Funding the Transition?
Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2009 11:46 pm
I don't believe I've seen a thread about this sort of thing, but I will admit I didn't intently search the forums for anything like it. Regardless, I feel like a more up-to-date discussion may be relevant to more than just me. Forgive the length of this post in advance.
Anyway, I don't know about most of you, but I am literally losing sleep over something OTHER than getting my acceptance letters. I'm confident that I will be accepted to at least one school with good funding, so that's just a waiting game.
What I am concerned about is funding the transition from undergraduate to graduate school. As an undergraduate, everything has been taken care of for me. That's not to say that I've had help from a savings fund or parental intervention (apart from loan cosigning...and I have quite a bit in loans :/). I literally have spent my 3.5+ years of undergraduate school working at part time jobs just to make it by (although luckily, these jobs have been often physics related). But thanks to those college loans I've always had a dorm room to live in and a meal plan to eat from. Unfortunately, however, I have also ran up a little bit of credit card debt, totaling about $2500 (made up of necessary one-time purchases like a new car starter and textbooks).
So I'm going into graduate school (acceptances pending) with thousands of dollars of student loan debt (that can be deferred due to continuing student status), a couple thousand in credit debt, and no savings. My credit score, last I checked, is about 695, if that matters to anyone.
I'm wondering what my options are at this point. I mean, I feel like going to graduate school is going to require a nice chunk of money all at once, to cover moving (that is, gas money to drive my packed minivan to wherever I end up going, maybe hotel stays en route), temporary housing while apartment searching, and then deposit and initial rent/utilities payments, buying (minimal) furniture and things as simple and stupid as a dish set and a plunger and toilet paper and other things that I don't have/won't be bringing with me.
My thoughts right now have been tending toward paying down my credit card balances by literally using my entire part-time pay checks this semester (~$250 every other week). Then this summer I'd like to see if a bank would be willing to give me a personal loan or line of credit (I'm thinking $5-7k) that I can use to pay off my credit cards, as well as have extra cash to get started at my future grad school home. Ideally it would be a loan with no pre-payment penalties, so I can just pay back whatever I don't need up front once the TA/RA/Fellowship money starts coming in, and not have to worry about having too much more debt.
Anyway, does this sound reasonable? Sorry for rambling, but this is a topic that, as I said, I worry about every night, which is wreaking havoc on my QM studying. I'd prefer advice from people who have gone through something similar before, but I'll be willing to read any comments. Also, use this space to talk about your own "transition finance" worries as well.
Anyway, I don't know about most of you, but I am literally losing sleep over something OTHER than getting my acceptance letters. I'm confident that I will be accepted to at least one school with good funding, so that's just a waiting game.
What I am concerned about is funding the transition from undergraduate to graduate school. As an undergraduate, everything has been taken care of for me. That's not to say that I've had help from a savings fund or parental intervention (apart from loan cosigning...and I have quite a bit in loans :/). I literally have spent my 3.5+ years of undergraduate school working at part time jobs just to make it by (although luckily, these jobs have been often physics related). But thanks to those college loans I've always had a dorm room to live in and a meal plan to eat from. Unfortunately, however, I have also ran up a little bit of credit card debt, totaling about $2500 (made up of necessary one-time purchases like a new car starter and textbooks).
So I'm going into graduate school (acceptances pending) with thousands of dollars of student loan debt (that can be deferred due to continuing student status), a couple thousand in credit debt, and no savings. My credit score, last I checked, is about 695, if that matters to anyone.
I'm wondering what my options are at this point. I mean, I feel like going to graduate school is going to require a nice chunk of money all at once, to cover moving (that is, gas money to drive my packed minivan to wherever I end up going, maybe hotel stays en route), temporary housing while apartment searching, and then deposit and initial rent/utilities payments, buying (minimal) furniture and things as simple and stupid as a dish set and a plunger and toilet paper and other things that I don't have/won't be bringing with me.
My thoughts right now have been tending toward paying down my credit card balances by literally using my entire part-time pay checks this semester (~$250 every other week). Then this summer I'd like to see if a bank would be willing to give me a personal loan or line of credit (I'm thinking $5-7k) that I can use to pay off my credit cards, as well as have extra cash to get started at my future grad school home. Ideally it would be a loan with no pre-payment penalties, so I can just pay back whatever I don't need up front once the TA/RA/Fellowship money starts coming in, and not have to worry about having too much more debt.
Anyway, does this sound reasonable? Sorry for rambling, but this is a topic that, as I said, I worry about every night, which is wreaking havoc on my QM studying. I'd prefer advice from people who have gone through something similar before, but I'll be willing to read any comments. Also, use this space to talk about your own "transition finance" worries as well.