$$$ Money $$$

In September, Mike and I packed up our things and moved to Fredericton, New Brunswick. Exciting. I immediately filled out an application for substitute teaching upon arriving and Mike began taking his courses at UNB. I also contacted an old professor of mine, whose music education class I used to tutor, and offered my tutoring services for his classes once again. I hung posters around the city advertising piano lessons. I figured having a few smaller jobs would give me flexibility and diminish stress levels so that I could still heal while also making money.

Subtituting did not provide the cash I planned for. As it turns out, Fredericton has a surplus of subsitute teachers. Even worse, it is a very political city where connections mean everything. Weeks went by at first where I didn't get any phonecalls. Teaching piano, tutoring, and subsititute teaching the odd day here and there were just giving me enough money to scrape by.

And suddenly, one day in mid-September, I receieved a phonecall from RBC with whom I have a student line of credit. There was a one-year grace period following the end of my degree where the loan was interest-free, but I guess that one year period had expired. They were suddenly asking me for a minimum payment of $380 per month, which was due by the end of September. What?!?!?! I just had cancer and haven't worked for an entire year-there has to be some way around this! I made an appointment with bank to discuss my oustanding circumstance. I told them my whole story-- I had just graduated university and decided to move to South Korea to teach English for a year so that I could make enough money to pay at least half of my $50,000 student loan. But, unfortunately, a month after I arrived in South Korea I was diagnosed with breast cancer. This meant that I had not accumulated enough unemployment hours over the year because I had been in school for the past 7 years. I was also working in South Korea upon graduating, so I had no employer to offer me disability leave, which is what would happen with most people. I had to undergo surgery and chemotherapy which prevented me from working. Thus, over the past year I had not earned a penny. I was just getting back into the work force. I was hoping that they could offer me some sort of grace period, even if it were a few months, until I was able to accumulate some income.

Let me tell you-- banks are concerned with nothing but profit. They had no concern for me as an individual. They said there was nothing they could do because I did not have disability insurance. The funny thing is that they previously told me that they don't even offer disability insurance on student loans unless it is asked for. When I was 18, which is when I got this line of credit, the last thing on my mind was being diagnosed with a life-threatening disease. After I insisted that there must be something they could do, they called around and gave me one other option. They said: "We can make the credit line interest-only instead of minimum payment until you are able to accumulate some income." This sounded great, until she told me how much the interest was per month-- the interest alone was $250 per month!

This was a blow to my motivation and my confidence. How was I going to get by, considering my health and my bills and everything else going on in my life?