Operation: Evict the Student Loans
Once upon a time, in a perfectly ordinary house, two adults made a deal.
One adult (me) went to graduate school and emerged with knowledge, a diploma, and approximately $38,000 worth of educational baggage.
The other adult (my husband) looked at the numbers and said, "Perhaps we should finish paying off the student loans before we start trying for a baby."
And thus, a quest was born.
Our current life looks a lot like many people's: we both work full-time, pay the mortgage, pay bills, and faithfully send money every month to the Great and Powerful Student Loan Kingdom.
The agreement is simple: no baby quest until the student loan dragon has been defeated.
Will we have children someday? Maybe.
Will we be happy if we don't? Also maybe.
The point isn't that we're racing against a clock. The point is that we're intentionally not even attempting the next chapter until this one is finished.
Which led me to wonder:
What would happen if I put this on the internet?
Could a group of friends, acquaintances, strangers, former classmates, and random people who accidentally clicked a link collectively help retire $38,000 of graduate school debt?
This is equal parts fundraiser, sociology experiment, and mild curiosity about humanity.
If you'd like to contribute, we'd be incredibly grateful.
If you can't contribute, we completely understand. Truly. Mortgages exist. Groceries exist. Life exists.
But I'd love for everyone—donor or not—to participate in one way:
Tell us your favorite family tradition.
Maybe it's a holiday ritual.
Maybe it's a recipe.
Maybe it's a weird game your family plays every Thanksgiving.
Maybe it's something your grandparents did that deserves to survive another generation.
If this experiment succeeds and someday we do have kids, we'll have a collection of traditions gathered from people all over the place. And if we don't have kids, we'll still have a wonderful collection of stories and traditions from kind humans.
So here's the mission:
Student loan dragon: $38,000
Mortgage: already fighting that beast
Employment status: both working full-time
Hope level: cautiously optimistic
Curiosity level: extremely high
If you'd like to help us speed-run adulthood, thank you.
If you'd rather just leave a tradition, that's wonderful too.
And if nothing else, thank you for stopping by this strange little social experiment.
May your coffee stay hot, your Wi-Fi stay connected, and your student loans be smaller than mine.
