One of the things I discovered when I got my free credit report is that I had a student loan payment that was 120 days late.
I found this rather confusing, since I didn’t remember receiving any kind of notice that this payment was due. I deferred all of my student loans back when I was unemployed, and two of the three of them duly resumed sending me statements after six months. Why this one didn’t, I don’t know, and in my hazy financially lazy mind, I figured they’d just granted me a 12-month reprieve instead of a 6 month, and never followed up.
My bad, yes. I’m financially retarded. I’m working on it.
I owed them $248 in overdue back payments.
I looked over the money I had in the bank, and according to my fuzzy math, I could pay them this and still stay in budget. I could make up the difference by paying less toward my CC payments next month (not paying the loan further injures my credit score).
But, once again, my lazy, imprecise “well, that’s about right” math didn’t work, and I overdrafted again for the first time since I started my new budget.
The real killer about the student loan payment is that it’s another $64 I have to pull out of my budget somewhere. I’m honestly not sure from where. I can cancel the Netflix and maybe – maybe – take $40 out of my food budget and pay $10 less a month toward my old medical bills, but… well. I have to keep paying those huge payments to my credit card debt every month if I ever want to see the sun again, which means that money has to come out of things that are nice, but unneccessary. And no, I don’t want to pull it out of my $100 fun budget.
That $100 fun budget is killing me as it is. Chopping that to $50? I wouldn’t make it. What’s that, a movie once a month and a couple Chipotle runs? No bowling, no coffee dates, no buying pants or socks when I need them. No occasional coke or peanuts or avocados.
I can barely do it as is right now.
I hate money.
