My student loans are my nemesis. I think about them all the time. I obsess. I worry. I ignore them. And then I don’t ignore them and they crush me. They are the dark clouds that hang over my sunny days.  They are the quicksand that drag me down, away from my bright future. I am a unicorn with it’s horn cut off. A playful puppy with a broken leg.

OK,  I’m just KIDDING. Really. I got carried away. And ridiculous.

But seriously friends, I go back and forth between sacrificing everything to pay them off fast, or riding out the income-based repayment plan in relative comfort. I cross my fingers for some miraculous national debt forgiveness by congress. I pray that Anonymous will hack into the federal debt system and erase everyone’s debt. Perhaps, a solar flare could knock out all power long enough to wipe out the federal debt database.

But in reality I know…These debts are mine. All mine. Lucky me.

I wish there was another way to tackle these suckers. I  mean…besides the whole work and repay them shtick.  Oh wait! Apparently there is. I have been coming across  some blogs in which the authors are just flat-out asking for donations to pay their loans. See this one, from a girl who found herself $200K in debt from an undergrad degree. A simple Google search reveals tons of websites of people out there asking, no begging, for money to repay loans. I’m not sure how I feel about this. Ok, yes, I want a very targeted and non-lethal meteor to wipe out all my student debt data, however, I don’t want complete strangers paying for my mistakes. The weird thing about these sites is that it’s apparently working! Not for all, I’m sure. But some lucky bloggers have raised tens of thousands of dollars, without offering anything in return! Christ.

Well, don’t worry friends,  I won’t be going down this road. For one…it’s already enough for me to admit publicly that I have student loan debt.  It’s kind of embarrassing. I would want to crawl in a hole and die of shame if I used my blog to beg for donations to pay for MY debt. I’ll stick to the old fashioned pay-it-off-myself way, thanks.

On the other hand, I  just came across this website called ZeroBound.com. It’s a crowd-funded site that is attempting to help transform volunteer hours into student loan debt reduction. It’s a nice pay-it-forward idea and I like it. I might even donate a little and keep my eyes on this as it seems like a more reasonable way to pay down debt. That is, WORK.

Well on that note….Have a happy Friday interwebs!  And if you are just can’t stand to NOT help me pay my loans…email me and I’ll give you my paypal info. Just kidding. (Unless you are really really serious).

Cheers,

Carrie