One common side effect of military life is having only one income. I’ve blogged about finances a few times, mainly about how we’re trying to pay down my student debt. I haven’t worked full-time since 2012, but I’ve continued to bring in an income (which is better than nothing) in the past two years. Thankfully, Mac’s job as an Army officer has provided us with a regular income that is more than enough for us to live comfortably.
This deployment has been a huge blessing financially. We’ve put a hefty amount in savings and have officially paid OFF my four federal loans. I repaid two back in March-ish and the final two last week. While these loans had the smallest principals, they had the highest interest rates. In total, I paid off $21,000 in loan principal (plus interest) in under four years on just those loans. I still have about $47,000 in student loan debt left, but we’re using the Dave Ramsey snowball to pay that off. For the past four years, I’ve made two monthly loan payments. The first was for my federal loans, the second was for my private loans. Now that my federal loans are repaid, I’m going to shift what I was paying for my federal loans to my smallest remaining student loan. If we’re careful and consistent with saving, we can hopefully pay off that smaller loan by the end of the year and still build our savings.
How do y’all handle living on one income? Were you able to save or pay off debt during deployments?
You go girl! My loan repayments kick in in December.. so not thrilled. But you gotta do what you gotta do!
If you can afford it, start making payments now! You’ll be paying straight principal instead of that with interest.
We are a one income family right now and it’s been a change. Not hard like I imagined it would be but it keeps me conscious of money all the time.
Congrats on getting your federal loans paid off! I owe about 20 grand total, but we pay well above the minimal amount each month. Dual incomes plus deployment income will make us debt free by the time my husband gets home (aside from my student loans!). My husband is an officer as well, and we were able to live comfortably off of his income alone while I finished school and searched for a job. I must say, I LOVE having two incomes now!