Another drop in the Ocean...
Printed From: CanadaStudentDebt.ca
Category: Other Topics
Forum Name: Describe your Debt Load!
Forum Description: Post stories of your debt and how it affects you and your family
URL: https://www.canadastudentdebt.ca/forum_posts.asp?TID=859
Printed Date: 26/March/2026 at 10:42pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.07 - https://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Another drop in the Ocean...
Posted By: DavesNotHome
Subject: Another drop in the Ocean...
Date Posted: 25/March/2004 at 4:51am
...that's me! Just another file in the collection agency database, getting the daily calls and the weekly letters. LOL.
Frankly, there is some truth that misery loves company. Feeling constantly harashed, harried and hunted? I can live with. But at least I'm not alone. There's a bizzare comfort in knowing these problems are systemic, not personal. Looks bad for my Country but at least it's not bad on me.
For the FYI, I'm 32. I've been living in my Mothers basement with my girlfriend (of 10 years) for the last 2 years after she lost her well-paying job in the tech bust. We're now a no income family.
Anyway, I did a 4 year Honours Psych course graduating in 99'. Dean's list awards, scholarships and academic achievement awards took the edge of my student loan debt but I've still ended with something around $20 g's owed. It may as well be a Billion.
In the five years since I've graduated I had ONE job of any significance. It was a miserible, degrading position in a call-center warehouse but hey, at least it paid well! It did also require a heck of a commute from where I lived but it was the best I could find.
My first paycheck arrived direct deposit in my bank account! Yea!!! So, I finally wa able to chip in my share of the household bills and still had some left. So I decided: Now is the day I'll start paying the bank and stop being hounded by the debt collectors! I made a SL payment at my bank. Big mistake.
Two weeks pass and my second paycheck... didn't arrive. Apparently, my first payout was just enough to cover ONE single payment from a previous billing cycle. So the lien on my account automatically debited the remaining overdue payments from my account. I was stunned. And broke. No money, no gas, winter snow coming with no tread left on my tires, and no knowing if I would even see my next paycheck. But heck, that was no problem! I couldn't get to my job and so there wouldn't be another paycheck! :)
Well, it's now 5 years down- 5 years to go until bankrupty. I had recently thought of going to community college to get SOME kind of marketible skill, but thank goodness I read the FAQ here first! If I had reset my bankruptcy clock to zero to take a single accounting course, I'm not sure I would survive it!
Anyway, five years should go by pretty fast. Or at least faster than I could hope to earn $20 grand plus penalties!
Not to be sappy, but my biggest regret is for my girlfriend. She's the only child of two very devoted and aging parents. If I could have, I would have married her years ago. But with my credit rating all but destroyed, I couldn't live with my failings dragging her reputation down, having her trade her good name and credit in exchanged for my bad ones. Five years may go by fast for me but my 'In-laws-to-be' are not young. Time will tell, but it's painful to think that my debt may potentially rob the people who gave me a wife, of their chance to see her married in their lifetime.
But you know what really ticks me off? In a sea of grad's from my university's pysch faculity, I was academically in the top 2%. But at the end of the day, any of my personal achievments or future potentialities counted for nothing in that tide of under-educated, over-charged blue robed masses. I was then, as I am now, just another drop in the ocean. It would be kinda' poetic if it didn't suck so very, very, VERY badly.
Thanks for this website. It was nice to get this off my chest.
--D.
|
Replies:
Posted By: Sirjammer
Date Posted: 26/March/2004 at 10:34pm
|
You know i agree that it sucks that a BA is now the equivalent of a high school degree in opportunity, and with an honours that is also kinda sad, but i have to ask, why did you do honors if you werent going to go to grad school? I mean i am doing honors on my psych degree right away here and there is no way with 35-40k in debt that i am going to quit, i cant i need to get the MA and PHD because its the only way i can pay down my debt and get a career. The mentality of school at least for me is that i knew that i wouldnt get anything with a BA and have to do grad school. Plus there is no Honors in the states and they really like that down there, and there is more opportunity due to the practical experience. Just a question.
|
|