How to pay off my student loans by justinpocta

"Slow and difficult at first, but fun when I started seeing progress and passed major milestones."

How I did it:

1) i saved up $1k emergency fund first.
2) i learned my bare low-end monthly budget for all expenses. when i knew how low i could keep things, i would try to spend less on groceries, eating out, netflix/entertainment, etc.
3) using mint.com was helpful in tracking how well i was doing.
4) i put everything leftover straight toward loans until it was done. this meant dropping painful amounts for the sake of financial freedom.

Lessons & tips: - measure longer term goal of paying off loan vs your monthly goals/desires.

- i'm a simple spender. food, basic necessities, occasional car troubles. if you like spending, this may be more difficult.
- focusing on each single month instead of the full scope of the loan payment timeline was helpful for me to attack each particular segment of time by considering what steps i could take every month to spend as little as possible.

Resources: mint.com was helpful and also encouraging to watch the progress via bar charts.



2 people found this helpful
 

Dec 16, 11:59PM PST | 1 comment | 17 cheers


Comments:

Janelle563

I love mint.com. It really is so helpful.
Congrats on meeting this ambitious goal!

Dec 20, 05:12PM PST | Respond to this 1 cheer


justinpocta has gotten 17 cheers on this entry.

 

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