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Yes, everyone makes priorities and makes some sacrifices. You can still “live life” while being responsible. I mean you make $165k, 10k take home.
Do you cook or do takeout every night? Do you get drinks every weekend?
Realistically you can get away with $100 in groceries breakfast lunch and dinner a week. Plus another $100 in takeout and drinks. Round up and include some new clothes, transportation expenses, cell phone, etc you’ve got maybe max $1500 a month. +$5k student loan payment. Meaning you’ve got $4.5k a month to work with for savings and rent.
Doesn’t sound like you should be struggling too much. Everyone makes trade offs and prioritizes, if you want to live alone do it, just make the trade offs in other areas of your life eg cook more, go out less, etc. If you’re not willing to do that then I don’t really feel bad for you.
Btw ageeed with the comments about living outside of NYC, honestly you can find some really nice luxury buildings with studios easily for cheaper outside of NY.
Lol meal prep! And portioning.
My husband who had federal student loans with 6.8% interest rate from med school refinanced to a much lower interest rate.You should look into refinancing and then send in extra payments on top of the minimum payments (from bonus?) but you have to put in writing that it must be applied to the principal other wise they will apply it to interest and screw you. We use bonus checks to hit his principal. He was a victim of the Navient and Nelnet scamming of pushing him to go to forbearance which made the balance balloon instead of income based repayment. There are state lawsuits pending as we speak. Refinancing is the way to go!
Able to consolidate all my 7-8 loans from variable rates to 1 loan reducing my IR exposure from a cap of 8% to a 3.25%.
$240k student loan 🤮🤮🤮
Curious as well
Are you in nyc? Does 165k really not allow you to live alone?
Sounds like your witholdings might be too low. You may owe the tax man too - not to add fuel to the fire - but it does sound like your take home is high. Especially for it being the beginning of the year. Unless you've done that intentionally...
Try Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University.
Echo this
I don’t have advice, but for everyone saying they don’t understand the loans... If OP went to a private undergrad and took out loans + MBA at a top school and took out loans, it is pretty easy to see where $240k came from.
Yea, I was also utterly confused by people’s utter confusion
You’re making $165k salary - there are plenty of people out there making less with the same amount of student loan debt if not more. Maybe take a second to appreciate the money coming in!
Have you looked in places just outside of NYC? You don't get a view of the Manhattan skyline from your lux apartment by living in the center of Manhattan. Consider places like Jersey City, Hoboken, Long Island City, etc. You can get something in a nice building with amenities, and your commute could be pretty short.
It’s always been my dream to live alone in a spacious lux apartment in city center. It sounds silly, I know. But I’m turning 30 and I always had siblings to share my room with till I was 18, and then roommates in my hcol city since then. I feel like next few years is my only chance in life to live alone before I get married. But I just budgeted my income for after graduation and I feel defeated. I’ll have to find a roommate again or a very pre-war house in a location I’m not happy with. I thought I did everything right in life, but I can’t get that one thing I wanted. When do you stop compromising?
I don't think you get into that kind of debt by "compromising". You need to pay serious attention to where your money is going every month. You'll have it gone in 3 years, max.
Sorry for the ignorance but how do you have 240k of student loans? And if it is your dream just sublease a place for a few months and experience it.... Or blow all your points on a nice hotel. Or find a project in a different city and just live in the hotel instead of flying back home. Feel like there are a lot of options for a consultant....
You’ve got a few options:
1. Join the military.... they offer loan payback while earning a healthy salary and live on base plus travel
2. Jobs that offer loan payback...this is big for medicine and soon to be a benefit for companies within 10 yrs I’m thinking.
3. As a joke, talk to alumni affairs at your school and ask for help. When they say no, show them your statement and say never to call and ask for money. It’s part of the social contract universities don’t get.
For sure, writing is everything. If it’s not in writing it wasn’t promised or isn’t happening
“Live like others won’t so that you can live like others won’t”
True just have to have a good balance with it all tbh
165k in HCOL is like $85k elsewhere.
Where do you work that your making $150k ???? Refer me 😂
MillerCoors - are you guys hiring in the Bay Area? 😑
Go work a couple of nights in a soup kitchen and realise how good you have it. You will feel like new afterwards.
Refinance with First Republic Bank at like 2-3% interest and pay their monthly amount. Boom now you can live like a luxury man
If you make a tight budget, can’t you this off in 3 years?
You’re a surgeon now I assume with that size of loans, just book a couple more surgeries and you’ll be set
Which companies pay so much ? 😭 no MBA but I’m a really hard worker :/
Mmmm... read "Total Money Makeover" and start listening to Dave Ramsey.
You can crush your debt in four years. So that's the answer.
And believe me 33-34 is still not that old. And then you will reap the rewards of fast wealth accumulation with that salary.
Dude.. hang in there. Next job you could be earning almost 200K. Keep getting good experience and make those leaps. You’ll catch up.