Why 24k a Year Is Enough for Us

In the last post, I mentioned our current level of income.

To review, my husband makes 24k a year, and we plan to use all of his income to payback the loan.

That means we are going to live off of what I make, which is a little more than just a quarter of what he is making.

I can see a big question mark in your head right now. How do we survive with about 6k a year for both of us? Or even, how did we survive with 24k, and planning to pay off our debt at the same time?

The question mark will probably inflate a little after I tell you that we were living very comfortable before the plan started, and after the budgeting, we can make it without starving ourselves.

The thing I haven't mentioned was that, we are living in Vietnam.

Where we live is actually a key point that holds up the entire plan.

Because in Vietnam, 24k a year doesn't put us among the royalty, but it does give us a very comfortable life. My husband was comfortable taking the job that he has now because he can totally support himself, plus a freelancing wife with unreliable income in toll. We had a wedding and we fully furnished our apartment with this money.

And what I'm making, what we are planning to live by after the plan starts, is actually an average level in this country. We will discuss the cost of living in Vietnam in a later post.

Don't worry about things that you can't control. Worry instead about things that you can.

You may be tempted to ask why we are living in Vietnam and trying to pay back student loan in the US. Some might suggest that if we both move back to the US, we may be able to make a lot more money, and pay off the loan much faster.

The thing is, we did try to look for job back in the US. We both have college degree, my husband with a master. However back when we got out of school with no network and no experience, one studied finance and another public administration, the job environment just wasn't so friendly to us. My husband works three part time jobs, totaling up to about 70-80 hours to barely survive. I also worked as a waitress and cashier and make just enough for rent and bills.

Moving to Vietnam, we immediately find jobs. In between places, the waiting period is about a month top. At some point, my husband got two offers within a week of each other, and get to pick and choose. And I'm not talking about jobs that can support us, but also jobs that lead somewhere. Jobs that we can proudly display on our resume, jobs that gives us skills and experiences to brag about in interviews. It's simple: just speaking English here is an asset. This asset gets us started in fields that we wouldn't be able to get our foot in the door back in the US. We wanted to gain experience and reference first, and hopefully when we move back to the US, these will help us move on with our career. We just chose a different jump start from everyone else.

Now with a couple years of experience, we can move back to the US, but we may or may not find good paying jobs to support ourselves and to save toward the loan. We can try really hard, but it is something out of our control.

What we can control, however, is our budget and cost of living. Since we were living very comfortable before, there is room to cut back. And there is cash to be saved up towards the loan.

Therefore, we chose to focus on what we can control, our cost of living. Our plan is to cut back and pay back our loan before anything else. Our goal is that, if and when we come back to the US, we will be debt-free.