For some reason I was looking forward to making progress on my student loans this month, instead of just hiding from them. I couldn't wait to throw a huge amount of money at it, and show you and myself that progress can be made and that progress can hopefully be made quickly too. Now don't get me wrong though, I definitely was not looking forward to the parting with my money!
Let's dive right into the numbers and see what I did this month. First I'll start with what my loans looked like last month:
April 2013:
Here's what they look like this month after my payments were made this month:
I made a huge payment this month, taking some money out of my huge emergency fund and I plan to do that again next month. I'll break down exactly how much I paid and how much I took out of my savings account when I fully complete my monthly spending and budget. I completely eliminated Private Loan #3 and it felt really good to see one of my loans change its status to "paid in full". It was a good psychological motivator to pay it in full and it was also one of the highest interest rates, so it sticks with my avalanche payment plan.
I'm alsoa little a lot pissed off at the government loan minimum payment being set lower than what even covers the accrued interest. I've never made a minimum payment before, but with my new strategy of targeting the higher interest loans first I decided to do that and put all the extra money towards higher interest ones. I guess I will have to be more careful from now on, but I still took a loss of $77 on that which annoys me. Imagine someone that can only afford to make the minimum payments each month and they are making zero progress? At least there are income based repayment programs for government loans, though these can pretty much make the loan last forever.
The next step for me will be to completely pay off either Private Loan #1 or #2, though I'm not sure which one I'll be targeting first. They both have the highest interest rates remaining so I want to get them out of the way as fast as possible. I think I might go for #1 first, so that when I do finally finish paying that one off the 2nd one wont really seem as big.
Let's dive right into the numbers and see what I did this month. First I'll start with what my loans looked like last month:
April 2013:
| Loan | Loan Amount | Interest Rate |
| Private 1 | $ 27,220.04 | 7.92% |
| Private 2 | $ 20,097.38 | 7.92% |
| Private 3 | $ 3,067.54 | 7.92% |
| Private 4 | $ 3,588.77 | 7.35% |
| Gov 1 | $ 22,041.66 | 5.22% |
| Gov 2 | $ 7,704.42 | 6.80% |
| Total | $ 83,719.81 |
Here's what they look like this month after my payments were made this month:
| Loan | Loan Amount | Change | Interest Rate |
| Private 1 | $ 27,131.22 | $ (88.82) | 7.92% |
| Private 2 | $ 20,037.32 | $ (60.06) | 7.92% |
| Private 3 | $ - | $ (3,067.54) | 7.92% |
| Private 4 | $ 3,561.09 | $ (27.68) | 7.35% |
| Gov 1 | $ 22,118.82 | $ 77.16 | 5.22% |
| Gov 2 | $ 7,566.56 | $ (137.86) | 6.80% |
| Total | $ 80,415.01 | $ (3,304.80) |
I made a huge payment this month, taking some money out of my huge emergency fund and I plan to do that again next month. I'll break down exactly how much I paid and how much I took out of my savings account when I fully complete my monthly spending and budget. I completely eliminated Private Loan #3 and it felt really good to see one of my loans change its status to "paid in full". It was a good psychological motivator to pay it in full and it was also one of the highest interest rates, so it sticks with my avalanche payment plan.
I'm also
The next step for me will be to completely pay off either Private Loan #1 or #2, though I'm not sure which one I'll be targeting first. They both have the highest interest rates remaining so I want to get them out of the way as fast as possible. I think I might go for #1 first, so that when I do finally finish paying that one off the 2nd one wont really seem as big.
Student Loan Progress - May 2013