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Aye! Just imagine me Milly rocking throughout this whole post because the month of March was basically lit! For starters, I was super busy preparing to defend my PhD Dissertation which I successfully did on March 24th! It’s still kind of surreal even to think that I’m officially a Doctor. I started on this journey in August of 2010, and almost seven years later it’s finally done!! When I actually stop to think about it, I see how doing this PhD has prepared me for the long haul of living Broke on Purpose. There are going to be several up’s and downs. Hopefully in this case, more up’s than there were down’s. I’m going to get tired. I’m going to want to give up. I’m going to get stressed out. I’m going to cry and I’m going to wish I could go back in time and do things differently. What I’ve learned is that everything that I went through was part of the process.The process. It means so much; It prepares you for that next level. It prepares you to receive what was already ordained to be yours in the first place.

You just have to be willing to submit yourself to it.

This month also marked our two years Broke on Purpose Anniversary. Two years of living Broke on Purpose® and our life has become nothing but better. It’s weird how when you give up stuff that was holding you back you begin to see things in a whole new light. We allowed our immaturity with money to keep us back from so much, and now we’re just out here living like we don’t have any worries. Don’t worry we’re still fully aware of how much debt we have left, but it’s not smothering us as bad as it was before.

The Break Down

GREAT LAKES STUDENT LOAN STARTING BALANCE $19,175

New Balance:  $5814.00

Amount towards debt: $5,307

Amount paid since living Broke on Purpose (24 months): $76,891.59

As you can see this month, we were able to throw a lot at our debt. $3000 of this came from our income taxes, and the rest came from our normal payment as well as additional money made from our side hustles. It felt sooo good to be able to throw so much at the debt. I was hype every time I got paid for a job because I knew I was going to be able to go home and make an extra payment towards this student loan. I would then obsessively check the status of my account so that I could see the balance go down.  I’m praying that we’ll get this last bit paid off by the end of May so that we can start on the next largest one from this group.

Every time I write down the total amount that we’ve paid off I think about what we could have actually done with that money had we just been smart about it.  $76,000 is a lot of money to be giving away. It’s downright painful, but I recently read in a book that pain is a powerful teacher. It also makes me laugh at myself when I think about how I would say “how are we supposed to save up 20% for a down payment on a house”… man If I could just go back in time and have a talk with myself… Do you ever feel that way?

What To Expect for Year Three?

What do we expect as we head into year three? Honestly, we don’t know. So many things are up in the air right now. Now that I’ve finished my student loans will officially be due six months after graduation. So, right now we’re planning and preparing for that. I’ll be working as a postdoc while I’m job hunting, but we’re planning to put aside money every single month so that we can at least afford to pay for 6-8 months worth of student loans once it’s time to start paying. It is my prayer that I’ll have a full-time position before then and we’ll be able to aggressively tackle these loans.

Being a Postdoc does come with a pay increase above what I was making for a stipend. We’ve decided that we’ll continue to budget as if I was still bringing in the same amount as my stipend and put the rest towards debt and building the savings.  Now that I have time to think and breath you’ll definitely see a lot more Broke on Purpose content on all our social media platforms.

If you’re new to our Broke on Purpose Journey be sure to check out this post where we share how we got started! We also love to chat with you so please leave a comment below and let us know how you did this month!

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Grab the Broke on Purpose Ebook and the Broke on Purpose Money Envelopes