When I first began following the Debt Free Community on Instagram I was drawn in by the stories everyone would share about their debt free journeys. I find it fascinating to read about the progress others are making and also reassuring to know that I am not the only one in my position.
Your Debt Diary is a guest blog series by money bloggers and members of the debt free community for My Debt Diary. Each week someone new will share their debt story. This week Nele from The Navigatio talks about starting out on her debt journey after graduating from university recently.
What stage are you at in your debt free journey right now?
I’ve only just graduated university, which puts me right at the beginning of paying off my student loans. It’s scary but hopefully I can find a good way to pay it off as quickly as possible.
What is your debt total?
During my time at university, I had to take on a part time (20-30 hours) job in order to pay for rent/food because I wasn’t entitled to a maintenance loan (due to me being an immigrant). I’ve always found it a little bit annoying, cause working so many hours on top of doing a degree in your second language kinda sucks! But in hindsight I’m very glad I didn’t add maintenance loan on top of my tuition loan. Three years of university added up to 27,000 pounds – which isn’t too bad when I look at friends who have to pay back 50-60K because of their maintenance loans.
What is your “why”?
I hate the idea of owning the government money, especially because I’m an immigrant and the way people look at immigrants. Plus, I’d love to be financially comfortable/stable as soon as I possibly can! Which means, not having any debt!
Are you following a specific plan or method?
Currently I don’t have a game plan set up yet, I’m just trying to save as much money as possible. As soon as I’m back in the UK (after my big travel that I planned for graduating university) I’m going to start looking for a full-time job that hopefully allows me to start paying back my student loans slowly but steadily.
What are you doing to speed up the progress of your debt free journey?
I have been doing a lot of research on the stock market, especially on how to gain passive income over certain stocks in the form of dividend. I’ve invested a bit of my savings into that and now I simply have to wait.
Another way I’m trying to make money in order to pay back my student loans is my blog! I run a lifestyle/travel blog over at www.thenavigatio.com and all the money I make from adds, sponsorship and donations goes straight to a separate PayPal account that is purposefully made to pay off my student loans!
I’d like to thank Nele for today’s post. Please make sure to visit her blog at The Navigatio. You can also find her on Instagram at @thenavigatio and twitter at @TheNavigatio.
You can read last week’s post here. If you would like to share your story with Your Debt Diary please leave a comment below with your email address or Instagram and I will get in touch. You can find me on Instagram here.
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