Money, Love, and Change

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Hello! I am back from vacation, which was wonderful. I have many new blog posts planned, but I wanted to talk a little more about AIDS awareness today.

HIV and AIDS is a topic that is very familiar to me, as it was the topic of my doctoral thesis. I thought that I would just share a couple of interesting tidbits that I learned about while completing my studies.

1. There seems to be this idea that contracting HIV is no big deal, since the virus can be managed with anti-retroviral therapies. However, this is not always the case. First, the virus is constantly mutating in order to evade the drugs. Therefore, if you contract HIV nowadays, chances are that only some of the anti-retroviral drugs will be effective for your particular strain of HIV. Secondly, missing your medication just once or twice is enough to give the virus an opportunity to mutate (and therefore possibly make the drug ineffective). I can’t even remember to take an antibiotic for 14 days…

2. I always get asked about Magic Johnson – people always wonder if he has some miracle drug available to him. He doesn’t. Although I am not a medical doctor and don’t have access to his information, I would guess that he takes his medication on time, every single day. Also, he was infected with HIV a really long time ago, so the particular strain of the virus he contracted probably did not have time to evolve. As a result, more anti-retroviral drugs would be effective for him.

3. As of today, there is no way to vaccinate against HIV, and there is no cure.

If you are a US citizen, now is as good as time as any to register to vote.  Not letting your voice be heard is a tragedy!

In case you are wondering, HeadCount is an organization dedicated to registering voters at music events throughout the country.  I’ve seen them at Phish shows and Bonnaroo, and they are good people.  When you click on the button and register, I get a chance to win a Jam Cruise.  Please feel free to get a button for your site as well.

Have a good day!

If you’ve been following some of my previous posts, you know that a recent source of stress in our lives has been finding a program for the kid for the next school year.  It seems like some good karma has come our way, and we found something that is a great fit.

My kid is only 2, so we’re trying to find something that doesn’t last all day, but gives him the chance to interact with other kids.  We always go to the free story time at our local library (as well as visit the library at least once a week), so I was hoping for something for 2 other days.

We found a program at a local farm that is two mornings a week.  The kids get to bake, hang out with the animals, and play.  It’s also a parent-child program, so I get to moo with the cows too, which I haven’t done since I was a small child.  How cool is that?

To top it all off, it’s affordable, and our money will be supporting an organic self-sustaining farm.

It’s still going to stretch our budget, though.  I need to get serious about finding a good source of work-at-home income.   But for tonight, I’m just going to be thankful that we found something!

If you’ve got young kids, what do you think of a program like this?  I know that it’s not traditional, but our son loves to be outside and running around; I think it’s a great fit for us.

We are regular visitors to our local library.  A month or so ago, I was a little surprised to see Dolly Parton’s smiling face on a brochure at the children’s desk.  After a moment of wondering how Dolly manages to look exactly the same as she did 25 years ago, curiosity got the best of me and I picked up the brochure.

Dolly, bless her soul, has started a program called the Imagination Library.  This program partners with local communities to provide free books (1 per month) for any child under the age of 5 who signs up.  Here is an excerpt from her website:

Here’s how it works:

A community must make the program accessible to all preschool children in their area. The community pays for the books and mailing, promotes the program, registers the children, and enters the information into the database.

From there The Dollywood Foundation takes over and manages the system to deliver the books to the home.

The books are already selected based on the age of the child – each kid receives 1 free book per month until the age of 5.  To see if your community participates, you can check out the affiliates link here.

We filled out the form on our brochure (our community does not allow online registration), and received a confirmation letter.  We are still waiting for our first book, but I wanted to share this information now so that others can sign up.  Happy reading!

There are a lot of short classes on a variety of topics available for free at Hewlett- Packard’s Learning Center. Topics include Windows Vista, Microsoft Office programs, networking, and general business skills. The classes usually run for 6 weeks, and there are forums to keep things interactive.

I have taken one course so far; I didn’t participate in the forums, but I found the information to be useful. I just signed up for a course on Flash animation (it starts on 8 May if you are interested). Just thought I would share in case you are looking to update some of your computer skills!

Today, it’s time to focus on my student loans. I was very fortunate to not have to take out any loans for my graduate studies – a small but sufficient graduate stipend combined with my husband’s income helped us out.  However, I spent 5 years completing my undergraduate studies (I am a geek who did a triple major) and my last year was expensive. In total, my federal undergraduate student loans totaled roughly $15000, which included an unsubsidized loan for $1450. I also had to take out a private loan in my last year for $6000.

Even while in school, I have always paid the accrued interest on the unsubsidized loan and the private loan. There is a variable interest rate on the private loan, which is currently at 8.5%. The private loan is the first debt we want to get rid of, since it has the highest interest rate of all the debt we carry. We have considered transferring it to a credit card with a lower interest rate, but it is with the same company that we get our best balance transfer offers with, so it has not been eligible. Also, I have hesitated to transfer this loan since it would be forgiven if I died (isn’t that nice?).

In August of 2003, while consolidating my husband’s student loans, we decided to lock in the low (3.5%) interest rate with my federal student loans as well. Even though I was still a full-time graduate student on deferment, the federal student loan program (Direct Loan Servicing, if you’re interested) allowed for consolidation of my federal loans.

I have been paying down the private loan since starting graduate school in 1999, even if it has meant just paying the accrued interest. The balance on the private loan is currently $3570, and the monthly payments are around $50. I just started paying my federal loans in October (I am not sure why, but the government thinks I graduated last May. Rather than deal with the craptastic registrar’s office to resolve this issue, I decided to start paying them a couple of months early.) I owe $14668, and the monthly payments are just under $150.

Without taking into consideration the opportunity cost of spending 9 years in graduate school (instead of at a real job) as well as some intangibles (for example, you can’t put a price on the sanity I have lost over the past decade), our education has cost us roughly $45000. Certainly this is nothing to take lightly, but it is also not as expensive as some luxury vehicles. Neither of us had family who helped us out financially, so I think that overall we did pretty well.

In closing, here’s our current picture:

student loans at 3.5%: $25,156 (payment per month of $230)

student loans at 8.5%: $ 3,570 (payment per month of $50)

totals:                             $28,726 (obligations per month at $280)

I thought that student loans would be a good place to start documenting our financial journey – as I am bringing my graduate school career to a close, I thought it would be a good idea to take a look back at what our education cost us.

Today, I will start with my husband’s student loans. Starting off, he had federal undergraduate student loans totaling roughly $18400 (these days, that’s not bad for 4 years at a private college!) which he began paying in September of 2000. In September of 2002, he went to an accredited school for massage therapy, and took out another federal loan for $5800 to help cover the tuition. In August of 2003, at the advice of a friend, we consolidated his undergraduate student loans (which had gone from $18400 to $13000) with his loan from massage school. We owe this friend a big thanks, as we locked in a 3.5% interest rate.

We currently owe $10488 on this account.  Our minimum monthly payment is $176 (on the standard repayment plan), and we used to make $200 payments.  We are currently making the minimum payment so that we can use the extra money for higher interest rate debts, and have 67 payments left to make.  Other than the mortgage and a credit card that we use for monthly expenses and then pay in full each month, this is the only debt that my husband carries in his name.

I often think about whether or not to continue to pay down this debt.  I know that we may be able to defer payments (while interest accumulates) or take a different repayment plan with lower monthly payments, but we don’t want to be sending our child off to college and still be paying our own loans.  Also, there is the psychological aspect of having this debt paid off.  On the other hand, the money we are using to pay off this debt could be doing more for us, even in something as safe as a high-interest checking account.  Decisions, decisions…