student loan worries

Flying Ninja said:
If only we were all as affluent as you are from birth. Sorry pal, I wasn't born with a million dollars in the bank (and I'm not assuming you did either). Point is, not everyone is as blessed as you are with money. Don't insult the rest of us with your feather ruffling please.
Click to expand...


Was never given a dollar. Paid for college by working full time...paid for flight training by scholarships. Everything in the bank is from driving old cars and in living in houses not quite as nice as my peers and paying myself instead of a banker.

Did I work 80 hours per week thru college? Yes. Did I work twelve hours per day and do school at night? Yes. Did I continue doing this after college? Yes. Did I write a check out of my personal bank account prior to the start of every semester of college? Yes. Did my parents give me any money? No. Did a banker give me a loan? Never asked.

If you don't think it can be done...go and look. Thousands of testimonials and people living the debt free way of life.

The question for you is...are you willing to live in a $6000 trailer in order to pay your way through flight training?

Don't insult me if you're too lazy to make it happen. It may take you longer...it may take you working 80 hours per week for six years. But debt is not an option...it will ruin your life. Have a plan to pay for this education prior to receiving it...not after.

You could earn $38,000 per year delivering pizzas and working at Target. If you did this for two or three years...you would earn almost $120K. That would pay for most schools and flight training programs out there...and everybody has the ability to do it.
 
I'm with B767Driver on this one. If I can afford to make the payments on a loan, I can afford to save the money beforehand and pay cash. It will actually be easier and cheaper, since a loan will cost me huge amounts of interest above and beyond the cost of what I am buying. The only downside, if you want to consider it to be a downside, is delayed gratification. Americans have much to learn from other cultures in this area.

Don't think that I'm coming from a holier-than-thou position, either. I made the mistake of going out on a financial limb when I was in my early twenties, and had a nice new Trans Am repo'd when I was laid off from a sweet paying job with General Motors, and had to work at half the wages that I had been receiving. Been there, done that, ain't going back.

Debt is a monster that just continues to grow. The best way to stop it is to never let it in the front door in the first place. After that it takes even more dedication and hard work to stem the tide, and it is all too easy to get overwhelmed.

Flying Ninja, please don't think that I am trying to make an example of your situation, or preach to you about what you should or shouldn't have done. I'm just trying to build on your example and give advice to others out there to help them avoid similar things happening to them. You can search back through my old posts and find where I have said the same thing many times over, and it is probably the same for B767.

Sorry about what happened to you. Thank you for sharing, hopefully it will help someone else.

:(
 
B767Driver said:
You could earn $38,000 per year delivering pizzas and working at Target. If you did this for two or three years...you would earn almost $120K.
Click to expand...

Oh I understand how you did it now. You didn't file any taxes! Man...you're right. 100% correct. Sheesh...I'll start that path right now. Thanks for the advice!

SteveC said:
Thank you for sharing, hopefully it will help someone else.
Click to expand...

I didn't take an offense to what you said. I'm glad that I can be used as an example for your students. That's the whole point of me sharing my story.
 
Flying Ninja said:
They did discontinue the program as the press release indicates. It's 57 to date in the article by the way. ;)

Thanks for the flyaviator.com website, but I'm done paying a program for my training. I already made that mistake once and I'll be paying for it for the next 15 years.
Click to expand...


FlyingNinja,

Don't take 15 years to pay that loan off!! Get motivated...kick some serious, serious butt and get rid of it in 3 or 4 years. You can do it and once you get rid of it you will become seriously wealthy, because you will have learned how people get wealthy. Work 2 or 3 jobs...get rid of the cell phone and get focused. Also, consider not funding the retirement until the debt is gone. It's going to do you no good to fund a retirement plan while you have debt interest compounding at 7% annually. You will have some money saved but there will be no change in your net worth.


Get mad at me...but don't feel sorry for yourself. Take the bull by the horns and get focused and start winning financially. It won't be easy but the situation you are in isn't good. Without a doubt, within 5 years, you could wipe out that debt and have $15K cash in the bank. Within 7 years, the bank is going to be paying you a couple of hundred dollars per month...instead of you them $1k per month.

Private me if you'd like to discuss further...but do it! Dude, true stability and wealth is just a lot of hard work away.
 
Ninja,

Check out www.aircar.com. They hire people with your time, pay for F/O's in around $20k but upgrade to CA comes quick, 12-18 months for someone with your time, and they start around $40k. It's a lot of sitting around so if you get a job at your layover city you'd be able to make significantly more $$.

I can't believe CAPT duped you like that. $100k. WOW! My bud did ATP and had a job at ExpressJet 13 months from starting at ATP and only spent $33k.

~wheelsup
 
I have to agree with both SteveC and B767Driver... you can get yourself out of a financial pickle faster if you just plunk down and DO IT! I've been there myself too with financial crash courses, worked more than 1 job to pay off my debt and learned my lesson the hard way just like you are (different cirumstances, sure)...

in the end, the satisfaction of success in that nobody owns your butt (financially) outweighs the work that had to be done in order to complete the task!!

I'd also suggest holding off on the retirement because your not going to be able to put that much in and it won't accrue as fast AND you can use the extra money to keep paying those debts! besides, nobody is guaranteed to make it to retirement age.. so use the money now while you can and once everything is free an clear - open a plan and max it out!

I've seen people do what B767Driver is talking about...it takes motivation and determination, but it CAN be done! you can still achieve those dreams.. but your gonna have to work a little harder for it unfortunately.

I know more than one person that really appreciates you sharing your story...most people do tend to learn from other peoples mistakes!
 
I am really glad I read this post. I am currently living in South Korea, and am starting to do my research on flight schools for when I move back home. However, that may be 3-4 years, and I am not even in the military. I could start my PPL training right now if I were back in the states. I have been trying to find a flight school here in Korea, but it looks like they don't exist. There is 1 more place I am waiting to hear back from, but they might be charging about $220/hr to use a Cessna172. I've figured that my PPL would cost about $10-12k if I am able to get it here. It might be better to just save the money and get everything done at home, but I really have the urge to fly right now!!

Reading about Ninja's situation really makes me think about what I need to do now, to save financially, before I move back home to start earning my ratings. I think it is far to easy to just go for a huge loan and hope that you can get a regional job when you graduate. I appreciate all the advice everyone has left regarding how to finance the training, and will keep that in mind. I'm going to start working my butt off here so I can save enough to pay for my training with cash. I'm only 24, but I have already paid off my school loans, and wow, what a huge relief that is. I hated having that burden on me for 5 years, even since I took out the first loan. Saving up enough money, and working hard BEFORE your training is the right way to go in my opinion. I have only been reading this forum for about a week now, but spend about 3-4 hours each day on it...it's addicting and has so much valuable information.

One question I have though.....and hopefully somoene can answer this....Why did Ninja have a bill from ATP of $100k, when they advertise the complete course for around $45-56k, depending on whether or not you have your PPL? I thought they offered a fixed cost program...am I wrong?
 
If I had to guess, it would be a combination of 2 things. One is not completing the coursework in the time the school quoted. Flight training is big business, and if a school thinks they can get students by saying " fly a commercial jet in 3 months " ( exaggerated ..I know ) and it will cost you this much ( fixed price ), it can be tempting. The truth is, SOMETIMES, and WITH SOME SCHOOLS, few of the students complete the training in the hours of flight included with the price.

Another reason may be because FLYING NINJA did the CAPT program which cost more..on top of all the license training...not sure of how much more , but I would guess about 20 thousand more.
 
How would the program that he did be different from the one that Heath did? After reading Heath's blog, it made me a believer that is IS possible to get hired quickly, but he sure seemed to work his butt off every single day.
 
I don't know who Heath is.
Yes, it is possible to get hired quickly.
Yes, to do these fast paced programs...you must be completely dedicated and focused to complete in time.

BTW, what are you doing in Korea..work..school?
 
oh, I see, Is it the Heath listed in the member directory on jetcareers ?
Worked at ATP and then got hired at Colgan ?
If so , that post was back in September. It's been my impression that hiring has slowed down since then. It will come back, it's just a matter of finishing training at the right time. In the last month or so, A couple of companies hired too many pilots.

In other words, you could train now or start a year later and get hired at the same time either way.
 
Yes, it was Heath from this forum...

I graduated from my university in August of 2004 and have been working as an English teacher for 1 year. It's a great way to save about $12-15k a year. If you teach some private lessons on the side (maybe 8 hours a week), you can easily save about $25-30k a year. I am currently working 30 hours a week, which is the maximum allowed by law for English teachers. Maybe Ninja should move here. He will have his apartment paid for, could pay that $1000/month on the loan easily, and pay back the majority of that loan in about 3 years if he worked hard.

Hopefully I'll be back home in about 2-3 years, with enough money stocked away to pay for my training in cash (or at least most of it).
 
that sounds like a great idea. That's not a bad gig...all expenses paid for and making some extra on the side. I'm going to Japan in a few weeks to visit....I would love to live somewhere in Asia for awhile. My situation is married , baby, pets...it would be next to impossible.
 
customx is a very smart person for the korean move. i looked at the program briefly when finishing college and could not pull the trigger. i wanted to work in europe and wasn't focusing on saving money so quickly. but we all find our ways to get in the air.
 
Customx said:
One question I have though.....and hopefully somoene can answer this....Why did Ninja have a bill from ATP of $100k, when they advertise the complete course for around $45-56k, depending on whether or not you have your PPL? I thought they offered a fixed cost program...am I wrong?
Click to expand...

I went to Embry-Riddle CAPT. The program cost $65,500 when I entered it. I budgeted for 12 months and looked at my financials and figured that I can do the program with what I had in savings. The program was almost 18 months after it was said and done and after the first 12 months, I had to take out another loan to live on. I also flew on the side to try to build up hours because I didn't trust CAPT with the low hours sale. I figured if I flew above and beyond, I can at least stand out above all other cadets. So I threw all my money into flying and trying to position myself for the better. I hope this answers your question on the 100K situation.
 
Are you teaching english is Taiwan or China?

Oh...woooops. I read far enough back to see Korea.

How do you like it? I've been to Seoul. Personally, Taiwan rocks. If there was a place to be an expat. That would be it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top