I Have To Pay Back HOW MUCH!!!

Part of the fun I've had this week is attempting to consolidate my student loans. I will save you the trouble of all the numbnutted rings of fire I've had to jump through, but suffice it to say: they make it a lot more difficult then they say it will be.

Here's the rub: I have both Stafford loans and Perkins loans. Sallie Mae's website is automatically set up to consolidate your Stafford loans. There is an ADD button so the user, me, can manually add in other loans. There is a preselected option for Perkins, but every option requires you to put in contact info such as name of lender, address, telephone number, etc. From the federal government's website it gives me only 'Federal Government' as the contact info for my Perkins loans. The government does give me all the contact info for the Stafford loans, but Sallie Mae already has that information.

Luckily Sallie Mae gave me a phone number of someone who deal with Perkins loans. I'm saving that phone call for tomorrow simply due to frustration with this task and wanting to review my exam today. If I consolidate the Perkins loans with my Stafford loans it does up my interest somewhat. Staffords are at 2.77% currently and Perkins are at 5% and there is a weighted averaging of interest rates. Still even the consolidated interest rate is small if you think about it. I'll lose any ability to have the Perkins loans forgiven. If you take certain jobs like Peace Corps, nurse & medical technician, special needs teacher they government can outright forgive your loan. Though I don't know what type of job I'll have it is so unlikely I'll end up in one of the qualified jobs that I'm willing to take the chance of consolidating everything.

I'm just trying to figure out how the hell I'm going to pay all this back! I bought new Corvette with a Kia thrown in based on the debt load I have now. Stretching that out from 10 years to 30 years adds on interest costs and at the end I'll paid off a small house.

*Grumpy Mode On*

I knew going in that I was going into debt. When you see the final numbers it is shocking. Defibulators were required to jump start my heart when I first saw those numbers. I have no idea how I'll juggle student loans, the desire for some new, yet modest, vehicular transportation, and the desire to have a house. By pursuing one dream (law school) I gave up several others (moving up in employment field, a new car, a new house). This is a nightmarish deja vu world. All those years ago after graduating from undergrad and I wondered what was I going to do. I had no job and the job market was crap. All these years later I've graduated again with no job and a crappy job market.

Yet this time I want to jump start my life. I know the things I want to do now, but I don't see how to do them. I'm tired of having my life unstuck in time. The world moved on and changed in so many ways, but the past 4 years had me marking time. If I were 25 and not having a clue about the real world it would be one thing. Ignorance is bliss sometimes. I have to remind myself that my life before was pretty crappy to be honest. Why did I leave computers and go to school? I lost the passion. I taught myself something the became a job and I was one of the best. I was so good that I wasn't allowed to leave. I wasn't allowed to grow. I was too good at what I did. I worked with some great people and I count them as good friends, but I couldn't do the job anymore. I had burned out several years earlier and was marking time.

I think this is what is burning me the most. I'm so close to achieving one major goal. I see the light at the end of the tunnel. But I see other tunnels beyond that and I don't have a map of the system. I know where I am now, but I don't know how to get to the places I want to be. I'm getting too old to continually reinvent myself and go down wrong paths. I don't want to waste my energy on wrong paths. I only want 4 or 5 simple things, one of which is a fulfilling job that pays a decent wage. How do I get that? Maybe once I get that figured out, the other 3 or 4 things can start falling in place.