You’ve all been waiting for the latest update on my outstanding student loan debt. Can you believe that the last update was way back almost three months ago when my total debt dropped from $26 thousand down to $25 thousand? Well, after three months of waiting the latest update is that my student loan debt has dropped again – this time all the way down to $22 thousand! In fact, I’m getting really close to a major milestone when my debt hits about $21 thousand – which will be a full $100 thousand repaid to my student loans.
Just $22 thousand left to go...
If you want to call it a secret, then that’s the big “secret” to paying off debt. Productivity today equals a paycheck tomorrow and a paycheck tomorrow equals a loan payment the following day and a loan payment the following day equals getting out of debt. Period.
No big surprise here, folks. For me, the concept of getting up off my butt and doing something has taken the form of working at a popular online university as an instructor. The secondary income that I earn from this job is a nice boost to my overall monthly cash flow and it has helped to fund a great deal of my student loan payments over the last two years. And I know some idiot is probably out there reading this right now thinking, “Well, you have an advantage because you have that second job and I can’t find any job in the first place!” Bullshit! I work a 40+ hour work week with no less than a minimum of 10 hours commuting each week – and that’s just at my day job. So I don’t want to hear any crap about having any advantages because I found a good second job. If anything, my life is more strenuous than the person who is, let’s be honest, optionally-unemployed because I have several different workplace management structures that I have to perform within.
Since we’re telling secrets, I think the unemployed masses should know that one of the secrets to finding a job is getting over yourself. Sure, you shouldn’t take a job that pays below minimum wage if you’ve earned yourself a doctorate, but at the same time you shouldn’t reject an entry-level job with a modest salary either because you have a bachelor’s degree and you think that makes you worth more on the market. Newsflash: it doesn’t make you worth any more on the market in this economy! All your degree gives you is access to applying for jobs that high school graduates are not able to apply for – that’s it. And that’s not a big advantage in this economy so get over yourselves and take that entry-level job. Didn’t your professors ever teach you to “get in” at a company and then begin to find ways to climb the internal corporate ladder? It can be done, folks. You just have to get up off your butts and do it!
Stick around for more student loan news coming up in the next few weeks. Several milestones are sitting on the horizon including the aforementioned payment where I hit a remaining balance of $21 thousand. Again, this will signify an incredible $100,000 in student loan principal repayment. The next milestone after that is just a thousand bucks away when I hit $20 thousand left outstanding and then smash through that number to get into the teens.
It’s pretty amazing to think that this aggressive repayment plan really took its infancy just under three years ago in December 2009. Time flies, huh?
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 $99 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 $22 thousand in principal to the United States Department of Education’s federal Direct Loans program. This loan is serviced by the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority. To date, I’ve repaid over $35 thousand in interest to these lenders. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.
