of loan
Even if you sweep your student loan debt under the rug and refuse to think about it, student loan delinquency is never invisible. Your inability to pay back a loan will be recorded and have a direct effect on your credit score, which will essentially blacklist you from all credit unions that bring it up. Due to the difficulty of getting any loans, student debt can end up forcing you to pay for just about everything in cash.
Your retirement will be hindered
Obviously, when you’re so focused on keeping your head above water with your student loans, there are other responsibilities and needs that just go untouched. It’s not news that it’s becoming more and more difficult every year for Americans to make retirement their priority, but what is new is the amount of debt that young adults are having to take on to help pay for a degree.
If there’s one piece of advice that young adults need to take is that if your employer has a 401K plan, and they have a matching program, you should probably take advantage of it. Retirement advisors agree that the optimal time for Americans to start saving is 24 or 25. Even if it’s only $50 a month. Save.
Budgeting for student debt
Despite the reality of how daunting student debt can be, it isn’t impossible to successfully fight against it with the right budgeting techniques. The first step of the process to to simply come up with a budget in the first place, which is many people may initially find too intimidating to even consider. Maintaining a student checking account can help you monitor spending habits and determine how much you can afford to spend each month on your loan.
Mark off a weekend that you can sit down and identify all of the specific ways that student debt could potentially interfere with your personal ambitions; there is generally a six-month grace period allowed after graduation. Even if six months have already passed, you can still benefit from working the budget out as soon as possible.
Determine a monthly payment amount, and make a commitment that you can reasonably maintain. Even if you can only pay back a small amount at a time, anything is better than nothing at all. Calculate any payments on private student loans that you may have as well, and be sure to consider talking to any private lenders who may be able to guide you in the right direction.
After you know how much you’re going to be spending on loan repayment on a daily basis, take a moment to see how you budget can be reconfigured to accommodate it.
