Already behind schedule

Well, I'm only a month and a half in and I'm already finding this pace difficult to keep up with. Last month (February) I wasn't able to put away any money towards my loans, even to make my minimum payments, and now I'm facing using my ENTIRE paycheck for March to catch up! It doesn't help that the current Dollar-Yen ratio is really not in my favor..... For example, I need to dish out $1080 this month to catch up on February and pay for March. But convert the currency and that's over 13,000 yen - my paycheck (after rent, etc) is only 17,000 yen!!

So...what to do...? Should I sacrifice a month and set back all my scheduling? Should I convert February's payment into smaller separate payments over a longer period?

Ugh, I hate money :( But I need more of it....

I'm thinking about writing some books and trying to publish them digitally. That may pay off in the near future.

For now, feeling frustrated and lost, Mich.

Monthly Update - January 2015

After this month's student loan payments, my totals have shifted slightly. Here's an update of my current balances:

This will be my baseline starting from February. My goal is to set aside $540 for the next two pay periods, and pay off Loan 1 by April 1st! I'll post an update again around the end of February with the new figures.

Thanks for the support so far!

Breaking Down Student Loans, Part 2

In my last post, I talked about the first step to organizing and paying back my student loans. Here's picking up where I left off. 

STEP 2: SET GOALS AND BUDGETS

Now that I've got my loans broken down and sorted by amount, I can set goals for how quickly I'd like to pay them off. Tomorrow is impossible, and even within a year is unlikely. After all, I don't want to give up all of the things I enjoy, confine myself to my cold apartment with holes in my clothes and suffer because of impatience. So I've set reasonable goals for myself, ones that I know I can easily maintain. 

Researching Airline Miles

All my life, people have been telling me to travel while you're young, it's more difficult as you get older; and, experience is more valuable than money, you'll never regret it.

A Breakdown of Student Loans

In college, I took out an incredible amount of loans to pay for tuition without really realizing what I was getting into. But that's kind of the trick, right? Anyway, even though I graduated almost six years ago (w-whaaat?!), I've still barely managed to break the surface of my student loan debt.

A New Sort of Motivation

Hi, thanks for stopping by my blog. My name is Michelle, and I'm a 27-year old college grad from the US. I've had a lot of neat experiences in my life, like joining the Peace Corps, being evacuated from Africa, moving to Japan.... But those are stories for another blog. THIS blog is about my future.