Hey everyone. I'm Steev. I'm a college student who's looking to get out of this mess with as little financial damage as possible, considering that I'm in fairly good shape already. I've been reading GRS for a month or two now.

Glad to join the forums!

Steev,

Welcome. Dude, I'd totally recommend you not worry about finances while you're in college. I'm not saying that you should run up a dozen credit cards, but if it's a choice between staying in and frying cheese sandwiches on the dorm radiators, or spending some money you bummed off your parents at the bar, choose the latter. You've got the whole rest of your life to be responsible and I value some of the mistakes I made in high school and college just as much as many of the good choices I made.

Ha, thanks for the words of advice. However, as someone who doesn't drink or smoke, I'm pretty free of worrying about that.

Now if we're talking comic books or Guitar Hero, then yeah, maybe I have a problem.

I spent 2 weeks back in the states recently and my little brother had Guitar Hero. That game is awesome! I'm super tempted to buy it over in the UK even though it's expensive and I still haven't beaten all the games I currently own. A used PS2 and about 4 used games ended up costing me around $250 but I would have gone crazy if I didn't have some kind of diversion.

Just saying hi. I'm a new member to the forum and have been reading the GRS blog for several months. I love it!

[color=darkblue]Hi, My name is Bob and I have been working in the financial services industry for long enough to see that it needs a few more people with integrity. It is an uphill battle, but I really believe that doing the right thing pays off.

I am currently running a PF blog at [url]ChristianPF.com[/url] where I take a Christian's perspective on money management and personal finance issues.

I really like what JD is doing and look forward to being a part of this forum. Good to meet you all!!![/color]

Hi all!

Almost 29 years old, femme-woman type, enrolled and proud Eastern Band Cherokee, married to a wonderful man, apartment-dwelling in Asheville, NC. I work as a medical social worker, work I've wanted to do for years hence the overpriced MSW, but I also have a degree in English and edit PhD articles on the side. DH is a coder and general core support for an independent design company that is local to us. We have two cats (looking for a third), no kids.

Assets? None, basically, well, maybe $500 ER fund. We have very little CC debt, but a lot of student loans.

Glad to be here, thank you for hosting this site, GRS!

i'd like to introduce me, paste some words about myself and maybe try to be funny. go.

hi. my name's alfonso, anpl32 is the handle i mostly use, and i've been reading GRS for a long time, thnx to LifeHacker. i've sent jd some links too. i'm 29 going on 16, single, in medias relocating from caracas, venezuela, to panama city, panama.

_begin poetic_
a freelancer working in two languages, living between two countries, rinding on the tubes of this wonderful machine.
_end poetic_

i've got blogs, poems, stories, and a bunch of stuff to get into a container.

thank you. good night.


please excuse the lame jokes. english is not my primary language.

Hello all, I have just joined after watching the site for a period of time, I am a retired builder and investor from North Texas, look forward to reading everyones thoughts on "Getting Rich Slowly"

Hi, I go by paidtwice, and I'm pretty new to the pf blogging scene. I blog at I've Paid for this Twice Already about our battle against the debt monster. I'm a personal finance novice and I'm just trying to get our own finances in some semblance of respectable. We're making progress... slowly. I'm not sure we're at the "get rich" part yet though. More "Get less poor slowly".

I'm in my thirties, married to a computer programmer, and have two small children (ages 3 and 9 months). I have a PhD in Genetics but I don't currently use it for much. Tis pretty on the wall though. I work from home part time as an independent contractor doing quality control for a legal document coding firm. And I'm a 3rd degree black belt in taekwondo.

We're in about $35K of debt, ~$5.5K of credit card, ~$25K combined my and my spouse's student loans, and ~$4.5K car loan. Yippee. We have a plan to be out of that debt by December 2010. Then I'll start thinking more about paying down the mortgage a little to get rid of the PMI.

That's enough random about me I think . Hi to everyone!

Hi. I've posted a few times already, but it's time to introduce myself. I've been reading Get Rich Slowly for probably over a year and really enjoy J.D.'s style. I've been lurking on the forums for a few months (and just started posting in the last week or two).

We're doing ok financially, but I'm in an up-or-out profession, so we're trying to live far below our means in case the option is "out." We're also focusing a lot on medium-term savings: parents' long-term health, possible baby, new house in a few years. We're not as frugal as we could be, but we do sometimes use shortcuts which enable us to keep sane at long hours at our jobs. Medium-term savings turn out to be difficult to figure out our risk tolerance for and how to plan for, so some of my questions might revolve around that.

So, that's our scoop. Thanks for the forum!

Hello everybody.

You may think of this as your un-official welcome to the GRS boards.

Hi all!

I'm toptomato, a 32 yo, unemployed slacker. kidding!

Actually my husband and I just moved back to the US after living and working overseas for 3 years. We just bought our first house here in California, and feeling the tight squeeze during the first year of our mortgage (mostly due to living in out-of-control-yet-beautiful California...). We are trying to be ultra-frugal and we have our first retirement accounts as well. My student loans leftover from college will be paid off in January 08 -- only 5 months to go!! Then the only debt left is our mortgage. Now it's all about wealth building. That's why I've been so attracted to GRS.

In the meantime, I'm trying to re-create my career since I haven't been happy in my previous jobs - yes, i really am unemployed, but don't tell my husband about the slacker part. Sadly, I've been discovering that I'm overqualified or too narrowly qualified for many of the interesting jobs I've interviewed with so far. PhDs sound cool, but boy, are they ridiculously narrowly focused. Plus they make you a little batty. And they really delay retirement funding.

Man, if I knew then what I know now, I would have opened an IRA, and just put in tiny amounts during grad school.

Wanna know what else is sad? Up until recently, I didn't even know what a mutual fund was, even though my dad has a PhD in economics, and even taught evening classes at the local college in Macroeconomics.

Folks, teach your kids about finance! Encourage them to learn! Someday if I have kids, I'll make matching contributions of savings towards goals BUT I'll make them do some PF courses as well.

-Doctor Tomato

Hi everyone! I'm a new reader to GRS - I started reading about two months ago but I was still having problems really buckling down so I could knock out debt. Irregular paychecks, schedules, and bills made figuring out a budget tough - I left one job at the beginning of the summer (was a manager, went from 35+ hours a week to 12 because of issues with the owner of my store) and took up another one that paid a little less, but has only just begun setting up regular schedules. This would be great .. if I wasn't headed out to New York for four months for an unpaid fulltime internship.

My parents are kind of helping foot the bill - I wanted a student loan which would allow me to keep control over my payments, or to use some bonds my grandmother gave me, but my parents and I have issues and they are not keen on not having me be financially independent (me owing them = me under their thumb). They offered to sell their old van they didn't need anymore, but haven't been able to find a buyer. They gave me half so I could pay the security deposit and promised me that they'd have the van sold soon. They still haven't, and since I'm really uncomfortable with taking their money and not getting it from some kind of outside source (selling stuff, a loan) I'm going to get my bonds this weekend.

So! All total, I have about $6200 in debt - $3200 on a credit card and $3000 from my parents. I was on track to being able to pay off the credit card by the end of the year (scholarship refunds and basically shoving every spare penny at it, plus looking at a promotion) but now I've had to push back my CC payment goals until March (if I return home after the internship) or June (if I get a job in NY and don't return). With my refunds and the guarantee of a job when I get back, the money is there to make payments, but with the tenuous financial situation for the internship, I figure it's best to scale back for four months and have money to pay when I get back while I catch up at work.

The loan from my parents isn't really concrete - but I plan on treating it like an interest free student loan. Minimum payment of $150 a month beginning six months after I graduate. (Beginning June or December '08.) Probably closer to $250-$300, since it's what I'll be paying on my CC til I get it paid off.

I think I'm on my way to being debt free in two or three years - I'm using this trip as a time to learn how to live on a fixed income, so I can develop the ability to be frugal and keep a really great budget. I plan on having my next birthday present be no CC debt, some money saved to make a big dent in the loan from my parents, and some money saved to open up an IRA so I can start planning for my future. Hopefully I can learn to stick with it this time!

(... sorry for being so verbose!)

Hi, Kristina, and welcome to the forums. I envy the time you'll be spending in New York. I loved the place when I visited it recently.

I can understand having to put your payments on hold, especially if you're holding an emergency fund in reserve, but I'd encourage you to do your best not to add NEW debt to the equation. Treading water is one thing; going under is another. I have confidence that you can meet your two year goal with some smart planning!

Good luck!