I was hoping to enter May with my current momentum carrying me forward in full force, but unfortunately that plan may have taken a slight delay in the mean time. If you remember in March I was able to make the last payment on my federal loan, and last month I only had to make a single payment on my remaining private loan. And while I still have a $25,000 balance remaining on that last loan, it felt great to make that one payment. I even adjusted my goal for 2015 from $15,000 to $24,000 as plans and circumstances changed allowing me to continue putting $2400 towards my loans each month for at least the next few months. But those plans hit a brick wall last month and it’s reflected in my student loan payment this month!
The reason for the lowered amount was getting into a car accident. I was heading home from work and driving in the right hand lane because my exit was coming up in a few miles. The road splits off for a two lane exit, and right after the split I noticed a car coming straight at me from the middle lane. I started slamming on the breaks and then the horn, but the car kept coming. Luckily from hitting the brakes I avoided the other car making a direct impact into the driver side, but they still hit the left-front of my car.
I had no injuries, no airbag or anything, and luckily the other driver was fine. I have not been so lucky with my car and insurance, and I plan on providing more detailed updates in a follow up post. But that’s the background information I’m still not sure what the other driver was thinking though and it’s been a frustrating experience! If you missed your exit, just take the next one and turn around (and it’s actually easy to do that in this particular area).
Here are the numbers for May after making my payments:
So I put $1500 towards my loans at my own caution. It looks like I’m going to be needing some money for a new (used) car purchase, so I figured it would be better to proactively dial down the loan payments for the time being. Initially any excess money in the budget was going towards fully funding my Roth IRA for the year but I doubt there will really be any extra money in the budget with the added expense now.
I have a $12,000 emergency fund that would essentially be estimated around 6 months of expenses if I were to move out today factoring in the cost of rent. I’m going to be taking some money out of that, but I’d rather not have to deplete it fully. I have the breathing room in my budget based on my income and expenses, and I can cut from my student loan payments in the mean time which should enable me to still max out the Roth IRA and not completely kill my emergency fund in the process.
$12,371.53 principal paid out of $15,000 goal = 82.5% of goal met after 5 months
$12,371.53 principal paid out of $24,000 goal = 51.5% of goal met after 5 months
Image Source: Leah Tardivel
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