I Appreciate Not Being a Homeowner Right Now

I may have to clean up the flooded mess in the garage, but I don't have to pay for the new water filter.  And a thousand prayers and kudos to whoever invented the wet/dry vacuum.

I Can't Sleep...

So I'm thinking of all the ways I can raise extra cash.  Some of them have already been ruled out, but I'll list them anyway.

1.  Prostitution - Ruled out, for several reasons besides being icky, including, but not limited to, that I'm not into weird fetishes, old men, or naked strangers.

2.  Dealing drugs - Ruled out.  I don't want to enable people to kill themselves, and we all know I'll end up getting shot anyway.

3.  Marry rich - Ruled out.  Aside from the fact that the only thing I would have going for me on being a trophy wife is having naturally large breasts, I don't really want to get married.  And let's face it, girls who want to do this can buy their boobs anyway.  So that's not even an edge in for me.

4.  Learn to juggle, and become a street performer -  This is actually plausible.  I'm going to see if I can YouTube How to Juggle.  I'll get back to you on that.

5.  Sell my paintings and photographs -  Also plausible.  Will look into it.

6.  Get a second job - Probably the most likely to pan out.  But also the least fun.

I've hit a wall.  But maybe I can sleep now.

There Are Trends In These Articles

I've just read three of articles on people who have a ton of student loans.  I'm noticing they have a lot in common.

Keeping in mind, I did read a lot of them on Yahoo! Finance, and maybe their niche is to try and depress you, and make you feel like a major d-bag.  I should try to expand my horizons to other websites.

Anyway,  what I noticed among these articles is how they list some weird ways in how having these loans ruin your life.  Well, weird to me, anyway.  Here is how their message translated into my brain:

"You will never be able to buy a house!  You will never be able to buy a new car!  Nobody will ever want to marry you!  You are a horrible human being, who will die alone without ever having made an impact except to make people hate you for how much money you borrowed for NOTHING!"

That's pretty depressing.  Or rather, it would be if you were the type of person who wanted nothing more out of life except to buy a house and a new car and get married.  I suppose that's most normal people.  Again, I'm not normal.

Ok, I would love to have my own house.  But not just ANY house.  I want something AWESOME, like one of these.  How cool would it be to live in an eco-friendly house, off the grid, that you built yourself? I would also much rather live in a place where I can walk, bike, or take public transportation.  I HATE paying for gas.  I hate having to stop and get gas.  I pretty much hate everything about having to use gasoline.  Except the smell.  I do love the smell of gasoline.  

And as for getting married and having a family, well, I can honestly say that has never been a priority, or even a desire, for me.  In fact, one of the reasons that I am in the debt that I am is because of a terrible relationship in which, among other things, neither of us knew anything about money.  But that's a story for another day.

I was going to share the links to these articles, but I think I will only share this one, for this woman.  I don't think the others are helpful at all.  There are many things that I believe in with everything I have, and here are a few of them relating to this situation:  personal responsibility, hard work, and compassion. We all make mistakes.  I believe many of us are taking responsibility for our mistakes.  Despite what others may believe, we actually don't need people to come up and tell us how stupid they think we are.  Not only are your opinions unhelpful and irrelevant, but they are nothing compared to what we are already doing to ourselves.

If you are one of these people who feel the need to inform us of our stupidity, because YOU never made the same mistake, congratulations.  Clearly you are superior in every way.  Your trophy is in the mail.  Now please go away and leave us alone.

Here's the Story..

Hi.  My name is Elle.  At least, that's what you can call me.  I'm 24 years old.

I'm going to blog about my life being roughly $87,000 in debt in student loans.  With a B.A. in Anthropology.

But to be clear, this isn't a "woe is me, my life sucks with this debt," blog.  I do not want, need, or feel entitled to anybody's sympathy.  I've made my choices, and have no regrets.

No, this is going to be where I explore what I'm going to do to help pay off this debt, how to save money, and all that good stuff.  I'm doing this because I know there are a lot of people in the same boat, and maybe I can help.  Or at least make people feel less alone.

Now, I'm lucky.  I have a full-time, well paying job.  I'm living with my parents, so I don't pay rent.  They let me drive their car, so pretty much the only bills I have are basic living expenses (food, gas, etc.) and student loan payments.  I'm in a pretty good place.  No complaints.

But I do have goals, hopes, and dreams.  So I need to start trying really hard to put a dent in these loans, so I can start to move on with my life.

Here are a few things on the list I would like to do:

- Teach English in Korea, or other foreign country
- Join the Peace Corps
- Make documentaries
- Write

Of course, the last two I could do in my downtime, away from work.  But the first two, I really want to work towards.

I know we live in a time where we're supposed to want things like a house, a car, and other normal-people stuff.

I will tell you now, I'm not really normal.  I just want to travel, learn people's stories, and share them with the world.  And help people out where I can.

My coworkers say I'm a hippie.  They may be partially right, except I work hard, don't do drugs, and shower regularly.

So that's my story.  More to come.