Time for another progress report on my student loan progress with only a few months left in the year now. It seems like this year has really flown by and I’m already missing the warmer weather, now if only my student loans could fly by just as fast. I was actually looking forward to this month’s progress report as I knew I would be paying off another loan this month, which is always a good feeling. I’m trying to end the last few months of 2014 on a high note, looking to get it down to three total loans and trying to meet both my stretch and extra goals. We’ll see how November and December end up going, but I think October was a great start for meeting those goals.
Here’s how my student loans look after making my October payments:
Like I had said earlier, I was able to completely pay off government loan 7 this month. It only had $169 left in last month and I was very happy to just get rid of it! I’ve also hit another important milestone and that is the fact that I have now paid back over half of my loans. I started out with over $83,000 in debt and I’m happy to say that it’s all downhill from here, or at least I hope so.
To put things in perspective, current college graduates graduating end up with an average of $30,000 in total debt and I’m just approaching $40,000. I’m pushing forward but it’s disheartening to know that I haven’t even hit the average debt for college students that are graduating THIS year, not to mention when I graduated a few years ago. I keep pushing forward though and constantly remind myself that you can’t change what happened in the past, but I can positively change my future prospects.
Here are what my goals look like after making the October payments:
Main Goal: $20,000 Principal Reduction: $23,361.96 so far = DONE!
Stretch Goal: $25,000 Principal Reduction $23,361.96 so far = 93.4%
Extra Goal: $30,000 Principal Reduction $23,361.96 so far = 77.9%
I finished my “main” goal last month with four months to spare, which was awesome. Putting $20,000 towards my loans this month was no small feat and everything over that amount is just icing on the cake at this point. I’m now also even closer to hitting my stretch goal at 93% complete, and I’m on pace to finish that goal next month – an entire month early.
I had a feeling that I’d be able to hit both of these goals, so I also created an “extra” goal of $30,000 for the year. At my current pace I’m going to fall just short of meeting that goal but that’s okay with me. I’m going to try to get as close as possible to hitting that goal, and I might even have a few tricks up my sleeve to try to actually hit that goal in the coming months 😉
You have done amazingly well on this payoff. Don’t look at others. Just look at YOUR bottom line!
Thank you, sometimes it’s hard to look at things in a vacuum though. I try not to compare myself to others that often, but there is always that sense of competition I feel like.
I just need to stick to my plan and keep moving forward though 🙂
You are an inspiration. I just graduated with a JD and have 150,000 in principal, with some interest in tow. With no full time work lined up it is difficult to even find the tunnel, let alone see the light on the other side. But your public commitment is very inspiring, so thank you!
Side note: in an Earlier post (i believe your first post in fact) you said that fedloan was charging more interest than the minimum payment. Is that still occurring? I realize you always pay more than is due but I want to know as I have fed loan as my servicer and want to keep their tricks in check.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting Ben, this is why I love to write about this. I’m hoping that I can show others it IS possible to get out debt. It’s not the best situation and it’s a lot of hard work and dedication but there is some light at the end of the tunnel.
I know the law job market is tough right now, but keep pushing and applying to jobs. Even if it’s just one a day. That’s what I was doing and then I kept a document of each one and made sure to follow up a week later with each one. Work all of your connections and put your name out there!
So with FedLoan, the reason they were doing that was because I was giving such large payments and they were setting my status to “paid ahead” to adjust for that. Once I removed the paid ahead status permanently (a bit of the headache but they finally did that) and started manually putting amounts in from the payment screen I haven’t had any further issues with them.