Obsessed with Debt

I think I'm going to start a debt countdown on here because I am obsessed with numbers. I've been wondering if I should attend school the second I get accepted (if I get accepted) or if I should defer for another year and try to work off more debt, even tho my tuition loans would be deferred until I was finished with my Masters anyways. My car, on the other hand, is a pain in the ass. I'd love to have a scooter to drive to work and school, but I would never buy one unless I had straight cash to buy it with. You can get 76 miles to the gallon on those things tho and you can fill the tank with 10 bucks! Often I wish I hadn't needed a brand new car for the Awful Job because there were probably cheaper options, but then I remember how terrified I was of the used cars that I'd had in the past. My first car had been my grandmother's grey Ford Tempo, which was an automatic but had problems with stalling at red lights. This happened to me once and I missed an entire green, got beeped the shit out of, and was mortified. I shared that car with Ian. The second car I had was a bright red Geo Prizm ("Gizm") and I shared it with Ian and then with KySmiley. My father used to describe to me how to pump the heat even in summer if the car started overheating. Later on, when I moved in with my mom, she procured for me (for free, at that + $500 in maintainance) a '93 white Ford Escort. I had to repeatedly gun the engine to make it go up hills and then it would smell weird and on the highway, when I reached 55mph it would shudder and slow down. It felt as if the ground was dropping out from under me. When I remember how much I worried every single time I took any of those cars anywhere, I realize that I would've probably been regretting it had I not gotten a brand new car. Still, when Twigs tells me she got her car at a car auction in NH for $915, I curse my monthly car loan payment (more than usual). She got a '93 Nissan Altima, and I do like those. On the other hand, I like that my car is brand new, is under warranty, and shouldn't have problems for forever. It also gets good mileage. The grass is always greener on the other side. I don't usually run my possessions into the ground, so it better be well worth the money. My diploma actually got me a good $500 off and then after an hour of negotiations my mom put her head in her hands, looked up, and told the guy that if he took the amount of the "document fees" off the price of the car, we would buy it. He did and we did and we sat there for another billion years while some guy wrote up some papers on some bullshit insurance and special features that we declined anyways and another couple days after that we picked up my brand new car which had only spent 10 days on the lot. That was definitely a good day. I can't imagine for the life of me why anyone would graduate college and go get a stupid pricey sports car with terrible gas mileage that costs them something ridiculous every month. But I have seen it, of course. They'll be giving it back soon so they can go to school.

So anyways. I'm starting to wonder if I should bother with courses at all next semester or just try to bag a ton of overtime or even get a second, part-time job and just throw it all into paying everything off. I asked D yesterday how much she had in tuition loans and it was a great big nothing. I always knew it, but I still could've strangled her with jealousy. Her mom and possibly grandparents had definitely been saving since she was born for Brown or Cornell and she did them all a favor by going to UMass Amherst and gathering scholarships and awards. Well, by staying at UMass after she got accepted to transfer after freshmen year. Her initial rejection from all her better choices just goes to show how there's a reason for everything. But that's never easy to swallow. My parents planned in a similar fashion for me and I would've been all set if it hadn't gotten squandered all over a custody battle. The sentence that struck me most when I read some of the divorce papers was "nobody wins and the children lose." You got that right.

So here I am going to start a countdown. I like being able to see progress and even tho its not as if I can put $600 more a month towards the bills, I can bring them down a little. I wish things like savekaryn.com still worked, but then again I don't think I'd have the balls to do that sort of thing anyways. So here it is.

Tuition Loans: $10,858.42

Car Loan: $11,049.02

Car Insurance for the Year: $415.80

And that's where we'll start.

The car loan is tough to calculate with interest and all, which is very discouraging but whatever. Argh, why can't I just win $50,000?? Okay, well, there it is. Let the paying begin....I mean continue.