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How Much Have I Paid in Student Loans Since January 1st?

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Here we go again… It was almost three weeks ago (18 days to be exact) when I announced that my student loan debt dropped from $90 thousand to $89 thousand. Well, another great announcement – I’m now down to $88 thousand (yippee!). Oh, and notice the new student loan debt image that I made to slap on to these posts from now on (double yippee!).

My student loan debt drops again!

And so here we are again with another “my student loan debt recently dropped” entry on my blog. I like these entries because each new one that I post on the blog is one step closer that I come to financial freedom. Why use the term financial freedom? That’s easy – I’m essentially bound by these student loans until they become manageable. Let me give you some brief numbers to show you why…

Today is the 98th day of 2010. To date in 2010, I’ve spent about $9,800 on my student loan debt (by an odd coincidence, this example works perfectly). In others words, for each day in 2010 I’ve paid $100 in student loan debt… which has totaled nearly $10,000 since January 1st. Consider that for a moment. I’ll wait.

Done?

That’s pretty disgusting, don’t you think? Sure, I overpay my student loans so that I can eliminate them quicker, but imagine if your bank account was depleted by $100 per day to pay for something that you can’t tangibly see, touch, or feel. Believe me on this – it would drive you crazy.

But my days are not filled dwelling on the annoyance of student loan debt. Nope. Instead, if I’m not actively earning more funds at my day job, through my website company, or via my teaching gigs, then I’m trying to find new ways to earn funds to continue paying down these student loans. The bad news is that it is a physically and mentally exhausting practice. The good news is that the student loan debt is (slowly) melting away. The better news is that once the student loan debt is manageable, I’ll be able to restructure my budget to begin achieving other financial goals. The best news is that once the student loans are paid off completely, I should be in a situation where a good deal of money is rolling in due to this structure that I’ve set up for myself.

It’s all in the planning, you know? Let’s hope for another one of these entries very soon!

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. I currently owe $88 thousand, which breaks down to $33 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 Happy Announcement on a Quiet Sunday

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What a wonderful series of days we’ve had down here at the Jersey Shore, huh? Thursday was beautiful, Friday was absolutely gorgeous, and yesterday – the first day of Spring – was just about as perfect a day as you can ask for with the weather. It is incredible to think that only two or three weeks ago we were stuck indoors because of snowstorm after snowstorm piling multiple feet of snow all around the state. Absolutely amazing.

I’ve been running around like a crazy person since last weekend. In fact, when I look back at my schedule, I’m amazed at how fast the week flew away. I spent last Sunday at my Grandmother’s husband’s wake, last Monday at home in Tinton Falls where I researched and wrote a twelve page paper before heading to the class that I’m taking at night, Tuesday and Wednesday catching up on a variety of work building up at my office, Thursday and Friday at the New Jersey Charter Schools Association’s annual conference (which was AWESOME – stay tuned for more posts about the conference), and yesterday up in New Brunswick having dinner and good times with my coworkers.

I would be remiss if I didn’t briefly mention an odd coincidence during dinner last night. I was in the middle of telling a story to my coworkers when I noticed a familiar face out of the corner of my eye. Turns out that my doctor was at the same bar/restaurant – Old Man Rafferty’s – that my coworkers and I were at! And what’s even weirder is that of the six of us who went out for dinner, two of us use this doctor as our general practitioner! We didn’t draw the doctor’s attention because I was eating fettuccine alfredo and my coworker was drinking a beer – both of which our doctor told us we shouldn’t be doing (we each have different health issues – long story). But it was definitely weird to see our doctor hanging out with his buddies when we were all about 40 minutes from our home area.

Maybe it was God trying to send us both a message about doing what our doctor tells us to do!

Anyway, my happy announcement today is that my latest student loan payment check has been processed by the people at the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority. Thus, my overall student loan debt has fallen from $90 thousand to $89 thousand. If you ask me, that’s a pretty happy announcement – especially since it means that I’m getting closer to the next milestone in my student loan repayment plan.

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. I currently owe $89 thousand, which breaks down to $34 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.

Down to $90 Thousand – Figuring Out the Next Big Milestone

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At the end of last week I hit another milestone in my student loan debt repayment when my latest payment was processed and my total outstanding student loan debt hit about $90 thousand. That’s a pretty big drop from the $121 thousand that I started out at, huh?

And while hitting $90 thousand in outstanding student loan debt is a big accomplishment, I find myself focusing in on defining the next big milestone in my repayment plan. Sure, the obvious choice is to hit $80 thousand outstanding (and I project that I should be there around July 1st), but there has to be something in between – and I think I know what it is.

I now owe a little more than $35 thousand on my NJHESAA loan. I think a nice interim “big milestone” will be when I bring that particular loan below $30 thousand. According to my projections, I may hit that particular milestone around May 15th, but that depends on a lot of different things falling into place.

So, today I celebrate getting the student loan debt down to $90 thousand. Here’s hoping that we have an entry about me reaching $89 thousand before the end of the month!

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. I currently owe $90 thousand, which breaks down to $35 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.

Student Loan Update – Getting Close to Another Milestone

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No time for big celebrations of elongated entries today about defeating my student loan debt and so on. Today, my student loan debt has fallen from $93 thousand to $91 thousand. I’m particular proud that I started this year with about $97 thousand in student loan debt. In fact, check this out:

Student Loan Debt Today: $91 thousand

Student Loan Debt at 12/31/2009: $97 thousand

Student Loan Debt at 12/31/2008: $105 thousand

Student Loan Debt at 12/31/2007: $110 thousand

So far this year I’ve reduced my debt by $6 thousand and we’re less than 2 full months into 2010. I’m pretty happy with that pace. Also, I’ve been very vocal about how much disdain I have for the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority (NJHESAA). Here is my history with that loan over the same time:

NJCLASS Loan Debt Today: $36 thousand

NJCLASS Loan Debt at 12/31/2009: $41 thousand

NJCLASS Loan Debt at 12/31/2008: $48 thousand

NJCLASS Loan Debt at 12/31/2007: $51 thousand

I don’t like the attitude of the organization that holds this particular loan and I’m putting all of my effort towards completely retiring this debt in the next 12 – 15 months. And I might have a few tricks up my sleeve to help reduce this debt quicker as time goes along…

Anyway, I’m too close to another milestone ($90 thousand) to spend any time celebrating right now. Be on the lookout for some more student loan good news in the next week to ten days…

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. I currently owe $91 thousand, which breaks down to $36 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.

One Student Loan Company Must Be Trying to Stop My Momentum

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By now, you all know that I enjoyed adding entries to this blog that talk about how I’ve reduced my student loan debt by one or two thousand dollars. They are feel good posts for me and I hope that they give those who are mired in student loan debt some hope. However, there are so many more aspects of this student loan business that aren’t as exciting or sexy as announcing that I’ve reduced the total principal owed by $X thousand.

For example, the other day I wrote about how the online payment system offered by NJHESAA that is, essentially, useless since this private student loan company passes the cost of doing this type of business on to its borrowers. NJHESAA offers an online payment system, but it charges you 2.5% for a “convenience fee” in order to use the service. What a disgrace!

Well, another issue that I’ve been aggravated about with NJHESAA is their inability to process my paper check payment in a timely fashion. For example, after I send a student loan payment to this private lender it generally takes them 10 – 15 days to process the check. WHY!?!?!

Why does it take NJHESAA so long to process a payment!?

Well, if you know anything about finance and how loans work, then you know why it takes NJHESAA so long to process payments. It’s very simple – the longer you hold a payment and not process it, the more the interest due on the payment grows. Here’s my real world example:

On Thursday, February 11th I sent my latest payment to NJHESAA. As of that date, I owed about $62 in accrued interest. Now, I understand that it takes some time for my payment to work its way through the postal system, through the NJHESAA’s mailing system, and eventually to be deposited in the bank. In 2010, that process should take between 3 and 5 days.

However, since my check has not been deposited yet and here we are – 9 days after the payment was sent – another $85 in interest has been accrued. So the total interest owed on the NJHESAA loan today has gone from $62 on the day that I sent the payment to $147 today. How disgusting is that?

And I don’t believe for one minute that my payment isn’t sitting on someone’s desk at the NJHESAA waiting to be deposited early next week. After all, since NJHESAA is closed on the weekends they get to accrue a few more days of interest by not depositing my check! Awesome! And why do I not believe that the payment isn’t sitting there? Because I have a job and I know that when someone sends me something, I get it in a matter of 2 or 3 days. There isn’t any big secret to the United States Postal Service – you send an item and they deliver it. In the rarest of cases your item might be lost, but the chances of that happening are slim to none.

It is becoming clearer and clearer to me that the folks at NJHESAA are organized for the purpose of making money on the backs of college students. Months ago I showed that there is absolutely no reason for me to be paying 7.3%+ in interest on my student loan. There is no reason for them to pass the 2.5% credit card/online check processing fee onto their borrowers. There is absolutely no reason why my payment hasn’t been processed after being out of my hands for 9 days already. The sum of all these parts equals a student loan company that is directly focused on generating cash for itself at the expense of a young cohort of the public.

Each of these points are made more glaring due to the fact that my federal Direct Loan doesn’t have any of these problems. Think about that for a minute. The interest rate is lower. There is no processing fee for online payments. And when I send a check to the USDOE (which goes to a southern state somewhere), they process it in a day or two. Meanwhile, when I send a check to Newark for the NJHESAA it takes days and now weeks to process the payment? Bullshit.

They’re obviously holding my checks in order to generate more interest on my loan. I can’t wait to be done with this student loan company. And when I am done with them, I’m going to devote even more of my time towards exploring their practices and showing the Garden State’s young borrowers why they should avoid this organization at all costs.

For shame, NJHESAA. For shame.