My student loan story continues with another month of repayment as we head towards the end of October. This month will not be as exciting and there won’t be as much paid back as last month, but that’s not to say that I didn’t make any progress. I’ve pretty much stuck to my budget so I was able to put a great amount towards my loans. I guess you can just say I’m back with you regularly scheduled programming as opposed to more breaking news.Here’s a look at my updated loan balances after making my October payments:
| Loan | Loan Amount | Change | Interest Rate |
| Private 1 | $ 16,204.81 | $ (1,531.58) | 7.92% |
| Private 2 | $ 19,729.99 | $ (57.94) | 7.92% |
| Private 3 | $ – | $ – | 7.92% |
| Private 4 | $ 3,420.48 | $ (27.92) | 7.35% |
| Gov 1 | $ 3,694.54 | $ (30.39) | 3.40% |
| Gov 2 | $ 3,216.55 | $ (55.48) | 6.80% |
| Gov 3 | $ 5,101.70 | $ (44.86) | 4.50% |
| Gov 4 | $ 1,934.17 | $ (36.58) | 6.80% |
| Gov 5 | $ 5,141.97 | $ (11.86) | 5.60% |
| Gov 6 | $ 2,047.44 | $ (37.68) | 6.80% |
| Gov 7 | $ 4,207.73 | $ (9.09) | 6.00% |
| Gov 8 | $ 3,221.59 | $ (49.93) | 6.80% |
| Total | $ 67,920.97 | $ (1,893.31) |
As you can see I managed to take off almost $1,900 towards my loans in total this month. With going camping I didn’t want to go overboard with how much I was putting towards them just in case, but I wanted to hit my “normal” payment amount around $2,200. I ended up settling on about $2,300 towards them this month and I’m definitely fine with that. I’d really like to start pushing towards that $2,500 each month and it will all depend on how my budget goes on a month by month case.
I’m feeling a little bit bummed out looking at my loans again, but in reality I keep telling myself doing a great job at paying my loans back as fast as possible. It’s just still a very daunting number when looking at my total loans and realizing that last month I paid over $5,000. That is compared to “only” paying $2,300, which I know is still a huge amount for a monthly payment. I think it is just the psychological aspect that is getting to me again and the huge total still staring me down. I’ve also been itching to move out lately, for no real reason in particular other than to be independent again.
I know that I need to just refocus myself and realize that my debt repayment is a long journey, not something that will disappear overnight. As long as I keep making as much progress as I can towards them, I should feel good about it. Last month’s payment finally brought me under $70,000 for total debt which was a good milestone to hit. I also think that I have everything sorted out with FedLoan Servicing and hopefully here on out will be smooth sailing with them. My next milestone will probably be getting my total debt under my salary, but that’s still a few months away. Until then I will just keep chugging along.
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