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“I will die with this debt.”
That’s the lie I told my husband and I. And that’s a lie that so many Americans with staggering amounts of student loan debt have come to believe. There is no escape. There is no hope as the amount of debt owed is huge.
You are not alone. With a three-year suspension of payments and interest finally ending in September, and talk of mass forgiveness, many borrowers are angry, fearful and frustrated.
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Many people feel at the mercy of the system, fooled by the reality of compound interest and ever-growing balances. Some feel that the government and even the adults around them have allowed them to be drawn into a predatory lending system.
Jade Warshaw and her husband paid off nearly $500,000 in consumer debt.
As a result, borrowers are desperate for alternative relief options. Will it get in the way of forgiveness? You probably should, but not in the way you’re thinking. I would like to share with you how I was able to completely forgive my student loans.
Remember the Great Recession? The housing market was depressed, gas prices were high, and financial struggles were everywhere. At the time, her husband Sam and I had just completed our first year of marriage and were beginning to realize our own financial crisis.
But it wasn’t a subprime mortgage or a gas-guzzling SUV. In our case, he had $460,000 in debt in the form of consumer loans, two cars, credit cards, a small townhome, and on top of that he had $280,000 in student loans. We were musicians making $30,000 a year while trying to find our way in the world.
Things were getting out of control and the government wasn’t going to save us any time soon. All we could do was put up with and defer student loans for a long time. And even though payments were temporarily suspended, we still felt the weight of their presence.
At that time, we decided that dying in debt was not an option.
Believing that you will die in debt means believing the lie that it is someone else’s fault that you must make amends. This robs you of confidence in your ability to seek freedom, leaves you waiting for someone to save you, and forces you into a system that has never and never will put you first. will be at their mercy. Only you can do that.
So here are some hard truths.
- You may never get an apology.
- You may never get “what they owe you”.
Student loan borrowers rally in front of the White House to celebrate President Biden canceling student loans. The Biden administration has already quietly canceled billions of dollars in student loan debt. (Paul Morigi/Getty Images, We the 45m)
So, what are you going to do?
Focus on you.
change you
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I forgive you.
Forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves in order to move on. Forgiveness is something you receive independent of someone else’s actions or approval. Forgiveness brings peace, clarity, and lessons learned. And through forgiveness, you can move forward toward your future hopes.
Believing that you will die in debt means believing the lie that it is someone else’s fault that you must make amends. This robs you of confidence in your ability to seek freedom, leaves you waiting for someone to save you, and forces you into a system that has never and never will put you first. will be at their mercy. Only you can do that.
This is how the story ends. Her husband and I realized that if we wanted to be debt free, it was up to us to pay down our debts and forgive them (and ourselves). So we started the process. It required deep sacrifice. It challenged the way we think about money and our own abilities. And it changed us forever. For every dollar we pay in debt, we forgive ourselves for getting into this mess in the first place. We let go of the governments, institutions, and adults to whom we “owed” money, and we were free to pay our own way.
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In just over seven years, all the debt, shame, fear, and frustration I had accumulated was paid in full and completely forgiven. By us. together. We have become the protagonists of our own stories. Just two ordinary people on an irregular journey aiming for freedom.
So here’s my challenge to you. Choose your own journey to financial forgiveness. Don’t wait for a hero to jump in and save the day. You are the main character. And you are more powerful than you can imagine.
