Quote Originally Posted by tulip View Post
Your commute is one mile? Sell the car and walk. Or take the bus, but in the time you wait for the bus, you can already be there.

If you must keep the car, shop around for insurance. I cut mine by many hundreds of dollars just by asking.
Alas, car is necessary. There's no real public transport system, no sidewalks between my apartment and the university (they're all on the other side). I'm not in Dayton itself--rather, I'm in a suburb that seems to be rigged to be unwalkable. I got away with no car in Cleveland because there were sidewalks and public transit. I swear, I'm moving back to a bigger city.

The loans are grad school loans, and since I'm still in school, they're not due yet, though the unsubsidized ones are collecting interest.