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Sorry but I just needed to get this out.... Next month I am about to embark on tackling the largest debt outside of my mortgage....my student loan. For some reason it has started to give me complete anxiety. This whole journey of debt payoff has been great up until this point. I don't know if the anxiety comes because I know this is a long haul debt and there will be no immediate joy from paying it off. I don't know if it is because of the pandemic and I am worried about using my snowball of funds instead of banking it. I have no idea. All I am sure of is that it is time to get this monster out of my life for good. I'm committed but there is so much dread that comes along with it.
My current balance sits at 71.9k I have planned and budgeted. My current budget has me paying the loan off in about 2.5-3 years. That just seems like forever in this moment. Maybe I am just afraid of failing, who knows. I know it is my responsibility to get this done and over with . I don't regret the loans because they did help me. Well maybe I regret not trying some come up with additional funding out of pocket. But man, when it's time to pay the piper I have already paid 40k with little progress due to interest and paying the minimum standard payment.
I guess I am posting to see if anyone else up here has tackled this before and if they too felt anxiety or dread in the beginning. How did you keep your focus? When did you hit your stride of getting that satisfaction back? Was the relief only at the final payoff? I haven't even started and it feels insurmountable. But I have got to do this.
So good to see folks in the same boat! I am very thankful for the Cares Act relief. It's nice to plant a payment and the entirety go to the balance and not interest! Mine are all federal so it helps tremendously.
I'm just freaked out. I have my emergency fund fully funded. I may take a couple of months and dump a little more in there to be safe. It may give me more peace of mind.
And yes, I will keep an eye on the interest saving. I think that's a key. You have to find some part of it to bring relief and joy. Maybe I will start a spreadsheet to calculate the interest savings. I am with you on how good it will feel when I have all that available money to work with. It will be a complete game changer!!! I can't wait😁
Good luck on your journey! We are in this together!
I beleive for the next 6 months to pay the minimum and hold the rest to see how the elections play out. I beleive there will be some debt relief coming to student loans especially if this virus keeps things down. Good luck...
I definitely thought about that @harleyrider. But, due to the size of my loan, it was better to attack harder while there is no interest. I can actually get the balance down some. After that I will revaluate if additional relief comes. No matter how elections go, the chances of them relieving the full balance of my loan (either side) is slim to none. We will have to see what happens! I am hopeful that at the least the extension of the 0% goes through 2021 or a part of it. I will settle for that.
Good luck to you too!
That is kind of what my plan is. Right now I know for sure that the 9/30 0% is in place. So I was making a lump sum payment next month and using my debt snowball moving forward. Once my account updates to the new end date of 12/31 (hopefully before I make that lump sum payment), I could hold the lump sum until Dec. I would have that for extra cushion in my emergency fund just in case. I just want everything to be official so I don't miss a chance for the interest free payment if that makes sense.
@Tonya-E wrote:Sorry but I just needed to get this out.... Next month I am about to embark on tackling the largest debt outside of my mortgage....my student loan. For some reason it has started to give me complete anxiety. This whole journey of debt payoff has been great up until this point. I don't know if the anxiety comes because I know this is a long haul debt and there will be no immediate joy from paying it off. I don't know if it is because of the pandemic and I am worried about using my snowball of funds instead of banking it. I have no idea. All I am sure of is that it is time to get this monster out of my life for good. I'm committed but there is so much dread that comes along with it.
My current balance sits at 71.9k I have planned and budgeted. My current budget has me paying the loan off in about 2.5-3 years. That just seems like forever in this moment. Maybe I am just afraid of failing, who knows. I know it is my responsibility to get this done and over with . I don't regret the loans because they did help me. Well maybe I regret not trying some come up with additional funding out of pocket. But man, when it's time to pay the piper I have already paid 40k with little progress due to interest and paying the minimum standard payment.
I guess I am posting to see if anyone else up here has tackled this before and if they too felt anxiety or dread in the beginning. How did you keep your focus? When did you hit your stride of getting that satisfaction back? Was the relief only at the final payoff? I haven't even started and it feels insurmountable. But I have got to do this.
I understand the fear of paying SLs. Me and my SO have basically put our heads in the sand about them for 10-20 years! That was a serious mistake as they ballooned. I had 75k that is now 135k and my SO had 35k that is now 75k. It makes my stomach knot up, certainly.
While we can pay it back, and we are in 5 rehabs right now, it is a lot to take in. It is double the cost of a mortgage at standard repayment and no matter how I crunch the numbers, it will be at least 8-9 years before payoff. Not far off from the 10 year standard repayment.
I feel like the dream if homeownership is being pushed further away, as I have unusal income and extremely high DTI with these SLs. I can't even get a secured Disco because I am already "well indebted" according to them lol
I wish I could have utilized the 0% interest to make chunks of payments, but while in rehabs, we cannot do that. So for you to pay off un the next few years, I think you are doing great and it may not feel great, but will at least free up loads of your DTI, which will help you in the long run!
No one really explained SLs when we got into them starting when we were 17, they just kept telling us to oick up checks. It didn't click until 3 degrees later when the first bill became due and then went into default. I tried to float them for a few years, but the income just did not align with repayment and they certainly did not offer up IBR freely at the time.
Good luck!
I completely understand @Anonymous . I can certainly say it doesn't feel great. I should have just started paying what I could as soon as I could. It's just so easy to put them off. My husband has no student loan. I had mine before we met & I finished my second degree shortly after marriage. Because of that, my plan is to tackle them on my own. It's not that he wouldn't help...it's just something I need and want to do for myself.
I wish I had just taken a moment to truly read and understand what I was getting into. I mean you know....but you don't REALLY know. My employer paid a portion or it would have been significantly higher. But I know I could have worked a bit harder to contribute as well. You live and you learn. It's like you said, I just picked up a check.
Why can't you can't take advantage of the 0% in rehab? Would it go against the terms of the agreement or something? Don't give up on home ownership. You can still do it. It just may take a bit of time and maneuvering that's all.
I really think there should be some sort of scale or cap on student loans, preferably a complete restructuring. A teenager doesn't know what they are signing up for. Heck even adults don't really think it all the way through. And it really is a commitment- a long term commitment.
Good luck to you as well!
2.5-3 years isn't bad for $72k. You have a plan which is more than what I think most student loan borrowers have. If it seems too long, then squeeze that monthly budget some more. I think that once you get started and are seeing that balance drop, you will get the bug and want to get it gone as quickly as possible. When we were paying off debt, we made a payoff chart. Ours was made up of bar graphs (you can get more creative than this). Each debt had a differerent bar. We divided each bar into stacks of rectangles. Each rectangle had a value. In our case it was $1250. I would color in each box as we paid off the debts. I made it colorful and it became the push to get it done. You can do it. We also set a prize for ourselves. Once we had paid off the debt and had set aside enough savings, we would buy us new bikes. We had basic bikes that we had gotten at Target years ago. They served us well, but we wanted to move up in bikes. All that to say that you can do it. You have already made the first steps by deciding to crush it and set a goal.