THE ROAD TO DEBT-FREE
Too Many Lobster Bisques
Debt.
It’s a fascinating subject. One I like broaching very openly, especially here in the United States, where it’s so tied up with money.
And we, as Americans, love money.
We worship money.
Other than China by sheer measure of its size, no nation even comes close to our national GDP.
We love to spend money.
And before I get ahead of myself, I don’t mean to imply that money is a dirty and evil concept.
It’s not.
I quite like money.
Having it. Holding it.
It gives me a sense of security. Like if things went south, I’d be okay, at least for a reasonable while. I also have a partner who earns significantly more money than I do, and I do okay.
And yet, we feel strained.
We’re strapped for cash a lot more these days, and it’s not because we’re ordering too many lobster bisques at dinner(we’re not coffee drinkers).
More and more, it feels like my dollar isn’t going as far, even though I lack for nothing, now that I’ve curbed some of my more reckless spending habits, somewhat.
And by that I mean, I don’t buy bullshit anymore.
I have a better appreciation of value.
I’m a lot pickier with how I spend my money.
If I have to choose between that expensive lobster dinner, a beautiful watch, a new video game, or a fancy car… I’m choosing the dinner most times.
Because you get what you pay for, and fast, cheap food, if had too often, can make you sick. And for many of us, being sick can cost us a lot of money.
It’s a well-documented fact that food quality is correlated with better health and increased brain activity.
The actual value here is health, rather than cost.
And having cost not be a negating factor is a newfound privilege I do not take for granted, because I’ve been on the poor end of that too. I’ve lived on Top Ramen and sugar sandwiches.
I prefer the bisque.
Sugar & The Psychology Of Money
In his book The Psychology of Money, Morgan Housel talks about the type of mindset needed for investors to be able to weather the storms of market volatility.
In it, he quotes:
“Nothing’s free. Everything has a price, but not all prices appear on labels.”
He likens this mindset to seeing the inevitability of a bearish market as a fee one pays for being allowed to play the stock game, rather than a fine to avoid- for those wanting to cheat themselves into financial windfalls, without taking on any of the associated risk.
He finishes by saying that nothing we want in life is free, so the duty lies with us to figure out what the actual price of something is, then pay it.
I have an unhealthy obsession with sugar.
Honeybuns, in particular, are a personal favorite of mine. They’re essentially loaves of deep-fried bread coated in gelatinous, sirupy sugar.
They’re delicious.
They’re really bad for me.
Me, specifically.
I have a genetic disorder that causes me to double over in pain if I consume too many fatty, fried, or processed foods.
I spent the majority of my early childhood in and out of hospitals in Africa due to the quality of the food there.
Yet, even given my condition, I’ve been eating them for as long as I can remember being alive.
And that’s because, when we’re young, we have poor value discernment.
I think it’s due to a general lack of patience, education, and a higher threshold for pain and discomfort. Even for what will only be a short-term gain.
But I’m not young anymore.
I’ve noticed that if you ever want to spot the poor in a person, watch their spending and sugar intake.
Processed food is jam-packed with sugar. And sugar, just like spending, is addictive.
I was proud of myself when I made the connection between sugar addiction and poverty. Then I found out there’s already research on it.
They’ve dubbed it “food insecurity”? What a stupid thing to call it.
They should call it what it actually is.
Poverty
One of the best and worst lessons I've learned in my life is that not having enough money buys you more than just crappy food; it also buys you a crappy education.
Luckily for me, after an unsatisfactory pass through the halls of higher learning, I realized I was woefully unprepared for the world.
So, I set about re-educating myself.
Nonetheless, despite the dwindling quality of higher learning, they still charge us more and more for it.
Education. Is that not insane?
Let’s all take a collective moment and wonder why a nation would refuse to take on the financial burden of educating its citizenry without first seeking to line its own pockets.
Let that really sink in.
Instead, poor people take on the brunt of the cost. Having to pay more and more over time to maintain a system that mostly seeks to benefit and further its interests.
What? You’ve never wondered why it’s called “interest”?
And most of us don’t understand money, much less the intricacies of global financial markets.
I didn’t.
And without significant skin in the game to marry theory to experience, I’ll admit I’m still terribly uneducated in terms of finances.
When COVID peaked, I lost my nerve and emptied what little I had in my portfolio. It wasn’t much, and I foresaw myself needing the cash.
I’ve been tepid to reinvest because I incorrectly assumed, “Well, stocks are a white man’s game, and I lack the capital to play effectively, anyway.”
Before I was even 30, my debt had far outpaced my income.
And most of us don’t reach our peak earning potential till much later in life. Until we’ve accumulated the experience, people are willing to pay serious money for.
And that doesn’t happen till your late 30s, early 40s, at least.
Yet, we’re encouraged, as kids, to take on a ton of debt early in life to maximize that earning potential.
We dub it “an investment.”
But as so many would-be investors will learn the hard way, investments are only worth a damn if they pay off in the long-run.
It’s why I think education is so important. I needed to educate myself on the complexities.
Though what wasn’t made explicitly clear to a poor black college graduate like me is- the quality of education you can afford severely impacts where you end up in life, how much money you earn, and, more importantly, how much money you spend.
The Actual Number
As of March 2025, I am 34 years old; I make about 90k a year before taxes. And California taxes are a bitch, let me tell you.
And as of this March, I’m just under 30k in debt.
Or more accurately, $28,759 and counting, most of that debt is dispersed in various, interest-accumulating student loans. I went to community college to mitigate costs.
Not terrible, all things considered. Some go to college fully aware of how much debt they’ll accrue once they cross that finish line, and then there’s me.
Money has always been a bit of a doozy for me.
I’ve always been terrible with it. I’ve never really placed much value in it, the reason for that being- contrary to many stereotypical assumptions, I grew up fairly wealthy by American standards.
Big house. Maids. Lots of land.
There seems to be a general subconscious consensus that all who emigrate to America come from poverty, but let me tell you, that’s false.
Africa, like most countries, has its share of poor, and it has its wealthy.
We were wealthy.
We didn’t become poor until we came here.
Eventually, I would start to connect certain misfortunes in my life- misfortunes that could’ve been easily avoided- to my lack of financial stability and literacy.
GOODBYE, GEN Z
I always recoil a bit, both in surprise and in relief, when I hear similar stories. When my fellow college grads talk about how much debt they’re under.
I notice an odd trill in their voices whenever they talk about their ballooning debt.
It’s always with a bit of a nervous chuckle.
The kind you give when the stoned, minimum wage employee asks if you’re ready before he clamps you to that rickety amusement park ride you agreed to try on a dare.
The kind you give when you realize you’re well and truly fucked.
Some people talk about their debt in an almost abstract sense, like it’s a natural fee for playing the money game, or an idea they can’t quite come to grips with, rather than something that has an actual, interest-accumulating number.
I give this a great deal of thought, and as someone who often looks at the actual number.
It causes me a great deal of daily anxiety.
As is the case, I suspect, with many of my peers.
Financial literacy is perhaps one of the most important, most critical things we can teach the next generation.
Especially in black and Hispanic communities like the ones I grew up in, which have notoriously and historically been denied access to it.
It might be too late for us, but it’s not too late for the next generation. We can prepare them for life. Teach them how to be good with money.
No one ever taught me how to be good with money. The only upside to that is that I have developed a value system not centered on the accumulation of wealth.
However, as a result, I’ve had to take on the brunt of a mistake everyone kept telling me was an investment.
All before I’d even found out that having the piece of paper is just one step.
You still need to know people, and have them like you, and all sorts of other human bullshit.
Also, it’s annoying. How compulsive it’s become.
Spending money.
I’ve learned that money management requires a great deal of discipline. It’s why some of us never have any money when we’re young.
We’re terrible at managing it because we don’t have any discipline.
And it isn’t all our fault, either.
We’re conditioned to spend. Way beyond our means. We’re constantly bombarded with the newest products, the latest trends, each more expensive than the last, all to turn us from consumers to customers.
And we’re all a little nervous about it, so we chuckle. We’re in it now. We’re clamped. We missed our chance to say we want off the ride. All we can do now is wave goodbye to Gen Z as we all hurtle towards our uncertain futures.
The Road To Debt-Free
Just so the title isn’t too much like clickbait, I’ll wrap it up nicely with a bow, and tell you how I plan to be debt-free in 1 year and 1 month.
It was simple, really, I asked ChatGPT.
This is what it had to say in response:
Here is the breakdown:
Interest Rate: 8%
Annual Salary: $90,000
Loan amount: $28,759
Monthly Take-Home Pay (after estimated taxes): ~$4,601.25
Monthly Loan Payment (50% of take-home pay): ~$2,300.63
Time to Pay Off Loan: ~13.1 months (approximately 1 year and 1 month)
Give or take, nothing too financially draining happens, and I can maintain this discipline —that’s the fee, the price to pay, to be debt-free.
The actual number.
~$2,300.63 a month, for approximately 1 year and 1 month.
I can swing that, so fine, I’ll pay it.
And provided I have a bit of patience, some discipline, and luck, and I’m not eating too many lobster bisques…
I’ll see you all at the end of the road in approximately one year and one month.
And yes, I’ll write about it.
