Categories: Student Loans

Student Loan Debt and Your Fantasy Christmas Vacation

Let me whine about the weather in Fort Lauderdale. We have to deal with all the sunshine, the almost constant top-down on the convertible weather, and never having to put snow tires on the car. Just kidding. We love it!However, sometimes you just want to go somewhere north of the subtropical and do winter things. Unfortunately, with the average student debt, not a lot of recent graduates can say they have a disposable income, and a vacation is generally a staycation at home with Netflix and pizza, if you even take one at all.

The average debt is $35,051 for a member of the class of 2014, up from $29,400 owed by the average member of the class of 2012, and that can buy a whole lot of vacation.

How much vacation?

For the Florida Sunbird, a vacation to Aspen might be just the ticket for all those sunshine-induced blues. Stay with your Significant Other at the five-star Little Nell hotel for a ten day vacation in prime holiday ski season for $19,000 in a one bedroom, mountain facing suite. Your first class round-trip airline tickets for American Airlines out of MIA are a comparatively modest $2,600 for the both of you. Don’t forget to hit REI to splash about $10,000 for serious skis and poles, boots and bindings, helmets (to safeguard all that education) and goggles. The leftover cash will help if you want to stay for New Year’s – which will set you back an extra $6,000, but if not you can still have a great time at the local gastropubs and hotspots.

If that’s a little frosty for you, what about a 7-day Windstar cruise through Tahiti? See some of the most beautiful places in all the world, such as Moorea, Bora Bora, and smell the tiare flowers up close as you swim, snorkel and kayak. The basic cabin is $4,800 per night for two people for 8 nights, so that takes care of that. Went quickly, didn’t it? Alternatively, you and five others can book a Windjammer Christmas Cruise to the US Virgin Islands for $11,333, and then splash $500 each for 6 GoPro Hero 4 cameras to record everyone’s adventures, and still give some really cool gifts on Christmas morning.

A little fantasy never hurt anyone, but don’t get lost in dreaming of paying down your loans. If your loans have gotten away from you, it’s time to develop a plan for dealing with them and freeing up your future earnings for your future instead of interest payments. There are ways to tame even the most tortuous tangle of loans, and got pay them down sooner rather than later. When it comes to getting your house in order, student loans need to be dealt with before they can suck tens of thousands from your earnings.

At Van Horn Law Group we have helped a lot of people get their loans under control, and we can help you.

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Chad Van Horn

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