pay off my student loans

So, last time I posted an amount was when I finished grad school almost a year ago. At that point I owed a total (undergrad & grad) of $64,045.14. Well, since then I have pretty much been putting almost all of my extra money towards loans…I admit I am still bad about buying my lunch out, so that’s a possible source of additional money to go toward the loans. But my boyfriend and I live very simply – small house, no car, etc.

Anyway, at this point, my new total is $59,720.56. I’ve obviously paid a bit more than it sounds like I have because of interest constantly accruing.

In one sense, I feel really good, because I know I have been relentless in paying off the debt. But in another sense, the total amount of debt is just so huge! It can be so frustrating thinking about what I could do – both for myself (travel!) and for others less fortunate – if I didn’t have to keep chipping away at the loans.

Garrett Rooney is cool. It looks like he hasn’t posted for a long time, but he was the first one to add this to his list…and now there are 2200 people. The goals I made up haven’t attracted extra people. Blech!

I think I posted earlier that two of my loans, from undergrad, don’t have the same grace period post-graduate school as all my other ones. So I am paying $40 a month on one of them and $49.79 on the other. Both have very low interest rates…lower than my graduate loans…so I’m going to put extra money toward the graduate loans, even though they are still in grace period.

My Perkins loan has the lowest rate, the smallest total amount due and the lowest monthly payment (the $40/month one)...but it is frustrating, because it will still take me over two years to pay it off! And it is the “tiny one”. Grrrrr…

I am sort of mad this morning, because most of my student loans have a six month grace period, but my UNDERgraduate loan DOESN’T. I guess because I had my grace period five years ago or whatever…

So I have to start repaying that loan NOW (it was deferred while I was in grad school). Which means interest is being capitalized AS I WRITE THIS. Which means this goal just got a little bit harder.

Blech.

I FINALLY knocked some money of the principal of the first loan I’m trying to pay off. $248.74 is paid once and for all.

OK, so as I said, I have a bunch of loans. They all have similar interest rates…within a tenth of a percent of each other. But one of them will let me make early payments online, making things easy!

So I’m going to pay that one off first. Any extra money will go there. It is at about $5,000…I am going to try to knock it out of the way by the end of the year. That will feel like a big accomplishment!

So…I am a pretty frugal person, and I’m fortunate to have found a job that pays a decent wage (not doctor/lawyer-style, but enough to live comfortably). So I had enough to make two big loan payments on two of my loans (I have, like, ten loans totaling $64,000 plus). On one of them, I paid $600, and $505 went to principal. So that’s AWESOME! Yeah for diminishing principal! On the other one, I paid $500, and unfortunately, that didn’t even cover the interest that has accrued already…I need to pay an extra $400 before I can start paying down principal, but at least I payed down the interest before it got tacked on to the loan.

I thought that the last grand total I had seemed wrong…

Now that I am COMPLETELY done with Grad School, I went ahead and added everything up. Even though I worked full-time through college and graduate school, and took out the minimum amount possible, I still have $64,045.14. That’s the current grand total. And that’s EVERYTHING.

I’m in deferment (since I JUST graduated), so that number will probably jump up once the loans start collecting interest. I am going to try to pay them down some before the interest starts, pay extra each month, etc., etc.

I may consolidate some of them, but their interest rates seem pretty low to me as is…so I don’t know whether consolidating would really be worth it.

Whew!

I’m finally done with school, so I’m also totally done taking out student loans. I’ve tried to keep them as low as possible by working full time and not taking out any more than I absolutely need for tuition. Now it is time to start paying them back…

OK, so I added up all that I owe at this point, and it is $34,273.17. Of course, I will probably have to take out a couple thousand more for this semester. And I also seem to recall another pesky, tiny loan floating out there, but I couldn’t find the paperwork. So I’d say when I’m all through with school, it will be $40,000.

But for now, the magic number is $34,273.17. Yuck!