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Getting Closer to Two More Milestones in My Student Loan Repayments

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You know, sometimes I think about waiting a few extra days to post these updates. Why, you ask? Well, if I waited another week to post this update, then instead of saying that I just knocked another thousand bucks off of my student loan debt, I’d be able to say that I knocked another two thousand bucks off instead. That’s right, folks, I’m closing in on the $80 thousand mark in terms of total debt owed, but for now I’m at settled at $82 thousand and looking forward to hitting two big milestones in the next month.

$82 thousand and counting

The first of those milestones should be coming in the next few weeks when I hit $81 thousand outstanding. When I get to this point, I’ll have repaid $40 thousand in student loan principal since I started repaying these things in the summer of 2006. That’s incredibly significant! Lord knows how much interest I’ll have paid over that same time period…

The second of these milestones will be at some point next month when I hit $80 thousand outstanding. This dollar amount actually marks a double milestone since it’ll mark the $25 thousand balance outstanding in terms of how much that I owe to the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority (NJHESAA) as well as the $80 thousand balance outstanding for my overall student loans.

Slowly, but surely, I’ll pay these things off.

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. I currently owe $82 thousand, which breaks down to $27 thousand owed to the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority and $55 thousand owed to the United States Department of Education. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

When in Doubt, Stick to the Plan… Always Stick to the Plan!

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Sticking to the student loan repayment plan has brought us back to a familiar place. I’m pleased to announce that effective a few days ago, my student loan debt fell from a total outstanding of about $84 thousand to $83 thousand. As I’ve said so many times before on this blog – another grand bites the dust.

Down to $83 thousand...

And I plan on making these types of announcements over and over again until this New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority (NJHESAA) loan is retired. I’m going to keep on making these announcements because I intend to stick to my repayment plan. I wrote this back on January 26, 2010:

So, as I’ve said before on this blog – get used to reading these types of entries because I am committed to attacking one of my two outstanding student loans this year. If I can stick to the plan that I created in December, I’ll rid myself of the $39 thousand debt remaining on my NJHESAA loan in the next 18 to 24 months. And, believe it or not, time seems to be flying by these days so I could potentially be free from this loan before you even know it.

Time certainly is flying – here we are at June 7, 2010 already. Can you believe it?! Back on January 26, 2010, I owed $39 thousand to the NJHESAA. Today, I owe about $28 thousand. Reducing that student loan by about $11 thousand in about four and a half months is pretty damn good, I think. However, like one of my friends and commenters Justin and I wrote about in the comments section of a recent entry, that’s $11 thousand that is not contributing to the economy and another $28 thousand that I have no plan to work back into the economy any time soon.

And that doesn’t even begin to touch the $55 thousand that I still owe to the United States Department of Education (USDOE)… But that’s for another blog entry at another time. Today, join me in celebrating another thousand bucks off of my student loan debt!

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. I currently owe $83 thousand, which breaks down to $28 thousand owed to the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority and $55 thousand owed to the United States Department of Education. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

Realizing My Student Loan Repayment Schedule While Still Supporting Charitable Organizations

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You all know the drill by now: every two weeks or so I’m back with another one of these posts telling you how I paid down my student loan debt by a thousand bucks. So… as of a few days ago my student loan debt dropped from $85 thousand to $84 thousand. I knocked another thousand bucks off of my New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority debt to bring the total amount owed to that organization down to about $29 thousand.

Getting there. Slow and steady.

Down to $84 thousand...

Like I’ve been saying since I started this repayment plan in late December 2009/early January 2010 – this plan is strict and not the easiest to abide by. However, I’m sticking with it because I have to rid myself of this debt in order to function the way I want to function as a contributing member of the economy. Sending off about $3,000 each month to student loan companies is not fun and it’s not easy, but it has to be done so I can redirect that money to other uses (i.e. buying a home, a new car, investing more, etc.) sooner rather than later.

I try to lessen the impact of sending away so much money each month by being hyper-involved with my finances to the point where I check and recheck them at least twice each day. In fact, I budget out my expenses – including these bimonthly student loan payments – at least three months in advance (yes, my expenses are currently budgeted through the end of August 2010). I take a conservative stance on my budgeting because I know that unexpected expenses will likely pop up from time to time and I have to be able to handle them. I have my finances all organized in a multi-sheet Excel Workbook that I designed which tracks money in and money out all the way down to the penny.

It’s pretty cool, actually.

Another way that I try to lessen the blow of sending away this money is by trying to find ways to either generate more income or reduce expenses. Pretty basic stuff, right? Over the last few years, the three biggest monthly expenses that I’ve had are these student loan payments, monthly rent payments, and charitable donations. I’ve given you a bunch of updates on the student loan payments and I have to pay my rent every month (more on how housing affects the ability to repay student loans in my next student loan update), but I thought I’d spend a paragraph or two talking about how my student loan repayment schedule impacts my charitable donations.

Since I started this repayment plan, I’ve knocked back my charitable donations considerably. In fact, I selected four charitable organizations that I am going to focus on sending my donations to each year: my Church – St. Jerome’s Church in West Long Branch, the Sigma Pi Educational Foundation, Monmouth University’s Athletics Department (specifically, the basketball team), and the Monmouth County SPCA. I have different reasons for choosing each of these organizations. I donate to my Church because I believe in tithing to the extent that you can (I can’t really donate as much as I’d like because of my student loan debt). I donate to the Sigma Pi Educational Foundation because I believe in its mission and, as a board member, I am obligated to donate a certain amount every year. I donate to Monmouth University’s Athletics Department because I am impressed that the school managed to get that Multipurpose Activity Center built and I enjoy going to the home basketball games. And finally, I donate to the Monmouth County SPCA because that’s where I adopted one of my family’s pugs – Odie.

The difference between my donations on the repayment plan versus before I went on the repayment plan is that I used to send money to these (and other) charitable organizations whenever I had an extra $50 or $100 in my monthly budget. For this year, I’ve laid out certain dollar amount goals that I’d like to reach in terms of donating to each of these organizations. I’m going to knock them down one at a time (I’ve already made my budgeted donation for this year to one of these groups).

It’s all about budgeting and, in my case, it’s all about creating an extreme budget and sticking to it.

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. I currently owe $84 thousand, which breaks down to $29 thousand owed to the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority and $55 thousand owed to the United States Department of Education. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

The “Next Big Goal” Has Been Accomplished – Time to Define a New Goal

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You may remember way back to the beginning of March when I defined what the “next big goal” of my student loan repayment plan would be. For those of you that might have forgotten or who don’t want to take the moment to click back on the link above, the goal was to break the $30 thousand barrier with my New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority (NJHESAA) student loan.

The Next Big Goal Achieved!

Today, I can happily announce that this goal has been achieved! 🙂 But let’s not spend too much time celebrating and being happy. No, in fact I want to take this chance to define what my next goal will be with this repayment (some of you might be able to guess this goal). With today’s announcement that my NJHESAA student loan debt is down to $30 thousand, that leaves a total of $85 thousand of total student loan debt that I have left outstanding to repay. The next goal is to break the $80 thousand barrier in terms of total outstanding student loan debt.

But wait! I’m going to add a twist to this goal. According to my projections, I should reach this goal by August 1, 2010. Well, I want to accelerate that a little bit. I’m going to create an even stricter time limit on reaching the next goal – I want to reach it by July 15, 2010. In the world of paychecks and balancing personal budgets, reducing a projection by two weeks is a monster goal to achieve.

Let’s see if I can get it done.

In the mean time, everyone out there in JerseySmarts.com land should feel free to raise a glass to fighting for one’s financial freedom from student loan debt. It can be done and I intend to do it!

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. I currently owe $85 thousand, which breaks down to $30 thousand owed to the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority and $55 thousand owed to the United States Department of Education. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

A Double Drop on the Student Loans This Time Around

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Today is a good day – and not just because the spring weather feels good and it’s a nice day outside. No, in fact today is a good day because my student loan debt has dropped from $88 thousand to $86 thousand. That’s not a typo either, folks. After getting my federal tax return at the beginning of this month, I decided to apply a large portion of it towards paying down my New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority (NJHESAA) student loan.

The result? A $2,000 check going from my checking account to NJHESAA’s coffers and the reduction of my NJHESAA student loan debt from about $33 thousand down to about $31 thousand. Since I’ve now reached approximately $31 thousand in my NJHESAA student loan debt, I can now officially say that in 2010 I’ve repaid about $10 thousand of this loan…so far.

A Double Drop This Time

That’s a significant reduction – very significant. For a quick example of how significant this $10 thousand reduction has been in real terms consider this: As of January 1, 2010, I was paying $8.23 per day in interest alone on this loan. Over the course of a year, that’s $3,003.95 in interest expenses. Gross. Today, I am accruing interest at $6.40 per day or $2,336 per year. Annually, the difference in projected interest costs is $677.95. That’s a lot of money – and I’m only less than four months into my hardcore repayment strategy for the NJHESAA loan! So how much have I paid in interest thus far this year? $769.43. My goal is to keep that amount as low as possible.

Before I wrap this gloat session up, I feel compelled to add that this whole repayment thing isn’t easy. It is fun to write these entries, but repaying so much of this loan so quickly is not easy.

Remember, I created a very strong, very strict repayment plan because I want to get rid of the burden that these student loans cause me both today and tomorrow (and that “tomorrow” part is critical). An essential part of that repayment plan is focusing on wants versus needs…and it’s not easy or enjoyable to make that decision of what I want versus what I need. It’s not easy denying myself what I want to do with my paychecks versus what I really know that I need to do with those paychecks. I really want to take the approximately $2,750 that I spend on student loans each month and put a few hundred into my savings account and a few hundred into my brokerage account and then spend the rest of the money living the type of lavish lifestyle that you see on television. I’d love to do that – I’d love to go out and buy new clothes every few weeks instead of once or twice per year. I’d love to give my Mom back the small Honda Civic that I’ve been “borrowing” from her for almost two years and, instead, go out and buy a brand new hybrid SUV that would give me the roomy drive that I want and the gas mileage that I need. And I would love to travel more (like my recent trip to Nashville).

But I know that I don’t need to do those things. In fact, even more than knowing that I don’t need to do these things, I know enough about money and daily compounding interest to know that engaging in my wanted activities listed above instead of paying off my student loan debt would be condemning my future to a life of bloated student loan payments. Screw that! I’ll make the sacrifices today to make sure that tomorrow is absolutely awesome, thank you very much!

Oh, and now would be a good time to remind everyone of the “next” big repayment goal which I set for myself during the first week of March. Go ahead, click over and take a read.

I’m getting there…

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. I currently owe $86 thousand, which breaks down to $31 thousand owed to the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority and $55 thousand owed to the United States Department of Education. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.