Student Loan Debt Drops Another $1,000; Now Comfortably at $40,000

As someone who reads and writes a lot about student loan debt, it seems totally bizarre to write that my student loan is sitting “comfortably” at $40,000. Yet, I felt that using the word “comfortably” in the headline of this entry was absolutely appropriate because it is completely true. Whereas two years ago my student loan debt was somewhere above $100,000, I think it’s obvious to see why I feel a bit of relief and comfort with having only $40,000 left outstanding in principal.

A few days ago I sat down and completed my personal budget form for the remaining payments on my entire student loan debt burden. By the way, you can download a version of the spreadsheet that I created for this personal budget form by clicking here and scrolling to the bottom of the entry. My projections show me paying off my student loan in full by June 1, 2013, but I should be able to move a little bit quicker than projected.

There are some variables that I can’t anticipate yet so my projected final repayment might change by a month or two (closer, not further away). In the next year or so some of my major volunteer obligations will be coming to an end. Along with the increased free time that I’ll have (where I could potentially make more money), I’ll also be free of some annual donation requirements that I accepted when I assumed these volunteer positions. With a few extra bucks to play with I might be able to bring that final repayment date back another month to May 1, 2013.

Also, I always have the option that I exercised last fall to accelerate my repayment and final payoff of my NJHESAA student loan. That option is to cash out of my small stock portfolio and use all of the proceeds to repay the balance of my USED student loans. If I was to exercise that option, then the final repayment date wouldn’t be June 1, 2013 or even May 1, 2013, but instead it would be somewhere around December 1, 2012 – or about one year from now.

While I enjoy having my small stock portfolio it is very tempting to cash the whole thing out to speed up the repayment of my student loans. I’m going to have to think about that for the next few months and see which way I want to go with that option.

Not much more to write about today. I did want to note, though, that not only is my student loan debt sitting at $40 thousand, but as of today I’ve repaid some $30 thousand in interest and another $81 thousand in principal. Pretty spectacular (when the alternative seems to be marching around Wall Street and complaining that my student loans are too big).

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. Since I started repaying my student loans in July 2006, I’ve repaid a total of $61 thousand in principal to various lenders including the federal Perkins loan program, the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority, and CitiBank. I currently owe $40 thousand in principal to the United States Department of Education’s Direct Loans program – a loan which started repayment in July 2006 with a balance of $59 thousand. To date, I’ve repaid well over $30 thousand in interest to these lenders. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.