I’d wanted to go to college for as long as I can remember.
Seriously. Since kindergarten.
I remember being in the basement level of Lykens Elementary and flipping through a book from Harrisburg Area Community College, mesmerized by all the different courses they offered.
Going to college was never really a question in my mind. It was simply something I knew I wanted to do.
There was just one small problem:
We had to figure out how to pay for it.
My parents hadn’t been in a financial position to put away money for college for my siblings or me. So when it came time for me to go, student loans were simply part of the equation.
And honestly?
I didn’t spend a lot of time worrying about them.
I was focused on one thing:
Getting through college.
I understood, technically, that I was borrowing money and would eventually have to pay it back. But at 18 or 19 years old, “eventually” felt like a very long time away.
I wasn’t calculating what my future monthly payments would be.
I wasn’t thinking about how much of my future income would already be spoken for.
And I definitely wasn’t considering how those payments might someday affect how much house I could afford.
That’s not to say I wasn’t thinking about the cost of college at all. I worked hard to earn several scholarships — and felt pretty darn good about it!
But student loans were what allowed me to cover the rest and do something I’d dreamed about since I was a little girl.
So I signed the paperwork and went to college.
It wasn’t until later that those loans taught me an entirely different kind of financial lesson.
I Didn’t Really Understand What Debt Meant
I don’t think I was particularly unusual.
When you’re a teenager trying to figure out how to pay for college, the conversation can feel pretty simple:
College costs money.
You don’t have enough money.
You borrow the difference.
Problem solved.
Except, of course, the problem isn’t actually solved.
You’ve just moved it into the future.
And that’s the part I didn’t fully appreciate.
Eventually, college ended, the bills started arriving, and those student loans became something very different from numbers on a piece of paper.
They became monthly obligations.
Money that was already spoken for before I could decide what else I wanted to do with it.
Then I Married My Husband
When my husband and I got married, we both brought student loan debt into the marriage.
But he also brought something else:
A very strong desire for financial stability.
He was much more focused on our overall financial picture and on building a solid foundation for our future.
As we started making bigger financial decisions together, I began to understand debt differently.
If we had hundreds of dollars going toward student loans every month, that was hundreds of dollars we couldn’t use for something else.
It affected how much house we could comfortably afford.
How much we could save.
How much flexibility we had.
That was probably when the light bulb really came on for me.
Debt doesn’t just cost you money. It reduces your options.
We Decided to Get Rid of It
Eventually, we were able to use the equity in our home to refinance our mortgage and pay off our remaining student loan debt.
I still remember what a big deal that felt like.
The debt that had followed us from college into adulthood was finally gone.
Of course, we hadn’t magically made the debt disappear. We had essentially moved it into our mortgage.
But we had made a deliberate financial decision about how we wanted to manage it.
And more importantly, by then I was actually thinking about debt strategically instead of simply accepting it as another monthly payment.
That distinction has stayed with me.
I Don’t Think Debt Is Bad
Here’s where my lesson might differ from some personal finance advice:
I don’t think all debt should necessarily be avoided.
We’ve had mortgages.
We’ve financed things when it made sense. In fact, we’re currently making payments on a 0% auto loan.
We’ve used debt as a tool.
And today, we still have a mortgage — one we’re in no particular hurry to pay off because it carries a very low interest rate.
The difference is that now I understand what we’re agreeing to when we take on debt.
Every debt payment represents a claim on future income.
If you make $5,000 a month but $2,000 of it is already committed to a mortgage, car payment, student loans and credit cards, you don’t really have $5,000 available to make decisions with.
You have $3,000.
That’s something teenage me definitely didn’t understand.
Debt Has an Opportunity Cost
One of the most useful things student loans taught me is to look beyond whether I can simply afford the payment.
The better question is:
What does taking on this debt prevent me from doing?
Could that monthly payment keep me from buying the house I want?
Could it make it harder to save for retirement?
Could it leave me with less room to handle an emergency?
Could it keep me in a job I don’t like because I need the paycheck?
Could it simply create more stress than whatever I’m buying is worth?
Those questions don’t automatically make debt a bad decision.
They just make it an informed one.
And there’s a big difference.
The Lesson Was Worth More Than the Interest
Would I love to go back and explain all of this to my 18-year-old self before I signed those student loan documents?
Absolutely.
I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have listened.
She had a degree to get.
But in a strange way, I’m thankful for those student loans.
They helped pay for an education that opened doors for me professionally.
And paying them back gave me another kind of education entirely.
They taught me that borrowing money today means committing some of tomorrow’s money.
They taught me that income doesn’t determine how much financial freedom you have — your obligations matter, too.
And they taught me that debt doesn’t have to be feared.
It just needs to be understood.
These days, I’m much less interested in asking, “Can I afford the payment?”
I want to know what I’m giving up in exchange for it.
Because sometimes taking on debt is absolutely worth it.
And sometimes keeping your future options open is worth even more.
🐝 That’s the buzz for today!