Now 48, Megan Dunn is still paying off the huge student loan she first took out when she was 17. This is her story.
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Student Loans are going to call me back in 18 to 27 minutes. It would be great if I could write this essay in that space of time … technically I should be able to because I don’t know much about money except that it doesn’t grow on trees, but avocados do. We have an avocado tree in our back yard.
The tree is a bit of a local myth. It’s not the norm to have an avocado tree on the back of a hill in turbulent Wellington, where the batwings of countless Blunt umbrellas are flipped inside-out on the whim of a northerly or a southerly. But the avocado tree is stoic, resilient. Unflappable. On good days my daughter climbs the branches. Or my partner bags up avocados, like hand grenades—that dense thick almost reptilian skin of the avocado—and gives them away to neighbours and friends. The avocados that fall into the grass below the tree are not always ripe, but hard as little meteors, unyielding. The fallen ones rot, their black skin eaten away by the agitation of local kākā.
It is the avocado that embodies everything I know about money. I moved back to New Zealand in 2010. I had spent 10 years away in the UK, working in bookstores, and chipping away at my life, one deep read at a time. I worked in bookstores because I have always felt comforted by the presence of books, in their multitude, pages that can be strummed, the faint whirr and stirring of books, flicked through idly.
I guess what I am telling you is that I wasn’t paying attention to money. I’m not sure if I knew that money existed. I only knew it didn’t grow on trees. Now, at the ripe old age of 48, I find myself aghast that I’ve eaten so much smashed avocado on toast. Yes, it was me. I was the avocado eater. And now another even more shocking confession: I still have the student loan that I took out when I was 17. That student loan has grown like an avocado tree, yielding interest. I grew it inattentively, because for so long I didn’t know how to look at money.
I took out my student loan the year the scheme was introduced in 1992. The one question I asked before I signed the contract: if I die, will my parents have to pay off my loan? I was reassured: no, my loan will die with me. I am not dead yet, but neither is my student loan.
My mum, however, is dead. It wasn’t until I cleaned out her rented room, sorted out her paperwork, sent the mounds of clothes on her single bed back to op shops, that it hit me. Mum was always an avid op shopper, and closed her accounts, her measly savings, the bank bonds worth the same $20 as when she took them out, her modest but hard-won KiwiSaver, that I thought: wake up!
Today the balance of my student loan is $37,663.06. At its high point in 2010 when I returned to New Zealand after living in England for close to a decade, my loan was almost $100,000. Let’s be specific: $98,239.77. So, I have now paid off $46,628.40 through my wages. I have paid off another $11,323.86 voluntarily. I use the word voluntarily, but I don’t mean it. I’d love to be rid of this loan. It is my albatross. Or rather my giant avocado and I am like a kākā trying to decimate the remains.
The original amount I borrowed: $35,847.22. But most of my student loan debt accumulated when I lived in England and had my head in the shelves, my thoughts stirring and whirring in the book breeze. I thought a lot about my loan then too, but I repressed it because I didn’t know how to face that debt when I could barely survive. My salary then as a chain bookseller was less than 17,000 pounds a year. Not sure the avocados were smashed on menus back then either. I could often barely afford to buy a pint. I had a brief stint married to an Irishman, walked past countless greasy spoons, feeling the sediment of London accrue around me, like dust on a pigeon’s mangled red claws.
I’ve always related to pigeons, the downwardly mobile bird, the working-class writer’s nod to nature. My soul has communed with many a pigeon. I was a two-finger typer at Office Angels, a prodigal office administrator on the Harrow Road, an ex-Showgirls barmaid, and a once emerging video artist. Yes, I paid nearly $36,000 to go to Elam School of Fine Arts from 1992-1998, to graduate from a now defunct department called Intermedia. I made videos that mashed up famous blockbuster films like Splash and Labyrinth. I thought I was criticising mainstream society, but today my videos might simply be memes.
I can’t say I wasn’t warned. When I started university my father told me, “It’s a risk.” I did two years of a BA first. BA used to stand for “bugger all”. But it’s not bugger all when you pay interest on it. In my first year, I lived in Wellington with Dad in his echoey house by Lyall Bay. No pigeons. But seagulls, red beaked and caustic, shifty in the wind. “Life is a wave, and you want to be out there surfing it,” Dad said.
Did he even say that? I have never surfed. Didn’t understand. That year inspired my first poems, feelings still shift within me as dense and damp as sand, freighted with time, and everything against me, the wind, and the tide, the throttle of Air New Zealand flights, coming and going often sounds the same. It didn’t work out doing a BA, so I moved out of Lyall Bay and took out my student loan.
My student loan is one of the most shameful secrets of my life. For decades, I couldn’t talk about it. Sadly, that was probably when I most needed financial advice. Before I went to art school, my art teacher from high school told me to consider the student loan an investment in my future. Now it’s my past I look back on: all that distance travelled, when it seemed I was standing still, facing into the wind.
The number one regret of people on their death bed is spending too much time at work. I’m not there yet. My number one regret is my student loan.
I have been waiting 10 minutes now for the call back from Student Loans. I’m going to ask the nice person who calls me back if any of the remaining interest on my student loan can be written off. It’s a question I’ve asked before. But I am going to ask it again. It’s not the most preposterous question I’ve ever asked. I spent two years interviewing people who work as mermaids. Really. There are women and men and non-binary people working and living as professional and recreational mermaids all over the world. I felt called to do those interviews. I had some idea that if only I could write a bestseller about mermaids, I could finally pay off my student loan. But now I’ve given up on that approach.
I have no idea who the person is that is going to call me back. But they are as real as I am. They probably have bad days at work; unreasonable calls, questions, demands.
I have paid back what I borrowed now. I have also paid back another $25,000-$30,000 in pure interest too. So, I am not objecting to the idea that borrowers must repay their loans. I am objecting to what, for a number of years, I have referred to privately using a metaphor that is distasteful, because of the shame I feel about my loan and the savage way I let it accrue, when I was barely in control of myself or my life; when I just couldn’t get who I was to add up and make any sense, or any money either.
In England I did a master’s in creative writing. But that time round I had the good sense to work full-time while I studied, and not get into more debt. Yet I may as well have been training as a mermaid. Alas, I’m not a good swimmer. Or a surfer. In fact, I once nearly drowned at Piha. I was in my 20s and out way too far; I’d been enjoying the day, but then my legs were tired, and I couldn’t touch the ground, and I called to my friend, her name was Cass, short for Cassandra. She was swimming near me, both of us far from the beach, and she said, “don’t worry” and swam gently alongside me, until I could touch my feet back on the ground. Thank you, Cass. Her beautiful brown eyes, her quiet regard, the way she saw the fear in me and didn’t let it overwhelm her.
Of course, if I had died that day my student loan would have died with me.
Has it been 18 minutes yet?
I do blame myself. My student loan is a reflection of me, a self-portrait tallied in numbers. I have suffered from low self-esteem. I have often felt worthless. I am speaking metaphorically, but there is a relationship with my financial disposition. I am now earning a reasonable salary, yet for many years, I have struggled to have anything left at the end of my paycheck. I don’t own a house. I had my first and only child at the age of 40. I was waiting, you see. I was waiting for everything to be OK, for things to work out, for my feet to touch the ground, for my adult life to become financially sound. I am lucky in many ways. I check my privilege. But I check my student loan balance too.
$37,663.06. Pure interest.
Funny how life can bounce back. Remember cheques? I’m old enough to remember writing out cheques to cash. Bounced cheques.
Suddenly—well over 27 minutes later—my phone rings and I jump out of my skin. “Hello,” an automated female voice booms, “Please wait while your call is transferred…”
Not a real person. Yet.
‘How Bizarre’ is playing. Cruising down the freeway in the hot, hot sun…
“Hello, my name is Amy, how can I help you today?” She has a kind voice. She sounds no older than her 30s to me, maybe even late 20s.
“Hi Amy, I want to discuss my student loan and see if I can get any interest written off it…” I begin.
“Let me bring up your details…” Amy says.
She checks my address. “Yes, that is my address.”
“I have paid back double what I borrowed already,” I say, exaggerating because that’s how it feels. “I want to see if I pay half of the remaining amount, would Student Loans write off the remaining interest?”
“Let me have a look and get a bit more familiar with your account,” Amy says. “Can I put you on hold?”
Yes.
‘Sierra Leone’. I like this song, very atmospheric. Reminds me of my childhood. Living across from the orchard in that rented flat with my mum, the shadows crowding in outside, the trees black and slender and sleek in the dark. The radio on.
Another hit from the 80s. I’m walking in light… I’m walking in light…
When Amy comes back on the line, she is more familiar with my student loan. She understands what I am saying. Her tone is even, educated, measured, calm, with an undertone of sadness. “I understand what you are saying, but the interest on your loan has been correctly charged. So unfortunately, the Inland Revenue can’t take any interest off your loan because the interest has all been correctly charged.”
“I’m not saying the loan interest hasn’t been charged correctly, that’s not what I am saying.”
I explain that my friend in London had half his loan written off by IRD and paid half. He took out a loan and is now sorted. That’s what he told me, when I saw him over Christmas. My counsellor also has a son who worked for IRD and knew of people that have had their loans written off (or was it just reduced?) by IRD. I don’t have the specifics. But it’s all in the specifics. Because the interest my loan has accrued is specific to me.
“Some people have had penalty payments written off,” Amy explains, “but your interest has been correctly charged, not in error.”
“I don’t believe you. I don’t believe that people aren’t getting their loans written off.” My tone now has an underbelly of hysteria.
“Some people have had penalty payments written off,” Amy explains again, “but your interest has been correctly charged.”
“Yes, but in 2001 the law changed, legislating that resident student loan borrowers would no longer accrue interest while they studied. But that was too late for me, as I took out my student loan in 1992 when I was only 17. And since 2006, all borrowers living in New Zealand have been exempt from interest, but I spent that decade overseas. I am nearly 50, Amy, and have been paying back the student loan I took out at 17 all my life, now people have to have their loan signed by a parent or guardian if they are 17 or under.”
“I understand what you’re saying,” Amy says.
“Do you have a student loan, Amy?” I ask.
A pause. Measured out. “No.”
“Good,” I say. “Good for you. What I am really saying is that I want the interest I accumulated while studying and while living in New Zealand to be written off. That’s $17,000 of interest. I left New Zealand in July 2001; my student loan total was then already $52,000. Now no one even gets charged that interest anymore. You know what I am saying don’t you, Amy?”
“I understand what you are saying,” she says.
“I know that this is not your problem and I’m not angry with you, Amy.” This is more or less true. Though I am accumulating anger, as I knew I would, which is why I have put off making the call.
“I will go public with this, Amy.” I leave that hanging. I don’t say I will go public by writing an essay. I want Amy to feel my pain. Not feel confused. Though she is probably both confused and in pain at this point.
“I could speak to someone on the second call line, to see is there is some process that I have missed, or something I’ve misunderstood,” Amy offers. We both know she has missed nothing, that there is nothing that can be done. I assume the second call line is vaguely managerial. Maybe decision-makers lurk on the second call line, maybe the one that wrote off my friend’s loan?
Amy asks me to stay on the line, while she contacts the second call line.
“Can you call me back?” I say.
“No,” Amy says, meek but firm. “I can only do this if you stay on the line. If you don’t have time for that…” her voice trails off.
“I have to go to the GP,” I rage, “about my health, which as you can appreciate Amy, isn’t very good. I’m nearly 50 and I’m being bled dry by my student loan. Which I have paid off, and I have paid $30,000 in interest too!”
I don’t tell Amy I am going to have my biannual cervical smear, because there are some things she doesn’t need to know.
“Why can’t you call me back?” I ask.
Amy seems somewhat stunned by this question. So, I stay on the line (anything to make life easier for Amy and for me), put on my coat, keys wallet, leave the rented flat, not unlike the one I grew up in with Mum, and walk down the hill towards the GP. I hear in that time ‘Sierra Leone’ again, followed by ‘Walking in Light’. The wind whips around me, sweat stale on my back, inside my big khaki coat, striding into the afternoon, stopping to frantically itch my one shin covered in vicious red flaky eczema, the skin so raw it’s driving me mad. I’m wearing a long skirt because it’s easier for a smear. Eventually Amy returns to tell me what we both already know.
“Computer says no, basically,” I reply. Even though I know it is not Amy’s fault.
Amy understands I’m not blaming her or saying it is her fault. She understands it is not personal.
“I understand the interest on my loan is correctly charged but what I don’t understand is how some people I know have had sums from their loans written off, but it is useful to know about penalty charges, this is new information for me, the loan has ruined my life,” I say.
“I’m sorry,” Amy says. At some point.
“Are you?” I ask. “Are you?”
“I understand what you are saying,” Amy repeats.
“You should go and have a biscuit and a cup of tea next,” I say. “But I hope you have many uncomfortable conversations with people like me.”
I’m not sure what my logic is at this point, other than being sick of hearing her say, “I understand what you are saying.” That must be the apex of her difficult-conversations training. Her voice of measured, calm sadness. I imagine her putting down the phone and vaping, then bitching with her colleagues to detox.
“I’m saying it’s unfair,” I cry into the wind.
“I can’t comment on that,” Amy replies, but she recommends I contact my local MP because that’s what it will take to change the legislation. A very human, sensible suggestion from her, although in the context of the world’s problems, it’s hard to understand how my student loan will be a priority.
My hysteria is like a northerly coming in at 60. It’s gusting, my anger is gusting. “I am trying to change things for my daughter,” I say. “I’m ashamed, for so long I couldn’t talk about it because I was too ashamed.”
I can’t be the only avocado eater walking into the wind. Life is a wave, and I want to be surfing it. No. I don’t. But I don’t want to be drowning either. Flattened out. I pass a row of fluoro-orange road cones staggered along the road. “This country’s a mess,” I tell Amy.
“We’ve gotten off topic, Megan,” she says.
That’s the one line that really annoys me. Is it because it’s true?
On Tasman Street, I look up and see a billboard of a massive halved avocado. Fresh and ripe. Its smooth brown stone poking out proudly like a pregnant belly. I laugh.
It’s now well over a year since I spoke to Amy. The avocado tree in the backyard is doing fine, though it is very overgrown, drooping down over the concrete path. The avocados cling tightly to the branches like grinchy Christmas baubles. A few weeks back, Heather from down the road wanted to have a look at it. I said yes. After all, it ain’t my tree. Hyojun, from the back flat, wonders if pruning it would help. No idea. Invisible interlopers sometimes disappear up the side path and fill shopping bags with avocados to take away. I don’t blame them.
I finally paid my student loan off a few months ago. Voluntarily. Bit the bullet. In the past year, I’ve talked about money openly more than I ever have in my entire life. I even met with two financial advisors, one ripe with advice, the other hard and unyielding. The good one said there are four things you can do with money: save it, spend it, invest it, or give it away. She suggested blitzing the remainder of my student loan because even though I would deplete my small savings it might be good for my mental health. Next, I did an online course for women to get better acquainted with their personal money story. In a role-play exercise I had to pretend to talk directly to money, so I said, “Hi Money, I don’t think we’ve ever met before.”
I’m writing this essay for the avocado eaters now, for the ones like me who might need to get better acquainted with their personal money stories, who might need to be able to look debt in the face, just in case. I wish I had dealt with things sooner, stopped the debt in its tracks, stopped praying to the God of Lotto or big art prizes. But maybe that’s just another delusion. I’m not sure whether to blame myself, my family tree, structural inequity or maybe the patriarchy? Bit of everything I reckon.
One thing I don’t blame: avocados.
Friendly avocados are everywhere these days, cheering us on. I bought my daughter a money jar in the form of a benevolent ceramic avocado. Got it from Iko Iko. A month ago, I picked up a soft toy avocado from a spinner in the Hong Kong airport; couldn’t resist. The avocado was smiling at me. Its furry stone waiting to be stroked like a buddha. I squeezed it all the way to the UK. Once there, my father-in-law’s Bichon Frise picked up the soft toy avocado in his jaws and ran away. He loved that avocado.
So, what’s the moral of my student loan essay? I don’t know. I’m still working out my new relationship to money. But one day recently when I got home from work my daughter said, “Grandad told me a good way to ripen an avocado.” “Oh yeah?” I replied. “What?”
Granddad stood near the lonely wooden fruit bowl, sporting one avocado, a soft apple, and a speckled banana. “You put a banana next to it. You probably know that,” Dad said. I didn’t know.
After he left, I nuzzled the banana right up next to the avocado. Now there’s only the avocado left in the bowl, so soft that if we don’t eat it soon, it will go bad.
Megan Dunn is the author of The Mermaid Chronicles: A Midlife Mer-moir ($35, Penguin NZ) about motherhood, mermaids, magical thinking and mundanity; and Things I Learned at Art School ($35, Penguin NZ). Megan recommends checking out Hi Money, also the Instagram handle @What_would_she_do for practical money advice from a great financial advisor. Megan still eats avocados.