{"id":312282,"date":"2025-11-28T13:06:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T13:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/312282\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T13:06:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T13:06:07","slug":"people-in-bad-financial-situations-are-needlessly-stressed-i-figured-out-the-secret","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/312282\/","title":{"rendered":"People in bad financial situations are needlessly stressed. I figured out the secret!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our advice columnists have heard it all over the years\u2014so we\u2019re diving into the Pay Dirt archives to share classic letters with our readers.\u00a0Submit your own questions about money here<\/a>. (It\u2019s anonymous!)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dear Pay Dirt,<\/p>\n

By most of the world\u2019s standards, I have a terrible relationship with money. It\u2019s in my hands, then it\u2019s out of my life. I pay my bills, I pay my rent, I travel, I treat friends to meals and gifts, and I donate to political causes and charities. But I am over 40, and I have credit card debt (though all current with a good credit rating), and absolutely no savings to speak of. But I am happy! I have no kids to worry about supporting. Am I really in that terrible of a position?<\/p>\n

\u2014Money Isn\u2019t Even Real Anyway<\/p>\n

Dear Money,<\/p>\n

You\u2019re not in a terrible position, with one small caveat: You should have something of an emergency fund, or you may end up dependent on others if something unexpected happens. This doesn\u2019t have to be anything extraordinary.\u00a0Most Americans would have trouble covering a surprise $1,000 expense<\/a>\u00a0if they had to, and it sounds like you\u2019re not in that boat. A month\u2019s worth of expenses would be a minimum, and three months\u2019 would be ideal.<\/p>\n

That said, you seem to be asking whether it\u2019s OK that you spend your money\u00a0how\u00a0you do. If it\u2019s not, your columnist is in trouble, too. I\u2019ve never had much of an inclination to accumulate things, so I don\u2019t dream of second and third homes or nice cars or yachts or whatever it is we\u2019re culturally told we should build wealth in order to acquire. I\u2019m the only New Yorker I know whose eyes glaze over when people talk about real estate.<\/p>\n

You know what makes you happy\u2014experiences, being able to be generous to friends, supporting causes you care about\u2014so you shouldn\u2019t feel ashamed about spending on those things instead of socking it all away or buying things for their own sake. Money is an instrument; it frees people in poverty from suffering, helps people spend time doing more things they want to, with people they want to, and yes, sometimes buys them comfort in the form of fancy houses and possessions. For you, it buys a higher quality of life in specific areas that you appreciate. A lot of people don\u2019t know that these things make them happy until late in life when they\u2019ve spent money on the wrong things, so consider yourself lucky that you already know what you really care about. But for your own sake, open that emergency savings account!<\/p>\n

\u2014Elizabeth Spiers<\/p>\n

From: I\u2019m Embarrassed to Tell My Girlfriend the Truth About My Financial Situation<\/a>. (June 30th, 2021.)<\/p>\n

\n Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don\u2018t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication.\n <\/p>\n

Dear Pay Dirt,<\/p>\n

I finished graduate school last year with about $50,000 in student loan debt, including the loans from my undergraduate degree. My loans were put on hold while I was in grad school, and then again during the pandemic, so I haven\u2019t made any payments since 2018. I\u2019ve been living at home, working full time, and saving money since graduating college six years ago, so I\u2019ve been able to save over $60,000\u2014enough to pay off my loans in one lump sum!<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the problem: My family thinks this is a bad idea and that I should pay it off in $300 payments every month instead of emptying my savings all at once. I understand their concerns. I plan on moving out soon, so it would be nice to have this money just in case. I make about $40,000 a year and live a in a pretty expensive city. But I also feel like the money isn\u2019t really mine\u2014it belongs to the Department of Education. I\u2019m proud of myself for saving this money, and I think it would be a huge relief to be completely debt-free after making one big payment. Is that irresponsible? Is it better to pay it off monthly over the course of several years? I\u2019ve been waiting to see whether the new administration would forgive a big chunk of my debt, but this seems unlikely now. What should I do?<\/p>\n

\u2014Torn Over My Loans<\/p>\n

Dear Torn Over My Loans,<\/p>\n

Kuddos to being able to save $60,000! That is such a huge accomplishment, so pat yourself on the back.<\/p>\n

I think you should pay your student loans off in full. Explain to your family that paying off your student loans early will mean substantially less interest, saving you thousands of dollars over the course of your loan. (A simple\u00a0loan calculator<\/a>\u00a0can help you estimate just how much you\u2019d save in interest, depending on your interest rate and loan term.) It\u2019s common for people to make the\u00a0minimum payment<\/a>\u00a0on their loans and years later be worse off than where they had originally started. Some people might argue that paying off your loans early\u00a0could affect your credit score<\/a>, but unless you\u2019re imminently planning to buy a house, this shouldn\u2019t be an issue.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

My Mom Just Disinvited Me and My Husband From the Holidays. I Can\u2019t Believe Her \u201cReason.\u201d
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Help! My Mother-in-Law Did Something Utterly Unforgivable. But My Wife Still Wants Her at Thanksgiving.
\n <\/a><\/p>\n


\n This Content is Available for Slate Plus members only<\/p>\n

My Husband Thinks His Plan for My Vacation Days Is Only \u201cFair.\u201d He\u2019s Out of His Mind.
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

The bonus here, too, is that even if you pay your loans off in full, you still have an emergency fund of $10,000. If you aren\u2019t in a hurry to move out, ask your family if you could stay longer and build that number until you\u2019ve saved six months of expenses, plus whatever cash you\u2019ll need to move. If you don\u2019t know what your expenses will be, check out Zillow for an idea of what rentals go for in your area. This will keep an unexpected expense from derailing your financial journey and going back into debt. And in a high cost-of-living situation on a $40,000 salary, you\u2019ll want to have a healthy cushion, since rent will eat up a lot of your paycheck.<\/p>\n

The other option is to split the difference. Find out what your minimum monthly loan payment is, then figure out how much extra you\u2019d want to pay every month\u2014maybe you double it, or $300 extra, or whatever feels right. Then put the rest\u2014including your emergency-fund money\u2014in a high-yield savings account. This will allow you to pay extra toward the principal but still collect interest on the original amount you saved and have a healthy emergency fund. But even though there\u2019s no dollar amount attached, being debt-free can feel like it\u2019s worth a fortune.<\/p>\n

\u2014Athena Valentine<\/p>\n

From: My Husband Makes Me Show Receipts For Everything I Buy, Even Coffees!<\/a> (June 14th, 2021).<\/p>\n

More Money Advice From Slate<\/p>\n

My partner and I have recently begun running, which feels huge for me because I haven\u2019t ran since high school. As a reward for my progress, I usually stop by a local tea shop and buy an iced tea, which is never more than $5. This really bothers my partner, who has suggested that I should just bring my own tea on my runs and save some money. But it\u2019s just not the same.<\/a><\/p>\n

Get the latest from Prudie and our columnists in your inbox each weekday, plus special bonus letters on Saturdays.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Our advice columnists have heard it all over the years\u2014so we\u2019re diving into the Pay Dirt archives to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312283,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[1129,45,49,48,133,131,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-312282","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-advice","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-finance","13":"tag-personal-finance","14":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}