Debt is an Income Depressant

Do you make good money but feel broke? Chances are your debt obligations are what’s cramping your style.

We tend to think of debt as it’s own entity and not something that affects other aspects of our finances. Or at least, that’s how we think of it when we’re first borrowing the money.

Most university students don’t think twice about accumulating debt, student loans and otherwise. After all, they’re earning a degree that will skyrocket their income and let them earn more than enough to pay it back after graduation.

But do they know that earning a high income with hefty debt payments feels exactly the same as earning a low income?

This is how much debt really costs

A good general rule of thumb is that for every $10,000 you owe in student loans, you will have to pay at least $100 per month in payments. This means if you borrowed $40,000, then you can expect your monthly payment at graduation to be approximately $400.

For ten years.

Depending on your income tax bracket, that $400 monthly payment will actually require you to dedicate about $525 in gross monthly income to pay it, or $6,300 per year. For a decade. In other words, regardless of your salary, a whopping $6,300 of your gross income is going towards making the minimum payments on your student loans. Did I mention this was for ten years?

Even if you start out at a decent $50,000 salary, you’ll have to live like you’re only earning $43,700 to make your student debt payments. With a $400 student loan payment, a shocking 14% of your gross income is going towards making the minimum payments on your loans.

The more debt you have, the further you’ll have to downgrade your lifestyle in order to accommodate your payments. You will have the option to pay off your debt sooner, but this will require an even more drastic cut in your lifestyle expenses to afford it. Which is a problem, because it basically means the solution to feeling less broke is to feel even more broke for awhile.

A high income will not protect you from a high debt

For people seeking high-earning degrees, like medicine, many justify multi-six-figure balances because their income will be so high. It will and it won’t. The $100-monthly-payment-per-$10,000-owing rule still holds true, though now it’s not unusual for your debts to have longer terms like 15 or 20 years, which means you’re stuck on the hamster wheel for longer.

If you borrow $180,000 to become a doctor or a dentist, your monthly payment towards your student loans will approximately $1,800 per month. This will take $2,520 of your gross monthly income, or $30,000 per year (remember, you’re in a higher tax bracket now). This will be for 15 years or longer. Also, don’t forget you’re entering the workforce 4-7 years later than your peers, you haven’t been saving for retirement, and you have high insurance costs. To add insult to injury, everyone expects you to buy a luxury car and a home because you have “Dr.” in front of your name now, and they don’t know about the $180K student loan balance. I’m being serious — the Millionaire Next Door found doctors are actually the poorest wealth accumulators out there, and the main factor to blame was the lifestyle expectations of their professional incomes.

The lengthy terms on six-figure debts make them even harder to get rid of. If you’re stuck on a 25-year repayment term, throwing an additional $100 at the balance is a drop in the bucket. Sure, every little bit counts, but a multi-decade debt repayment term has a lot of inertia, and isn’t readily swayed by any sum less than full extra monthly payment.

You’ll pay much more than you owe at graduation

When you graduate from post-secondary, you’ll get your student loan bill with your amount owing, but that is not actually the amount you’ll pay.

A $40,000 student loan debt at 5.5% interest and a 10 year repayment term, will cost you $12,093 in interest. This means the total you’ll actually pay back is 30% more than what you originally borrowed.

All those beers from the campus bar don’t seem like such a great deal at 30% more than you paid for, now do they? Most young people aren’t aware of exactly what they’re doing when they’re signing on that dotted line for student loans. I know, I was one of them. At 18, $40,000 doesn’t sound that much different than $10,000 or $70,000. It all represents a sum of money they’ve never had to earn before, but are confident they will definitely be able to earn in the future, especially with a degree.

It’s not until that first paycheque collides with our and the first student loan bill that we realize exactly how little we earn to pay for how much we owe.

All debt depresses your income, but consumer debt hides it better

Student loan debt is an income depressant because the payments drastically reduce your disposable income, and you have nothing physical to show for it. Consumer debt is more expensive, but can at least provide you with the illusion you can afford a flashier lifestyle because it rewards you with stuff.

A luxury car will still set you back $600 per month in payments, but you’ll be driving a luxury car, so you might feel better about it.

Nevertheless, once you get into double-digit interest rates, a terrifying amount of your income will go towards this debt, even if the monthly payments make it seem not so bad. Many credit cards and lines of credit will allow you to carry exorbitant balances with laughably small minimum payments. The minimum payment on your credit card bill is usually only a few more dollars than the interest accruing, which means unless you take it into your own hands to pay more than you’re required to, you’ll be in debt forever.

Give yourself a raise by paying off your debt

One of the easiest ways to increase your income is not to get a side hustle, it’s to eliminate your debt.

Paying off your debt will put hundreds (or thousands) of extra dollars into your bank account each month, which you can use for whatever you want. I want you to save at least some of it, but as far as I’m concerned, buying six slurpees every day is a better way to spend money than on student loan interest. After all, at least the slurpees bring you some joy and keep you cool.

Need more motivation? Check out my post: Pay Your F#$%Ing Debt

You deserve to enjoy all the money you earn, and that starts by being able to through eliminating your debt. Right now, your debt is depressing your income — and I’d wager it’s depressing you a little bit too.