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JerseySmarts.com

As They Say, The Check is in the Mail…

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Have you ever written a check that actually hurt to write? No? Good for you. A few days ago I wrote the check that you’ll see below. Don’t do a double take when you see the check because I will pre-confirm what your eyes will see. Yes, that is a check written in the amount of $10,877.33.

Ahem… that’s ten thousand, eight hundred and seventy-seven dollars and thirty three friggin’ cents!!! Go ahead, take a look at the damn check for yourself:

A Hard Check to Write...

Pretty revolting, huh? Look, I’ve written until my fingers hurt about how much I hate sending this much money to the student loan companies. But this is a good moment and it signals a much better moment that is coming up in the next few days. In the next few days I’m going to log-on to the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority’s website and check my online balance. And when I log-on I’m going to see that the very check you see above was received and processed. And then I’ll see that my NJCLASS loan, which initially started at some $51,595.27 in July 2006, is fully repaid.

And then I’ll breathe a sigh of relief and be able to relax for the first time since I started this crazy, extreme repayment plan some twelve months ago.

Waiting… Patiently and Silently Waiting…

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There are a few reasons why you haven’t seen any updates on JerseySmarts.com for the last few days. One of the biggest reasons is that I’ve been waiting on a few different financial transactions to settle so that I can make the final payment for my New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority student loan. I expect that all of the various transactions that I need to settle will settle in the next few days and that, once everything is where it needs to be, I’ll be writing a check to eliminate my NJCLASS student loan.

And, unfortunately, this has completely consumed me to the point where I’ve not really been able to focus on writing consistent entries on the blog. In addition, I’ve spending a lot of time preparing a major final report for my Public Relations Specialist Certification program. That report will be submitted for approval in about ten days so between juggling the financial transactions, my day job, both of my teaching jobs, and the final certification project – I’ve been a little preoccupied!

However, I have some fun, exciting entries coming up on JerseySmarts.com in the next two weeks or so. Keep an eye on this place, because that student loan is going to bite the dust before anyone even knows it!

Absolutely Shredding My Student Loans – Another Four Thousand Gone

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This is pretty amazing, huh? Here we are some eleven months after I began focusing all of my financial efforts on reducing my New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority (NJHESAA) student loan and the penultimate payment was just processed. That’s right, folks. The most recent reduction in my NJHESAA loan dropped the total amount owed on this student loan from about $14 thousand down to about $10 thousand.

Down to $65 thousand overall

And I expect that my next payment will be my last for this student loan.

As of today, I’ve sold off all but one of my holdings from my stock portfolio. I’m still holding on to Sirius XM’s stock because I hate to sell thousands of shares of a stock that will only go up I think the stock will go up a few more pennies in the next week or so. And since I own so many shares, those pennies can translate into big dollars (hence the name “penny stocks”). However, at this point I’m all sold out of my Ford, Barnes & Noble, and other stocks.

It sort of sucks, actually. I spent two years building up a pretty powerful portfolio and here I am two years after my very first investment was made and it’s pretty much all gone. What’s more – it’s all gone in an effort to eliminate this NJHESAA student loan! So while I’m a little annoyed that my portfolio is all but eliminated in an almost-completed successful effort to repay a single student loan, I’m glad that the loan will be gone before the end of 2010 and that I can focus on rebuilding my savings and investment accounts in 2011.

Be on the lookout here at JerseySmarts.com. When that final payment is made in the next few weeks, there’s going to be a celebration!

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. I currently owe $65 thousand, which breaks down to $10.8 thousand owed to the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority and $54.5 thousand owed to the United States Department of Education. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

Giving Credit Where it is Due – I Finally Received a Response from NJHESAA

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Look, whether I come off as one or not – I’m a fair guy. Sure, some of the entries on this blog are more vicious towards the companies that I deal with than others, but I speak with the voice of a consumer (or write with the hand of a consumer, since this is a blog). When I feel that a customer service agent or a company has done me wrong, I make the situation known to as many people as I can reach as quickly as I can reach them. JerseySmarts.com allows me to reach hundreds and sometimes thousands of people each day so that’s why I used this platform to lambaste the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority (NJHESAA) over the last week. However, I think that credit ought to be given where and when it is due – even to companies that I wholeheartedly disagree with most of the time.

At some point yesterday afternoon I finally received a response from NJHESAA regarding an e-mail I sent them a few days ago. In fact, I received a response from an Assistant Director over there, so I was pleased that my problem was handled by someone in the leadership structure. And, to this gentleman’s credit, he wrote a real response instead of sending me something generated by a computer. Here, take a read of what I received and then I’ll pick up the story afterward the text of the e-mail.

Your check in the amount of $4,300 was received by our lockbox on October 25th. The lockbox processes all payments received and then notifies HESAA on a daily basis what payments were posted to what accounts. I do not know why, but your check was rejected from the normal process and was required to be posted manually to your account. Unfortunately, the bank did not notify HESAA of this issue until late this past Monday. Due to election day on Tuesday, HESAA’s offices were closed. When we received your email on Wednesday, we contacted our Accounting Department and they advised us your payment had been posted. Please be aware that it was posted as of the received date, October 25th. Please accept my apologies in the delay caused by our bank with processing your payment.

If you feel more comfortable mailing your payments directly to HESAA at the below address, please feel free to do so. These payments will go directly to our Accounting Department for processing. When you are ready to pay your loan in full, you may use the same address and please email me directly at XXXXXX@hesaa.org and I will be happy to supply you with a payoff figure.

If you have any other questions, please feel free to contact me directly

As I read through this message yesterday, I admit that I was impressed how the response directly answered my concern about no longer trusting the standard payment processing system and wanting to, instead, send my checks directly to NJHESAA’s administrative building. Most of the time when you complain to a company, they send you an automated response that doesn’t even come close to answering your question. This guy actually answered my question and concern directly.

I have to say that this response was impressive and clearly the best customer service experience that I ever had with NJHESAA. Usually when I call in to the help line I’m either told how I don’t know what I’m talking about or treated as though I’m ignorant of how finances work (meanwhile, my job is to manage multimillion dollar loans on a daily basis – I think I know a little something about this industry). But this e-mail was good and I applaud the gentleman that wrote it.

If only my experience with this lending institution was that thoughtful and impressive since the beginning… What a shame.

Another FOUR Thousand Down and $69 Thousand Left to Go

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Seems like we’ve had nothing but student loan updates lately on JerseySmarts.com, huh? Well, as I did yesterday, let me apologize again for the abundance of student loan reporting this week. However, even though you might be fooled at how professional JerseySmarts.com looks, this is still my personal blog and I’ll talk about one topic all week if I want to! So meh!

Only $69 thousand left!

Anyway…

The big news this week is that my student loan repayment plan broke through the $70 thousand barrier. That’s great! Seems like only yesterday that 2009 was coming to a close and I still owed $97 thousand in total student loan debt.

It would appear that I’ve come a long way since last December, huh? But the journey isn’t over yet. In fact, after going through my finances last night, I’m still on track to deliver the final repayment check to NJHESAA this December… only weeks away!

Sure, my savings and investments will be completely depleted, but that’s okay. The day after I make that final student loan payment, the work begins again to rebuild a savings and investment safety net as well as begin attacking the United States Department of Education (USDOE) student loan that I still have outstanding. But first things first – this NJCLASS loan must be repaid before I worry about rebuilding the safety net or attacking the USDOE loan.

Stay tuned – it’s about to get fun around JerseySmarts.com…

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. I currently owe $69 thousand, which breaks down to $14.6 thousand owed to the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority and $54.5 thousand owed to the United States Department of Education. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.