Assassinate your Student Loan *here*

Timmiebe · **Joined:** Thu Sep 06, 2012 7:35 am **Posts:** 4

Thanks for all the positive messages! I am getting very close to my last payment on my loans, however, I am not sure whether it will be before 12/31/12. I am purchasing an engagement ring this month and will be paying with cash rather than financing so I will not have as much cash available to pay down my loans in December compared to my original plans. On the bright side, they should be paid off by the end of January 2013. I will keep everyone posted and thanks again!

DoMoneyBetter · **Posted:** Fri Dec 14, 2012 4:03 pm

Timmiebe wrote:

I am purchasing an engagement ring this month and will be paying with cash rather than financing so I will not have as much cash available to pay down my loans in December compared to my original plans.

Timmeibe, congrats on getting engaged! That's awesome news. What a solid reason to use extra cash instead of paying down the loan. I think Sallie Mae will be ok to wait 1 more month for her money!

Sounds like your story is getting better and better. Best of luck with the big proposal this month!

Looking forward to hearing more.

Best,

Arica · **Joined:** Thu Jan 24, 2013 5:03 pm **Posts:** 8

Hello, I'll Give you my run down on my SL's I use Nelnet (or maybe they use me) which seems to be just as annoying as SM but I luckily feel educated enough to figure out some of the ways they run "you" around and make "your" payments as good as nothing.

LA $5500 @ 4.25 Current Principal $4612
LB $5500@ 5.35 Current Principal $3475
LC $3500 @ 2.14 Current Principal 2336
LD 2625 @2.14 Current Principal $1752.62
LE $5500 @ 5.60 Paid in Full (PIF)
LF $2500 @ 6.8 PIF
LG $1000 @ 6.8 PIF
LH $5500 @6.55 PIF
LI $5500 @5.75 PIF
LJ $1991.00 @ 6.8 PIF

I went to community College then to a Public university, I graduated with my Bachelor's in May 2011. So far that is the Dent I have made... I worked throughout school and tried to put a little here and there when I had the extra to do so. I really want to go aggressively like I was doing but I was working three jobs the first yearish I got out of college and have since kicked back to one job( not necessarily by choice)(one was a seasonal job the other the company closed) with a loss of about 45% income... which is ok because the sleep and health is payment enough in itself. So I am just a little over 12k. I am hoping with my tax return and a little I have saved up elsewhere I can pay off Loan A and start working on Loan "B." Once I get those two suckers paid off I will probably go with minimum and work on a better safety net.

DoMoneyBetter · **Posted:** Sat Feb 02, 2013 3:29 am

Arica wrote:

Hello, I'll Give you my run down on my SL's ... I am just a little over 12k. I am hoping with my tax return and a little I have saved up elsewhere I can pay off Loan A and start working on Loan "B." Once I get those two suckers paid off I will probably go with minimum and work on a better safety net.

Hey Arica,

Thanks for joining the conversation, and for making contact! Congrats on deciding to bust it and attack your loans. It took me years to come around to that point.
I definitely recommend a safety net, especially if it would be tough to cash flow any emergencies that come up. It might even be worthwhile to pay minimums and save until you have an emergency fund you're comfortable with. Then you sort of have license to not worry about drama slowing you down, and just pound the loans.
Fingers crossed for a sweet tax return! Just give a shout anytime you feel low on motivation.
Keep up the awesome work, and definitely let us know how you go!

Best,

Arica · **Joined:** Thu Jan 24, 2013 5:03 pm **Posts:** 8

Thanks! I have an emergency fund of 2k in savings plus $1500 in cd's I just want to have about 5k in my savings, and I'm now ringing in at just under 12k on the SL's yay!

showtime · **Joined:** Fri Aug 17, 2012 7:07 am **Posts:** 4

showtime wrote:

Hi everyone! I've been viewing these boards for a few months and wanted to jump into the action.

My wife and I got married in July 2011 and this past March decided to get crazy on our debt (all student loans) and get these things paid off as fast as we could. We both recently turned 27 and I wanted to have everything paid off before we were 30. But 3 years seemed too long for me so we've set a goal to get all $116k worth of SL debt paid off by Summer 2014. It's gonna be tough but with our income and budget that we're fine tuning each month I think we can make it.

In March 2012 we had around $116k in combined undergrad debt. We had about $18k left over after our wedding and made the bold choice to make a $1k emergency fund and throw everything else at our SL. So right off the bat we got it under $100k which was a little victory.

Since March we're now down to $84,500 left (so about $31,500 paid – about $16,500 if you take away the big pile of cash we started with) and it feels great. We’re following the Dave Ramsey method and have paid off 10 individual loans which was very rewarding. At our pace of around $3000+/month paying down debt we have 27 months to go and we’re inclined to pay more now that we’re getting moving – it really is snowballing.

Here’s a breakdown of our remaining loans:

Jason Citi = $12,369 @ 2%
Jason Citi = $12,047 @ 2%
Jason Citi = $11,473 @ 1.75%
Jason Citi = $13,042 @ 1.75%
Erin Citi = $11,515 @ 2%
Erin Citi = $12,739 @ 2%
Jason Sallie Mae = $9,299 @ 2.326%

Total = ~ $82,487

Can’t wait to pay these off in 2 years and start our EF and reward ourselves with a nice vacay!!! I’ll need the help, advice and inspiration to keep us going now that we’re hitting the large loan balances and won’t pay them off for 4-5 months at a time. I look forward to taking this journey with everyone and getting to the point where we get to keep our income for ourselves!

- Jason

Hi everyone! Just wanted to give an update since my post back in August. As of today we've been attacking our last Sallie Mae loan which is now only at $2,600 (so about $6,500 paid off in 2 months). The budget is really helping as we feel like we have sooo much money left over to throw at loans. We're averaging around $3k/month on our loans and if we can keep that up we can be debt free by Summer 2014!!

Another great thing is that my new salary starts the 10/15 pay cycle so my paychecks will now have an extra $250 in them. Also, we get paid our bonus 10/15! I don't recall how much it was for but it's around $7,000 - so after tax only about $4,200

but we will be able to pay off the Sallie Mae loan and throw a big chunk towards our remaining loans. Feeling great!

New loan balances:

Jason Citi = $12,287 @ 2%
Jason Citi = $11,967 @ 2%
Jason Citi = $11,396 @ 1.75%
Jason Citi = $12,955 @ 1.75%
Erin Citi = $11,373 @ 2%
Erin Citi = $12,582 @ 2%
Jason Sallie Mae = $2,652 @ 2.326%

Total = ~ $75,216

Hey guys!

I know it's been a while since my last post (~4 months) but I wanted to be accountable to check in and provide our update. Overall, we've been able to maintain our great progress (save for Christmas where we didn't pay off as much as we'd like to) on paying off all our SLs.

Also, we enrolled in Dave Ramsey's FPU class in mid-January and have 3 classes left (9-week program). I had been wanting to take it for a while but never could find a class close to us that fit our schedule. So far it's been great for me and Erin to continue to stay on the same financial page and set goals for ourselves. It's really helped our marriage as well! We've improved our communication and have been able to stick to a tight budget to get our monthly payoff amount to $3,500 towards our loans. Two more loans were paid off since Oct and we're slated to get all paid off by April 2014. Hoping to stay on track to be completely debt free ASAP!!

Jason Citi = $11,875 @ 1.75%
Jason Citi = $11,566 @ 1.75%
Jason Citi = $11,000 @ 1.50%
Jason Citi = $12,515 @ 1.50%
Erin Citi = $7,960 @ 2.25%

Total = $54,927

Greenewashed · **Joined:** Thu Jun 05, 2008 9:46 am **Posts:** 176

That is fantastic progress, Jason!

What a feeling it must be to see huge chunks of debt destroyed.

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