How Gen X Got Crushed by Compounding Student Loan Debt

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Compounding poor choices. Rule number one. Rule number one on my financial, I to call it way of the Markowski investments world. Rules of the road. Rule number one is compounding is the royal road to riches. Compounding interest. It’s also the road to a good life. Good choices, they compound. Thing about compounding is,

It can work in the inverse. It can work against you. Again, I talk about this all the time. We talk about people, their credit card bills and the type of interest in they pay, debt or poor choices throughout life for a myriad of different things. The thing is when you make a poor choice, this is something, again, it’s a bit of a life hack lesson. You need to recognize it.

You can’t brush it underneath the rug. You need to deal with it right away. Basically, just fix the problem. I hold it the same way. I’m incredibly anal about, you know, things that happen to my house or my car or something is off or it’s broke. It needs to be fixed immediately.

Cause one little issue here is gonna lead to another issue and then it starts compounding. Then you’ve got real problems. Why do I bring this up? Really sad story I felt for these people today. There’s a story in the Wall Street Journal talking about student loan debt and comma student loan debt is strangling Gen X. That’s my.

generation and the usual know wall street journal pieces right now these are wall street journal pieces where they have anecdotes they find people to fit whatever their narratives may be but in this case again i i felt bad for these people and you know person number one federal loans have followed him for 26 years longer than he’s been married he’s got a couple of kids

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but he’s also took out $74,000 in graduate school debt. Again, my generation. That’s now up to 300 grand.

Now, I see these stories, I’m like, how did you let that happen?

How did you let $74,000 in student loans turn into $300,000? 55-year-old New Jersey chiropractor.

Again, he is buried right now. The balance continues to accrue interest. Basically, he also just denied a home loan, home equity loan application. I mean, you’re borrowing more money on top of the money you already own. Again, you’re compounding your problem. Anyway, he’s, again, he talks about where he’s at.

And again, they give it to other examples of other Gen Xers that are barreling toward retirement with an excruciating student loan burden. Six million borrowers age 50 to 61 have the highest average balance of any age group. 47, almost $48,000. Again, okay, this is my age group.

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Big price tag. Big price tag. And again, they talk about other people as well, student loans, what they did, how, again, they changed the rules and certain people were living off their student loans while they took out their student loans. At some point in time, and again, every single one of these stories here, I look at these things and I say to myself, because I had student loans.

I stu-mones, they were massive, I had them, but they were dealt with like a split.

They were dealt with lickety split. I paid them off as soon as I could. And then, you know, my wife, well, love Julie, when, know, years were her financial acumen, you know, it was not up to snuff. I, you we got married. She had student loans at boom, take care of that immediately. Get rid of it. Cross it off the list. I don’t want it.

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And I did everything I could to get rid of this stuff. You look at these people and I’m saying any one person, you know, got into one career, went into an MBA later on in life and is, know, now pest control expert up in Seattle makes 80 grand a year. People, you can’t wish your problems away. If it takes…

You know, opening up a power washing business on the weekend or waiting tables or doing whatever it takes to knock this down. You do it.

And hey, it’s all you younger people out there. Let this be a lesson to you. Okay? Do not ignore problems. Deal with them immediately. Deal with debt immediately. Get it under control. Do what you have to do. Work the extra hours. Because this is what’s going to end up happening. And you’re stuck. These people right now, at the end, they’re going to start having their paychecks.

garnished if they can’t make these payments. I get it. You I get it. know, many people went out and took student loans. You believe the BS, that that was the only way, it was your only ticket, only ticket to make your way up in the world. And again, that was pretty much, that was pretty much the gospel back when I was in high school, without a doubt.

but you gotta be going to a school, you gotta be doing something that you understand where you’re gonna get a return on that investment. This and compounding mistakes leads to many, many problems in life. And until you step up and you say, you know what, I’m gonna do what it takes to get rid of this, I don’t want to tell you people. You’re wishing on a lottery ticket, you’re wishing on a government official to make it go away, no.

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