How I Paid Off $35,000 Of Debt In 12 Months

Posted on April 2, 2013 by brownvagabonder | 10 Comments

Photo Attributed to Thenix

In April 2012, I had $35,000 in student loans, and today, I am free! Free as a bird… I just want to dance up and down with joy, but I am going to be an adult about this and be cool. How did I do it, you ask? Well, a lot of things worked out in my favour.

1. I consolidated my student loan into a Home Equity Line with RBC, at a cool interest rate of 2.3% which is what my mortgage is at. It reduced my interest charges monthly from $360 to $160 which really helped me put more money into my student loan.

2. I am lucky enough to still have lived at home (even at 29!) which made it easier to reduce my monthly outgoing expenses and put more money into my credit line.

3. I haven’t bought new clothes in a whole year (a post on that coming soon), besides essentials like leggings, undergarments, and toiletries.

4. I rented out the condo that I purchased 7 years ago, in order to get more money going into repayment.

5. I taught yoga at the same studio that I do yoga at – to save on monthly yoga costs.

6. I do the basics – bring my lunch to work every day, eat out once a week, no drinks when I go out dancing, clothing swaps, reduce the amount of driving I do, my cellphone bill is at the basic level ($30 a month), I get my books from the library, I have a list before I go shopping in order to avoid random spend,

All in all, I managed to funnel $3000 a month average over the past twelve months into my repayment plan – with the resulting zero student loan debt! I wish that everyone is able to free themselves from the shackles of debt like I have, and be able to do the things they love, rather than be trapped in a job that they dislike, because of the fear of losing everything that they have built up in their lives.

Even though I have been waiting for this goal to be complete for so long, I am still apprehensive of what the future holds for me. I haven’t known a life without student loans, a life without the constant demand to pay off my loans. What will I fill up my life with now?

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Why Don’t US Citizens Travel?

Posted on February 26, 2013 by brownvagabonder | 3 Comments

Photo Attributed To Thenix

This is a guest post by Thenix.

I was having a conversation with a good friend of mine who has lived in the U.S. for a while, and who now goes back and forth between the Canada and U.S. for business and pleasure quite often. He was remarking on the fact that there are very few U.S. licensed cars at the borders when he travels. There are many Canadian cars, but the number of U.S. cars is quite low if we compared the relative populations of the two countries. Even accounting for the fact that U.S. citizens do not travel into Canada through land borders, I was cognizant of the fact that there are very few U.S. citizens wherever you travel, in any country beyond U.S. and Canada.

I have travelled to a number of places in my lifetime and even though I notice people from Europe and Australia everywhere in abundance, Americans are found to be few and far between. I have given four reasons below, which are in my opinion, the main causes of the lack of travel by U.S. residents/citizens:

1. U.S. Citizens get less vacation then the rest of the world – Most countries in Europe get four weeks, while U.S. citizens have two weeks. Everyone is not likely to take all their vacation at once, which in most countries means, people only take a 1-2 week vacation. While in the U.S. it means, that people only take 3 days to a week worth of vacation at one time, which is not enough time to really travel outside of North America.

2. People in the U.S. have little to no disposable income due to large amounts of debt, and due to choice (buying larger cars and houses).

3. Young people in the U.S. who are most likely to travel leave school with staggering amounts of debt, basically debilitating any hopes of travelling for at least 1o-15 years of their lives

4. Most people in the U.S. do not have passports and are satisfied travelling within the U.S. maybe due to fear of terrorism and foreigners.

All of these reasons are suppositions on my part. Let me know if you agree or disagree.

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Debt free by April 1st, 2013

Posted on December 17, 2012 by brownvagabonder | 2 Comments

I have been working on being free of my student loan debt for the past 4 years now, since August 2008, when my MBA ended. Luckily enough, unlike a few of my friends who went to dental school or other professional studies, I was only in 35k worth of debt. It isn’t a lot of debt, and I knew I would get rid of pretty quickly.

But then, the job I took out of my Master’s program wasn’t motivating enough, and I realized I had wasted enough time doing the things that society deemed important – I had to take some time off for myself. Which I did. I went on a 9 month adventure that completely changed my inner landscape. I felt confident, sure of my place in the world, sure that I was an important member of the web that is being spun in the world right now. I didn’t feel like my existence was a waste, like I did before.

In addition, it took me 1.5 years after my arrival back in Toronto, to find a full-time job in my field. Until that point, I was working as a server, making good money, but knowing that this cannot be the end-all of be-all. Finally, when I began my full-time job, I started putting money aside into my student loans, but I wasn’t motivated enough. I put some of my money into the loan, but I always felt that a pair of boots or a winter coat was worth more to me, than putting that money into my debt, and being free of the bondage of a loan.

Finally, I met Thenix and he taught me to have fun in my budget, and also, remember that if I am not debt-free, I will never be able to go on another one of those long-term trips. There is no way I would want to leave again, with a loan back home, hanging around, causing me to come back. Finally, I can see the finish line. I will be debt-free by April 1st of next year. It feels like an auspicious moment to be able to say that. I’m surprised the moment is so close by. I know I am going to get a little bit obsessed by this date, and devote all my attention and interest upon it, because that is all that matters right now.

But I have to be careful. Yes, being debt free is important, but taking care of yourself, buying necessities, and some fun things is also important. I have to be careful to create a balance between the two. I’ll keep you guys updated on the status of the Debt as time goes on.

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Money as Debt

Posted on October 17, 2012 by brownvagabonder | 2 Comments

Photo attributed to flickr user yewenyi

I’m sure you have noticed the Money as Debt videos that have been circulating around FaceBook and other social networks. I am not going to ruin the plot for you, but basically, the premise is that ‘If there were no debt, there would be no money.’

Now think about that for a second. I’m sure you haven’t really read the line above. So read it again. And again, until that fantastic concept blows the top of your head, and makes you wonder what you have been doing for the past 30-40 years of your life.

I’m sure you are going to watch the movie now, because you are wondering what does it all mean? I just wanted to share what went through my head as I watched through 47 minutes of this documentary.

Because the concept of money is so ingrained in my head and my preconceptions, I couldn’t even think of any alternative to money. Even now I am staring at the computer screen, looking around me, at all the items I have accumulated through the use of money, all the vacations I have gone through the exchange of money, and life, and I cannot imagine any other way of doing it. Of course, the movies do depict an alternative to money, so watch on for it, but I realized the money myth is so ingrained into us, that we cannot even think of anything else.
The 9:1 reserve ratio that the Banks need to keep in order to lend out money and the fact that Banks lend out money they do not have, absolutely blew my mind. There is a little bit information here for you to read through to understand the concept better. It took me several tries at it to get it.

Let me know what you think of the video and its severe implications.

My Ideal Life

Posted on October 4, 2012 by brownvagabonder | Leave a comment

Photo attributed to flickr user Zanthia

I have thought about this topic for a while now, ever since, I left Thailand after the Full Moon party over last New Years. I looked around at all the people, who had retired on the beautiful island of Koh-Phangan, or in Thailand in general. Or all of those people who had quit their jobs, or semi-retired from a profitable venture, strapped on a really expensive backpack and are now strutting around the Earth, collecting stamps on their passports. Or whatever the story might be of the loads of people I met on that island and during the quiet hours of the Full Moon madness.

I have been trying to imagine what my ideal life would look like. Would I work from home? Would I be a Professional Travel Blogger, travelling and writing, and making money at the same time to support a life-time of travel with T? Would I be a Professional Yogi, doing yoga at retreats all around the world, getting paid for helping people, and travelling at the same time, my two loves? Would I travel for six months of the year, and work at home for the other 6 months as a yoga teacher and server, saving up as much as I can from my work, fulfilling my nomadic nature?

The main themes in my dream life are travel, yoga, lots of amazing authentic international foods, and writing. These are the four things I need to have in my ideal life – in varying quantities. The big question now is – how to create a life from these four ingredients? What should the quantities be and how should they mixed together?

Some things I definitely do not want in my ideal life are a 9-5 job, restrictions to my time and freedom in anyway, restrictions to the place I live in, restrictions in finances due to debt or inability to earn, restrictions in my physical body in any shape or form.

I want to continue learning, and growing on this spiritual journey that I have chosen to be my path, with lots of travel, yoga, food and writing. How do I create from this? I am going to let this percolate a bit more in my head and then go from them. Let me know if you see anything striking that I have missed.

Sabotaging my minimalism efforts

Posted on September 17, 2012 by brownvagabonder | Leave a comment

Photo attributed to flickr user Zanthia

As you might know that I am interested, greatly interested in cutting down my footprint on this planet, cutting down my debt, and living simply. The more items I cut out of my life, the freer I feel. The more to-do items I cut out of my life, the freer I feel. And so on.

I have been very successful with one aspect of minimalism which is the cutting out of unwanted, and unneeded items from your life and from your mind. But the other aspect of not bringing more unneeded or unwanted items into your life, has been another story.

I find that the more items I remove from my life, the more unnecessary items I unknowingly, perhaps unintentionally, bring into my life. I might buy a pair of shorts that I absolutely do not need, but absolutely must-have, or deodorant, which I already have two sticks at home of, or something else equally useless. I will justify it to myself in my head, this s something I must have.

But of course, it isn’t. It is just another way I sabotage all of my efforts. Why do I do that?

One reason might be that I am afraid to see what will happen to me and my relationships once I am at that point of no return, the point where I am so minimalist that I have nothing to converse with others about? Of course, this is considering that minimalism has an end-point, which isn’t true. Minimalism is, like, most amazing and worthy endeavours in life, a journey, a life-long journey. Yoga is another one, as is self-improvement and an amazing relationship.

Another reason is that I think I sabotage is because I do not know how to spend the time that I save. I was thinking about it today and I wondered if my life was the way I wanted it to be? I mean, am I going the way I want to go? I think I am, but what I want more of, is yoga and freedom to do what with my time. Being able to choose what I do with my day, rather than being forced to sit in one spot. But the reality of it, is that I do not exactly know what my ideal life would be. I have an idea in my head, but I do not have specifics. And you can’t really receive what you do not know.

I guess that would be the first step in my efforts at non-sabotage. Figuring out why I am doing all of this. What do I want from my life? What do I want the meaning of my life to be? Maybe it will make me realize why and how minimalism fits into that scheme.

Danger zones for a shopaholic

Posted on March 14, 2011 by brownvagabonder | 1 Comment

I admit to a dire sin. A dire sin for a reformed voluntary simplicity yogi. I used to be a shopaholic. I know! It is shocking to believe, about the kind of person I have turned out to be, but it is true. It happened when I got my first job, as most shopaholics begin. I got my first taste of freedom and money in the bank. I actually could afford all the clothes and shoes I had dreamed of, that I had lusted after for all of these years. I started spending money slowly, dipping in my feet so to speak. I would buy stuff only for my family at first, to justify it to myself. I am buying things for others so it can’t be that bad. Of course, it was things like food from outside where I would be included or movie tickets, where I would buy one for myself. It was a double entendre, I was buying things for myself under false pretenses.

A little by little, I started buying for myself as well. I would go to the shopping mall once a week to see if there is something new I could pick out. I bought $200 worth of clothes every week or every other week at least. I bought mostly clothes and shoes. I wasn’t into handbags, thank God. I also had a weakness for cosmetic jewelery which is hilarious because I am allergic to the nickel that is in most cosmetic jewelery. I bought it just for show, I guess. Or maybe I hoped my allergy would miraculously disappear when my skin saw all the beautiful jewelery displayed on my wardrobe counter. I would also buy make-up a lot, another funny thing, as I wore very little make-up. Almost non-existent. Another weird quirk of mine, I guess. I would go to shoppers every week to buy or replenish items that were still sitting on my bathroom counter. I justified it by the huge number of points I was accumulating. I started spending money after that on seminars, get-rich-quick seminars. Oh lordy, now that I think of the thousands of dollars wasted, I could kick myself in the head.The funny thing with all of my credit card spending was that I didn’t ever have any cash. I mean, nada. I would never have a dollar in my wallet. Everything HAD to be paid with a credit card, because I had no cash to spare. No cash at hand.

I justify the above as a valuable lesson that could never be learned better than spending recklessly, getting into thousands of dollars of debt and slogging through it, one penny at a time. I know I wouldn’t be the person I am now unless I went through the learning that I went through. I read about shopaholics on the net now, and I do feel bad for them that they have to go through this learning experience to realize the unimportance of shopping to a happy, fulfilled life. It is a tough lesson, but the benefits are tremendous. I feel like I am a much better person overall due to the lessons learned. I like myself completely. I do have moments of doubt, but as a whole, I think I turned out pretty great, someone that everyone would be proud to know. That is something else that Mastercard cannot buy. Neither can Visa.

Travel while in debt

Posted on August 11, 2009 by brownvagabonder | Leave a comment

Am I being irresponsible and impulsive by going travelling while I am in debt? Its not as if I am not planning to pay the debt off, but I am planning to pay it off slowly as the interest rate isn’t that high, and then probably sell my condo in February to pay off the whole thing completely, so I have nothing to worry about, no debt, no condo, and no obligations.

I also decided that I am going to try out this Pay-Per-Post thing and see whats its all about. I have read about it, through a lot of different bloggers, and I really want to try it out, to see what they say about it. I had to wait for a bit to apply to it, because your blog needs to have a certain number of posts to qualify. But I think my 60-odd posts should be a good number to start.

My overall goal in life has always been earn $1000 or so bucks every month through some automated business, so that I can be travelling around the world, while my business is earning me money. Its totally the 4 hour work week concept, where you work for 4 hours a week on your business, and then do something else that interests you for the rest of the time, which may or may not include travelling.

I have always been surprised to hear that there are people out there, who do not like to travel.

Anyway, so although I torture myself with guilt everytime I think about going travelling while in debt, I console myself, saying that I will pay it off, and I do not want to put my life on hold, while I wait for the debt to be paid off. I believe there is enough abundance in the world, so that I can do both and not have to worry about it. It just means that I will be travelling a bit slower, and I will have to take a few more jobs while I am travelling, but that is totally acceptable to me, as long as I am travelling.

By the way, the weather in my city has totally gone berserk. Its as if Mother Nature is revolting against us, saying No more of this pollution, you will see my wrath. She has unleashed earthquakes, and tsunamis and hurricanes all over the place. We have been getting such crazy thunderstorms, that you will not believe.

I also started regretting getting a netbook for the trip, wondering about what if it gets stolen, or breaks? etc. I dont know why I like torturing myself by imagining scenarios that are never going to happen. And even if they do, you are not helping the situation by imagining the worst before it actually happens.

Confessions of a shopaholic

Posted on August 7, 2009 by brownvagabonder | 1 Comment

I watched the movie today and I was glad that they showed something about how credit cards destroy lives and more lives. Especially of young people who have more temptations to lure them into the shopping malls. What else are we supposed to do all day? We walk around in malls – hoping to meet a cute guy or look at a cute guy and find a good deal. When it happens at the same time in the same day, that is the ultimate.

I am all holier than thou when I see all the credit card debt, laughing in the faces of people who have them, but its so stupid of me, because I still do have debt. I have no reason to be so holy – I am not holy – I am definitely not a credit-card virgin and I have made my shares of mistakes with them. I am 60k in debt, and I have bought a house that I cannot afford to live in for a long while, until I begin making a lot more money. Stupid is not the beginning of what would describe my inadequacy. I am an idiot and I am human. I learn by making mistakes, even though sometimes, they are huge. I did make those mistakes, and I do have plans to deal with them. But of course, plans never work out as they should – so who knows how it will really turn out.

I plan to sell my house – even before I have lived in it, hopefully for a small profit – so I can pay off my debt and get rid of a house that I cannot live in – releasing me from all my committments, freeing me to travel the world as much as I want, without anything tying me down. That is the dream – lets see if comes true.

Things done differently

Posted on July 16, 2009 by brownvagabonder | Leave a comment

There are some things I would do differently when I come back home, based on the things I have done to prepare for this trip.

1. Never lend money to a friend again.

2. Not have a car, bike to work in the summer and transit in the winter

3. Not have a TV

4. Save as much money as I can and put it into another long-term travel thing

5. Buy as few things as possible, especially clothes, which are my Achilles heel

6. Spend time with friends and family, but doing free or cheap things

7. Not worry as much about things, just be more relaxed like I have been ever since I decided to go on this trip

8. Not care as much about a relationship, or if I am in one, not care so much about the guy. Not give my life and soul to him. Itsj ust a relationship, don’t be so serious about it.

9. Read as much as I can from the library

10. Live on my own

11. Not have any debt and have retirement savings and an emergency fund for six months

12. Start figuring out how to work with coupons more often

13. Definitely work for a company that offers 401 K matching!

Debt hurts my ear :)

Posted on July 10, 2009 by brownvagabonder | 2 Comments

Boo! My ear’s hurting again. And I dont know why. I have been to the doctor a billion times, and he doesn’t know whats wrong with my ear. It usually happens when I am stressed, or in a really cold room, but drinking hot tea usually calms it down, but today, its just not going away.

Am I stressed about something? A lot of times, I’m so clueless about things, I am blindsided by really obvious things. Someone suggested yesterday that you might be getting some acne because of stress and I instantly denied it, saying, I am not stressed, I’m free as a bird. But when I had a few moments to think about it, I realized I dont really know if I am not stressed. I might be stressing about the trip and my student loan situation subconsciously. I think finances are something that everyone worries about, underneath everything else thats’ going on in their life, like an undercurrent that is beneath their every conscious thought. Especially, if you have debt, you have additional thoughts going on in your subconscious about how all the stress related to being in debt, doesn’t matter if its the good or bad kind. My Two Dollars has a really good post about good vs bad debt. You can read it here.

All the debt that I have is good debt. I have a student loan for my masters’ degree and I have a loan for my condo that is being built right now ( Its done in Feb 2010). I have no credit card debt, my interest rate on the student loan is a measly 2.25% because of my good credit and I really shouldn’t worry about things so much. I have a good savings base and I am really frugal, not spending on unncessary items. I really shouldn’t worry, like I said, but I do worry about it. I dont think I will rest easy until I have done paying it off. I just dont want to hold off on my happiness until I pay off my debt. I love this poem, I’ll be happy when by Jeffie Duncan. It expresses my sentiment exactly. I dont want to wait for a certain thing to make me happy. I want to be happy right now, in the present moment. No matter what is going in your life right now, you have to be first of all present in the moment and happy in the present moment. Because this moment will never again appear, and you will have lost the moment and the chance to be happy in that moment forever.

I have to keep on reminding myself that. And thats why I take such great care of my body, exercising everyday and trying to eat as healthy as I can possibly manage. Because I know the only thing I really truly own is my body, and I have to take care of this most important asset, because life is really long, if you think about it.

Boom And Thenix

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