How to Ask Your Parents for $40,000 Student Debt Relief in a Red Envelope
I will also accept 4 incremental payments of $10,000 but they must in a hong bao.
February 11, 2021
By: Julia Zhen
A common Lunar New Year tradition in Chinese culture is receiving red envelopes, in Mandarin “hong bao”, from your elders. I remember I used to get flushed with a hong bao from every relative around the holiday. Most only contained minimal amounts of cash, but as I’ve gotten older, it only makes sense for these amounts to rise due to things like inflation, higher living standards, and because Biden is raising the minimum wage and only relieving $10,000 in student debt, and I went to an out of state school that totally was not worth it.
Tip #1 – Cry about it. Like a lot. Like A LOT, A LOT. If you thought you were done crying, you’re not. Keep. Crying. About. It
Your parents aren’t stupid. At this point, if you’re graduated, they’re probably pretty sick of your shit. If you keep crying about it, odds are maybe one of these Lunar New Years, they may plop a little sum of money to help pay off your debts and make you shut up. Some money is better than nothing!
Tip #2 – Complain about how your parents paid for your sibling to go to school but not you.
Ok sure, your sibling opted for a much cheaper in-state school that had pretty much the same level of education as the dumb little private liberal arts college that you went to. So what? They paid for Michelle’s courses and they should pay for mine!!! It’s only fair!!! Michelle got a finance degree so that means she’s not as likely to come home to take care of our parents when they get sick and old! So you should make them think about which child they want to invest in that will take care of them when they’re elderly. It does not matter what I got my degree in, but it was sociology. Regardless, drive this point home, and patiently wait to secure the red bag.
Tip #3 – Threaten them by telling them you’re moving back home if they don’t give you the money to pay off your debt.
Some parents will like the idea of having their children back home, but it’s important here to really just annoy the shit out of them. Like eat an exorbitant amount of food, play on the family piano (that hasn’t been touched in years) as loudly as possible at night. The icing on the cake would be to just start smoking weed in your room, but very stealthily, so that you end up gaslighting them when they confront you about smoking weed. Hopefully after about a year they’ll get fed up and just pay you to leave. We can’t guarantee this method will allow for payment delivery via a hong bao, but either way, you’re getting paid! Cha-ching baby!
I hope these lessons help you get the $40,000 you need or however much it is. I’ve been stealing $20 out of my mom’s purse every chance I get since I was like 10, so I’ll hopefully be catching up to my debt pretty soon.
