my largest financed sum of money is my student loan. my education cost me a total of $17,206.52....not terrible when you consider i do, in fact, have a masters. but man o man, had i known then what i know now-i probably would have figured out a way to avoid taking $2,000 or $3,000 in loans when i was making more than enough money waitressing, working for the university, and at the golf course. i think back now about how i used to leave work with stacks of cash and it just boggles my mind. where did it go?
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| c/o party rehab |
when i had to start paying back those loans 6 months out of school i thought paying the minimum was fine. i mean, it's a government loan so it's gotta be good. right??! wrong. 6.55% adds up-fast.
i have been paying off that $17,206.52 for 18 months thus far, and have barely made a dent (i'm even including the over $750 i paid this month). i've paid a total of $3678.07 on my principal and $1377.15 on interest. i even made a couple extra payments-but still not enough to really add up.
thanks to mint.com and their goal feature i figured out that if i continued to pay the minimum on my loan every month ($185.51), not only would it take 7 years and 9 months to pay off, but i would end up paying an additional $3,695.00 in interest payments. which would make my total loan cost: $22,278.67!
the good news- based on the remainder of the loan, if i make my payments $1000.00/month instead of the minimum-my interest goes to $506.00 and i pay it off in just 14 months.
a total interest savings of $3189.00!
so what i'm telling you is log on to mint-make an account, and play with the goals tool. they'll even tell you how soon you'll be able to afford that wildly elaborate vacation you probably should pay down your debt instead of go on.
they'll also help you with budgets, payment reminders, low balance alerts, spending analysis, etc. for free-
cool, huh.
xoxo ashleycolean
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