This is the story of a girl in New Orleans… trying to go back to school after some time away.

I’m a 23 female living in New Orleans, LA. I went to school for 4 years and stopped after I was in a bad car accident last spring. I moved back home to get back on my feet. I also was unsure of where I was going and not doing so well in school, which I have discovered is due to recently diagnosed ADD, so I decided against immediately returning to school. I live rent free at home. In return for free rent, I am obligated to clean the house from top to bottom twice per month. Good deal, if you ask me.

It was about 9 months ago that I moved back home, and in that time I’ve impressed myself quite a bit – I paid off $3,000 in credit card debt, purchased a car with my own money, saved money, and held down a full time “real” job and been very successful, overall. I also have a 30 hour per week part time job. After taxes, 8% to my 401(k) at my full time job, and health care, I take home about $2,100 or so depending on my hours at my part time job.

My monthly expenses break down something like this:
Car Payment: $300
Tolls: $40
Gas: $150
Personal Care: $250 (includes entertainment, toiletries, food, clothing, pocket money)
Student Loan Payments: $200
Savings: $1200

About my auto expenses…they are high and they drive me crazy, however, I am overpaying on my car loan by $75 automatically to reduce the term of my loan so I can own my car sooner. I have a 40 mile commute, but if I didn’t commute, I would not have a job.

I would love to move out on my own, but following Katrina, rents have skyrocketed in New Orleans and I don’t feel paying 50+% of my income for a hole in the wall in a not-so-nice neighborhood. Despite the successes I’m having, I am not too happy with my current job or situation. Part of the reason I am saving so much in lieu of getting an apartment on my own (or buying anything for myself) is because by August or January, I want to go back to school to finish the year and a half it would take me to complete my degree. I think I’ve finally figured out what I want to do and am ready to commit to it. I wasn’t before. I think it took getting me out in the real(ish) world to figure out what I wanted my life to be and focus me.

In college, you can be as optimistic and dreamy as you want, but I don’t think anyone really knows what their goals will be once they step out. Personally, I think that will make me even more marketable once I get my degree. My degree will be thoughtful, not forced. I’m sure there are many people who know exactly what they want to do from the start and are able to do that – I’m not one of them. I’ve also decided that my life is going to be about happiness and success, not about working a job I hate (like I am now) for the sake of paying my bills and having stuff. I have dreams, and I finally figured out how I can do it. Or at least try it, anyway.

My parents have agreed to let me live with them rent free, but they’re not going to help pay for school again. My goal is to have at least $10,000 before I go back to school, although I’ll be more comfortable with $15,000, which I can accomplish if I wait until January. Since I plan on going to LSU (Louisiana State University) where rent is actually affordable, I should be able to live somewhat comfortable on that for a year with part time income supplementing.

As for my career aspirations, after I graduate, I actually don’t want to start working right away – I think I might go into the Peace Corps. I hope to find contacts and friends there who will help me find a job in the international realm working with emerging markets – specifically Africa. I spent half of 2006 in South Africa and hope to move back there on a more permanent basis eventually. I’m now willing to work for it – in college, frankly, I wasn’t.

That’s my story and I’m definitely sticking to it =)

Wow… Seasicksquid is working 70 hours a week (full time real job + 30 hour/week part-time job) AND has the time and energy to clean her house twice a month. I am impressed… that’s a hard schedule. I wish her the best of luck!

Our next story is from a reader in Northern California.. about how she fell in love (and the credit debt trap), and what she’s doing about it right now.

Have I got a money story for you.

It started when I was in high school. My boyfriend came from a family that wasn’t very well off and he didn’t have a lot of money, and I came from a family that was very financially sound. Of course, being young and naive, I thought that in order to keep him, I should buy him everything under the sun.

A couple years went by and I eventually opened a couple of credit cards, with him as an authorized buyer, so that he could have and build some credit. We racked up some debt, but it was nothing compared to what was coming. A couple more years passed, and we decided to move in together. All this took place before I got wise to the game and began to really read about financial health.

During our first year together, we stupidly decided to buy some new furniture for the house, which meant that we spent almost $1000 on the credit card. Then his car broke down, which cost $800 to fix, also on the credit card. Then the car was towed; the woman who worked there gave us some wrong information and long story short, we needed to pay about $600 in towing storage fees, in cash. Of course, we didn’t have that type of money so where did we go? To the *good* old credit card. Needless to say, we are now over our heads in debt.

I am a twenty-something working professional that makes pretty good money, and my boyfriend is working as a sales associate. We live in Oakland but work in San Francisco. We are both attending school (I am in graduate school for psychology and he is getting his degree), which means that in addition to the ugly credit card debt, we also have major school loans.

I can’t tell you how stressful it is to have overwhelming debt and I kick myself everyday about making those unfortunate decisions. It also brings a lot of stress into our relationship because our budget is so tight. We’ll fight because he’ll go and spend money that I’ve budgeted for a credit card payment on something trivial.

I throw as much as we can at the debt, but it just seems to never go away. Reading your blog, as well as blogs of other people who have been there, gives me a source of inspiration to know that there is light at the end of the tunnel. We definitely have made a commitment to slay the beast together, so it helps our relationship that we’re on the same page about that. My boyfriend is trying to get a job that will start off at around 50k, and I am hoping that we can bring the monster down significantly before I have to leave my job or work part time during my internship / postdoc years. We’re working on it, slowly but surely.

Anyway, I just wanted to share my story as a warning to others about how easy it is to rack up a ginormous amount of debt in a small amount of time. Please be careful with those credit cards and live within your means!!

-Thanks for listening / reading.

MsBusyVee, thanks for sharing! Going into debt for a significant other (unless it’s “good debt” and you two are very committed, i.e., married) is rarely a good idea in my book.

Has any readers experienced something similar?