I just made my last ever student loan payment!
I'm throwing myself a little party here -- digital drinks on me!
Yes, I know my loans weren't accruing interest on account of COVID-19, but long before that all started I'd been aggressively paying them down because I wanted them GONE. And now they ARE! (Or, they will be once the payment clears, which for some unknown reason takes my loan servicer like two full weeks).
The quarantine actually helped me accelerate payments. I rolled over what I was saving in gas money and not eating out into my loan payments. Also, as a teacher I only get paid during the school year, but I have the option to reduce my regular paychecks and roll the difference into a lump sum that gets paid out at the beginning of the summer. I choose this option so that my budgeting is consistent year-round (rather than me having to squirrel away my own nest egg for the summer from my other paychecks). The payoff amount on my loan would have been done around August had I kept with my regular schedule of payments, so I went ahead and treated myself to making the final payment in full, now, as I had the money for it upfront.
I cannot tell you how good it feels to finally be free of them. I paid off my undergrad loans in under 10 years and felt super proud of myself, only to immediately have to turn around and start the process all over again for grad school. Months after I finished my undergrad loan payments I was again accepting tens of thousands of dollars in debt so that I could get a master's degree to qualify myself for a job that I'd already been doing for years. It was not a great feeling, nor something I was very happy about, but you do what you have to do, right?
BUT NOW IT'S OVER. NO MORE STUDENT LOANS. I'VE WON THAT AMERICAN MILLENNIAL BOSS FIGHT.
It honestly feels like I just got a big raise, as, come August, once my timeline for paying the loans is done, all the money that I was putting towards them is now mine to do whatever I want with. I'm not saying this to gloat (and I know that I'm financially very privileged even in light of my debt), but simply because I'm reveling in the feeling of being out from under the suffocating thumb of a difficult financial pressure, and it feels wonderful.
EDIT: If anyone's wanting to join in my festivities remotely, participating is easy! All you need to do is pour yourself a tasty drink of your choosing, grab a delicious snack you love, and throw Carly Rae Jepsen's discography on shuffle.
Congratulations! It really is an awesome feeling too get out from under debt.
What is it you teach? Also, thank you for being a teacher. You are underpaid for what you do.
I know this is unsatisfying, but I actually don't disclose that because it's a big piece of identifying information for me. I'll share that I teach in a secondary setting, but the specific grade level(s) and subject(s) that I teach I leave out of online discussions by choice.
Thanks for the kind words though!
I hope this is one of the things you teach! (What not to share online)
Lol, yup! I am also big on teaching them basic password and online account security.
I'm so happy for you! Though now you'll have the bittersweet joy of turning around and saving that money for retirement...
I paid off my last school loan in my early 40's, and didn't really experience a significant quality of life change when that expenditure stopped. Basically, it just meant that the interest turned from a negative draw into a slightly positive accrual on savings.
Given declining relative wages for most professions, bigger costs for competitive universities, and all the other burdens on people with college loans, it's an enormous accomplishment to get off the debt treadmill.
Congratulations again, and let's all work towards an education system that doesn't put the entire burden of funding development of useful skills on the backs of individual students.
Yeah, I've got a new mortgage, and my car is ~20 years old and will likely need replacing soon, and retirement is definitely something I can contribute more to, so I'm, of course, still on the treadmill.
And I agree with you that the student loan burden is ridiculous, and it's only gotten worse as of late. I consider myself lucky that I got into both undergrad and grad school before prices fully ballooned. A lot of my coworkers have kids who are soon-to-be college aged or have already started, and I've had to have a lot of conversations with them about how many of the even moderate-cost options out there will lock the kids into deleterious payoffs incommensurate with real-world salaries.
The higher end is even worse. One of my coworker's sons was planning on attending a $50K-a-year school, and I walked her through her son's plans with a loan repayment calculator, showing that the minimum salary he'd need to pay off his loans, even across 10 years, was pretty much unattainable. Many other parents I know are continuing to work -- often doing more than they ever have -- in order to supplement their incomes to pay for their students' outrageous tuition costs. It's transparently broken. Rather than the loans being an investment in a future salary, they're a financial sinkhole. Something needs to change.
Awesome! I'm so happy for you!
I thought this would benefit me as well, but I spent a good chunk of change moving apartments (during the riots and curfew nonetheless), so now I'm left playing it conservative and saving the money even though I shouldn't have to under normal circumstances. Even then, I'll only have paid off half the loans in the same timeframe you paid yours in full.
It's a shame that loans can hang over our heads and only manage to weigh us down a good chunk of our lives. I'll join the party the day I've paid off my own loans, but at that point I'll probably have a mortgage or car loan to keep me under the thumb of capitalism >_>
Cheers to your newfound independence!
Congrats!! That's wildly awesome! I'm sure it's super relieving. Student loans suck lol!
Congrats mate.
Congrats, it is an amazing feeling.
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