Back in November of 2012, I wrote about my $40,000 worth of student loan debt. This was the total amount of student loans that I accumulated while I was getting my undergraduate and graduate degrees. When I wrote that post, I had hardly paid anything towards my student loans. Interest was slowing building up, but not that much, as most of my loans were still being deferred.
Ever since that post was published, I have been attacking my student loans like crazy. I have been applying any extra money towards my student loans, and I am now proud to say that they are almost gone. We have enough money in the bank to completely pay them off, but have chosen to wait as we don’t want to withdraw everything out of our emergency fund to pay my student loans off. We don’t want to tap into retirement funds as well, so those funds will stay where they currently are.
As a refresher, I graduated in May of 2010 with my B.A. in Management and my B.S. in Business Administration. I applied for jobs and was hired on at a financial firm right after I graduated. I then took a year off from school and decided to go back for my Finance MBA. I then graduated in August of 2012 with my Finance MBA. I continued working full-time throughout this and still hold my same job today. I graduated with a decent amount of debt, but I am happy that I don’t have more.
I am guilty of taking out more in student loans than I needed. Right after high school, I needed a place to live and I probably took out an extra $1,000 or $2,000 to help fund my living. So, not too horrible, but that’s still an extra couple of thousand that I probably should not have taken out.
June is my student loan payoff month.
I am so close to being done with student loans forever. I am very grateful for everything that has happened in my life, and I do realize that when it comes to student loans, that I have been lucky with the fact that they will be gone so quickly. I have worked very hard though!
I started by working on my extra income. As you all know, my extra income has been through the roof lately. I’m glad that I am able to share my journey with my extra income with you all. I hope that I have been helpful with all of my posts. I never thought that my extra income would be anywhere near where it is today, and thankfully to it I am able to pay off my student loans much more quickly.
I also have been attacking my student loans according to interest rate. The loans with the highest interest rates are the ones that I have been eliminating first. It has been nice watching each student loan disappear!
What are you doing to eliminate your loans? How much do you pay each month towards them?
Did you take out more than you needed?
Recommended reading: How To Pay Off Student Loans Faster by Starting a Side Hustle
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Luckily I never had major debt but I did have debt (some student loan and minimal credit card debt). I eventually paid everything off just by being frugal and cutting back – I didn't know about "side hustles" then. 🙂 Now I am debt free and loving it.
The only loan I have left is our dang mortgage, so I'm working on paying it off by sending extra every month towards the principal 🙂 Not very clever/new, but you better believe it's working!
As someone who wants a healthy relationship with my credit cards, I love the "Master Your Plastic" lesson. Not only do they have helpful articles, their lessons offer personalized approaches to help managed money and debt.
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I did not take out more than I needed for school but probably should have thought about how much it was actually going to be!
Great site, and important to get the SALT message out! When my husband and I married, we continued to live off of one income and used my salary to pay off our loans. It was an easy transition because we'd been used to living off our own salary anyways! Debt free in a few years and I'm so grateful.
Congrats on the fast loan payoff! We just paid off our rent house a couple of months ago and are saving up to pay our current house off faster or buy another rent house. It will feel so good to eventually be debt free!
Congrats! I was a lucky one who came out with no debt, but am considering taking some on for grad school…
I signed up!
I did have high tuition and now have high interest, but I definitely took out more than I needed. I worked full time through college, and while I didn't spend loan money on many frivolous items (that I can remember), I spent my salary on whatever I wanted. I should have saved part of my income to pay for school. I did do one decently smart thing to try to rectify the err of my ways. I took out the max in federal loans to pay off the Citi private loan with 10.5% interest. I was the first in my family to go to college, and my brother has been able to learn from my mistakes, fortunately! He also had parental help, which I didn't have.
Congratulations on seeing the end of your student loan payoff journey! I graduated with my BS in 1998 and a MS in 2004. Total students loans was about 24K. I have been paying more than the minimum but the balance was slowly decreasing. This past January I switched jobs and was able to contract with my previous employer on a part-time basis for the last 6 months in addition to my full-time job. I also worked 20-30 hours a week during tax season. Putting in all this extra time has allowed me to pay off the last $10,500 of my student loans on May 21 – just a few short days ago! Am excited to be able to utilize the money that was going to student loans to achieve additional financial goals!
I am paying the minimums on all but one of my loans with the highest interest rate, and putting everything extra a month I can towards that. Just seeing that one loan total fall has helped me immensely, at least mentally.
I definitely didn't take out more than I needed, and I actually returned some of my loans because I was able to live more cheaply than my school calculated I would. Right now the loans are in deferment, and I'm trying to figure out a strategy for paying them off without worrying too much about them. This is the first time I'll be in debt, and grad school loans are no joke!
I've taken the sacrifice now approach. I'm throwing an extra $1000 a month at my loans and still won't be paid off until 4 years 🙁
I don't have any student loan debt and am working hard to keep it that way. Saving as a high school student is not easy but I know that it will be worth it! Thanks so much for the give away!
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Wow Michelle you are my hero! I took out too much for my three degrees, over $100k. I'm working on paying off credit cards and my smallest school loan. I will put my info into saltmoney and see if that helps me. I like the design of the site.
I've been concentrating on snowflaking every penny I can to my debt. Budgeted $100 for groceries and spent $75? Great, that's $20 for debt. I do strongly regret having taken out loans to get a graduate degree in the humanities…