conversation: User (financialthrowout): "I don't really know if this has been talked about before, but this is just an ephipany I had that I'd like to share.\n\nI graduated with a good amount of college debt, and after 5 years being out of school I still have (as of January 2016) over 5 years left. Ugh. That's paying my minimum, $350, plus helping my mom out with $200 towards their part of my loan (I couldn't convince her to give me the rest of the loan in their name, I'm very lucky but also very guilty). So that's $550 out the door per month. I saw that as a huge burden, a weight I've been carrying since graduation.\n\nHere is what occurred to me yesterday. I make $70k a year, with around $44.4k of that being take-home. That's a good chunk of change (at least in comparison to the loan). That, and my half of the rent is $425. So why is this college loan such a burden if I'm making pretty good money for my age? So, I wondered to myself, can I pay it off in a year? Well, after doing some basic spreadsheeting I found that the answer is yes! I would have to literally cut ALL luxuries in my life down to zero, but the truth laid right there on the screen. With basic home-made foods, no vacations, no more padding of my emergency fund (now sitting at a pretty-comfortable $6.5k), drastically reduced car maintenance fund (we'll see about that), and very few meals out I think I can do this.\n\nOn the car ride home from work, I thought about what this meant. Wouldn't I be unhappy? Isn't that why we work so hard?\n\nI don't think so. In fact, I think this might revolutionize the way I, a recent (well 5 years ago) college grad, perceive and manage money. Rather than just blowing it on things and meals, I will learn to appreciate every dollar I have or spend. And as someone with aspirations to one day start a company, I think this will help me drastically with managing money professionally. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that living poor for a year might be one of the best things that could happen to me. And at the end of it, my loans would be gone!\n\nTL;DR if you're living any luxuries at all, consider living poor for a while. Not only will you have extra cash at the end, it might change the entire way you look at your life - both financially and personally."
  Self: "How does one reduce car maintenance? "
  wut_seriously (wut_seriously): "drive less, don't be hard on the vehicle.  Do your own repairs."
  Self: "I would assume so, but I'm curious what OP thinks it means. What you said is all well and good, something like stretching out oil changes is not."
  User (financialthrowout): "I wouldn't stretch out oil changes, that'll just end up with a MASSIVE repair later on. Engines aren't cheap."
  cantcountnoaccount (cantcountnoaccount): "You shouldn't stretch out oil changes, but you should follow the schedule in the manual and it's VERY rare for 3,000 to be the recommended interval. "
  katarh (katarh): "A good mechanic will tell you that, too.  Mine tells me not to come back unless it's at 5,000 miles or six months, or making a funny smell or noise."
  