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Greek State of Mind

Yet Another Big Drop in My Total Student Loan Debt – Another $3 Thousand Down

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You’ve all been waiting for the latest update on my outstanding student loan debt. Can you believe that the last update was way back almost three months ago when my total debt dropped from $26 thousand down to $25 thousand? Well, after three months of waiting the latest update is that my student loan debt has dropped again – this time all the way down to $22 thousand! In fact, I’m getting really close to a major milestone when my debt hits about $21 thousand – which will be a full $100 thousand repaid to my student loans.

Just $22 thousand left to go...

There’s no secret about how all of these student loan repayments are possible. In fact, the “secret” seems to be something that the unemployed masses don’t seem to want to accept in today’s economy – that if you want to make money and retire your debt, then you need to get your butt working right now. Don’t wait, don’t deliberate, don’t overthink this whole process. Instead, go out and get a job – any job – so you can start bringing in income. NOW!

If you want to call it a secret, then that’s the big “secret” to paying off debt. Productivity today equals a paycheck tomorrow and a paycheck tomorrow equals a loan payment the following day and a loan payment the following day equals getting out of debt. Period.

No big surprise here, folks. For me, the concept of getting up off my butt and doing something has taken the form of working at a popular online university as an instructor. The secondary income that I earn from this job is a nice boost to my overall monthly cash flow and it has helped to fund a great deal of my student loan payments over the last two years. And I know some idiot is probably out there reading this right now thinking, “Well, you have an advantage because you have that second job and I can’t find any job in the first place!” Bullshit! I work a 40+ hour work week with no less than a minimum of 10 hours commuting each week – and that’s just at my day job. So I don’t want to hear any crap about having any advantages because I found a good second job. If anything, my life is more strenuous than the person who is, let’s be honest, optionally-unemployed because I have several different workplace management structures that I have to perform within.

Since we’re telling secrets, I think the unemployed masses should know that one of the secrets to finding a job is getting over yourself. Sure, you shouldn’t take a job that pays below minimum wage if you’ve earned yourself a doctorate, but at the same time you shouldn’t reject an entry-level job with a modest salary either because you have a bachelor’s degree and you think that makes you worth more on the market. Newsflash: it doesn’t make you worth any more on the market in this economy! All your degree gives you is access to applying for jobs that high school graduates are not able to apply for – that’s it. And that’s not a big advantage in this economy so get over yourselves and take that entry-level job. Didn’t your professors ever teach you to “get in” at a company and then begin to find ways to climb the internal corporate ladder? It can be done, folks. You just have to get up off your butts and do it!

Stick around for more student loan news coming up in the next few weeks. Several milestones are sitting on the horizon including the aforementioned payment where I hit a remaining balance of $21 thousand. Again, this will signify an incredible $100,000 in student loan principal repayment. The next milestone after that is just a thousand bucks away when I hit $20 thousand left outstanding and then smash through that number to get into the teens.

It’s pretty amazing to think that this aggressive repayment plan really took its infancy just under three years ago in December 2009. Time flies, huh?

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. Since I started repaying my student loans in July 2006, I’ve repaid a total of $99 thousand in principal to various lenders including the federal Perkins loan program, the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority, and CitiBank. I currently owe $22 thousand in principal to the United States Department of Education’s federal Direct Loans program. This loan is serviced by the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority. To date, I’ve repaid over $35 thousand in interest to these lenders. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

Have I Mentioned That I Hate My Commute?

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Even though I’ve said it on here before, I have to repeat the fact that I absolutely hate my commute to work each morning. Driving from one side of New Jersey to the other is not appealing at all. Granted, the commute itself is relatively easy since I just jump on 195 and go all the way from Tinton Falls into Trenton. However, I hate my daily commute with a passion.

I work in community development and one of the big discussions when considering how to best develop a community always revolves around the idea of smart growth. In other words, how do you arrange a community such that the people who live there also work there or very nearby. As a related side note – everyone who works in Trenton for the state has a similar discussion, yet most state workers live far outside of Trenton. Weird. Anyway, nothing would make me happier than going to work within a 5 – 10 minute commute of where I live.

For starters, I don’t like this part of the state. I’m not sure what it is about Trenton or this part of Mercer County, but I’m not a big fan of the area. I couldn’t see myself ever living over here. I could live in Morris County because I have family up there and I could live in Monmouth County because it’s where I’ve been for ten years and I like it down there. But Mercer County? No thanks. So moving closer to my office isn’t an option to eliminate the commute.

Also, there is a strong possibility that my office is going to move to New Brunswick in the next few months. I couldn’t live in New Brunswick, either. It’s too congested and the places where a guy like me could afford to live aren’t nearly as safe and secure as where I live now. At almost 30 years old and having rented in a variety of arrangements over the past 10 years, I can’t see myself downgrading my living quarters just to be closer to my 9-to-5. That would be completely ridiculous and a sure way to increase the misery level.

I like my job. My only issue with my job is that they unknowingly hold down young talent so I (nor anyone else my age or younger) have not been able to advance professionally at this place. However, the pay is good and the benefits aren’t bad. Plus, the flexibility at this place is phenomenal. It’s just the miserable commute that gets me – and it’s “getting” me in an increasing frequency it seems.

I’ll figure something out. I’m not sure what I’m going to do at this point, but with less than 6 months left to my 30th birthday and having just “celebrated” 4 years working for this company, I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to keep this silly commute up each day…

Too Busy For An Update Today

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Sorry, folks. I was too busy to put an update on the blog today. Between a packed post-vacation schedule at the office and a plethora of website requests building up for my website company, I’ve been running around like a crazy person lately. Since I’m working from my home office tomorrow, I’m going to try to be as productive as possible. I’ll be doing work for my day job until 2pm (which is the end of the work week during the summer at my office) and then it’s straight into creating websites for my clients.

Should be a busy day followed by a busy night. I am, however, looking forward to a relaxing weekend – I need to rest a bit!

Working From Home Today…

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One of the best parts of my job is that I can choose to opt out of my daily commute and work from home on occasion. As it stands, I get one day a week where I work from home (usually Fridays) and once every 6 to 8 weeks I take an additional day one week. It’s a sweet deal.

I opted to work from home today so I could work on a major project that my company is participating in. It’s a huge, multi-million dollar deal that kept my brain to the grindstone for most of the day. I tell you this because I have nothing interesting to put up on the blog today and the reason why is because I’m exhausted from working from home.

Hmmm… A little bit of irony there, right? The fact that I’m exhausted from working, but working from the comfort of my home office? Weird.

More fun and games tomorrow – see you then!

A Clod Hopper Appears at the Gym!

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Finally! I found one! Earlier today I was at the gym (eleven days in a row, by the way) and while I was on the treadmill I began to take inventory of my fellow gym-goers on the treadmills around me. Isn’t people-watching the best thing going today?

Anyway, the woman two treadmills down from me was the epitome of a clod hopper! Every step she took on the machine you would have thought that she was going to go through the floor. I’ll never understand why some people don’t pick up their feet when they get on the treadmills, but you know what? This woman was going at a pretty good pace and she was burning calories like it was her job. Impressive…

But still funny!

The other funny observation that I had at the gym today was the guy on the treadmill next to me. For those of you that go on these treadmills you know that you can increase the incline on the machine to simulate the going up hill effect. It’s actually a great way to burn more calories over the course of a week. Anyway, this guy get on the treadmill next to me and sets the incline at such a ridiculous level that he’s practically falling off of the machine! It was pretty funny – he couldn’t even swing his arms as he was walking because he had to hold on to the top of the machine to stay on it.

Clod hoppers and mountain climbers…hilarious!

Another Landmark – This Time in Walking

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The other day I commented about how I visited the gym six days in a row (now eight days in a row, by the way) and how that broke my previous recorded landmark of five days of working out in a row. Well, going to the gym every day for the last week also led to another new landmark in terms of total steps walked in a week.

Everyone knows that you’re supposed to walk some 10,000 steps in a day. For those of us who have jobs that require us to sit in one spot in front of a computer all day, that number can be hard to reach. Well, last week I took some 75,550 steps (according to my pedometer). I’ve been recording my steps for the last three or four years (can’t remember exactly), but the most that I’ve ever had in a week before is something like 72,000+ and that generally happens when I go to Nashville and walk around the city. So you can see, this is pretty good progress.

Again, even though I don’t want to make a regular routine out of this, I’m looking forward to getting up early tomorrow to get my workout in before I go to work. Not only are there not that many people at the gym, but I get to do a lot of reading while I’m on the treadmill (look for some more book reviews coming soon). Stay tuned for the latest and the greatest gym stories as they occur…

By the way, speaking of landmark achievements – Mother’s Day marked 14 days in a row that my Mom has gone without smoking. Unbelievable! My brothers and I are so incredibly proud of her. The last time that she didn’t smoke for 14 straight days was before she started smoking as a young girl. Amazing achievement, Mom! Good work!

Corzine Not Doing Great in the Polls

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Thankfully, New Jerseyans seems to be coming to their senses and it would appear that they are preparing to kick Governor Money Bags (aka Governor Corzine) out of office come November. An article in today’s Daily Record cited how an overwhelming majority of New Jersey voters agreed that our state’s budget is in critical condition. This follows a recent poll showing that Corzine is trailing his likely Republican opponent Chris Christie. The Daily Record article states:
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Half Billion for Rutgers University Expansion

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Sometimes I have to wonder about the decisions that college and universities make in the face of a crumbling economy. In February, Rutgers University announced that it would spend $500 million in the next three years to expand and upgrade its campuses. For those of you who are not from New Jersey, Rutgers essentially has three main campuses throughout New Jersey – one in Camden, one in Newark, and the main campus in the New Brunswick/Piscataway area. Some of the expansions that the university will be undertaking are as follows:
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Too Many Social Networking Sites Out There

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Have you noticed that there are too many social networking sites out there these days? Between MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Twitter, Reunion, and any other number of “hey, look at me!” websites, keeping up with everything is beginning to get a bit tedious. In fact, just the other day I deleted my Plaxo account because I couldn’t imagine why I would need it at all. [Read more…]

Trying to Find More Hours in the Day

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Just like the rest of you, I find myself wishing that there were more hours in the day. Between the day job, the side business, the budding new business(es), having a social life, the volunteer work, living life, and trying to find some time to exercise each day – there are absolutely no hours left in the day for anything else. Not much fun, pretty much no games, not a lot of free time for relaxing, almost no time to start/think about new projects or pet projects – you get the picture.

I’m going to try to find more hours in my day by waking up earlier each day. On a typical day, I generally get up between 6:30am and 7:00am. I’m going to try to move that back an hour and get my exercising in during the morning hours (I already know that it’s not going to be a long term success because I don’t like working out in the morning, but it might be good for now). So we’ll see how that goes…

The thing that really seems to sap the time from my day is this ridiculous commute to and from Trenton everyday. An hour there and an hour back. Sometimes I make it back from Trenton in 45 minutes because there isn’t so much traffic, but most mornings I wind up sitting in the car for more than an hour, so it all averages out. I like my job and all, but if a similar opportunity came up that cut my commute in half (or less), I’d probably take the offer.

Look, I’m an overachiever and I’m aware of that fact. Yes, I should calm down and not do so much extra with my non-day job hours, but I have to keep myself busy. I hate sitting around too much and I hate wasted time. Hell, when I clear out my DVR on the weekends I do it while I’m going to work on the laptop with the TV playing in the background! When I go to the gym I make it a point to read while I’m on the treadmill so I get two birds down with one stone!

I think part of the problem is the increase in non-day job business that I have going right now. Once some of my side projects are completed I should have some additional hours in the day. Until then, I propose that we extend each day to 30 hours long. Agreed?