Thinking of Someday

Making Someday A Reality

  • Start Here
  • About
  • Topics
    • Personal + Finance
    • Life + Home
    • Success Stories
    • Blogging
  • Resources

How I Paid Off $36,500 In Student Loan Debt

May 18, 2017 By Kim

The cost of a college education is on the rise, and so is the number of people with student loan debt. In 2016 there were 43.3 million Americans with student loan debt. I’m proud to say that I wasn’t one of them. In this third installment of my series about college, money, and student loans, I’ll be sharing how I paid off $36,500 in student loan debt. If you missed the first 2 installments, you can check out

  • How I Chose My College Major
  • Why I Didn’t Mind Paying Back My Student Loans

How I Paid Off $36,500 In Student Loan Debt

Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links, which means that we may receive compensation if you click on those links and make a purchase or sign up for a program. This is at no additional cost to you and helps support the blog. You can read our affiliate disclosure here for more information.

I graduated from Mercer University in May 2009 with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. During that time I accrued almost $40k in student loan debt. This debt was strictly related to the cost of tuition and any fees associated with the nursing program. Mercer wasn’t the cheapest university I could have chosen to attend, especially since it’s a private school. However, it’s one of the only two nursing schools that I was accepted into; the other was Emory University. 

It would’ve been great to go to a state school and not have to pay so much more for a private school. Yet, it worked out since Mercer was the school of my dreams. The nice thing about Mercer’s nursing program was that I only had to pay tuition for the School of Nursing, which was much cheaper than paying for Mercer University. That would’ve been almost $30,000 per year at the time, which would’ve equaled way more student loan debt. 

My parents didn’t save any money for my college education. I think it was mostly from a lack of knowledge on their part. I did have the HOPE scholarship and PELL grant to help pay for college. However, the biggest chunk of my financial aid package consisted of service cancelable loans, federal loans, and parent plus loans. I paid back all my student loans myself, including the parent plus loans. Once Omar and I were married, and with how we do our budget, his income did help to pay off my student loans.

So how did I pay off all this student loan debt?

There was no quick way or gimmick. It was just a simple plan that I followed. As I’ve mentioned before, I was introduced to Dave Ramsey and his book, The Total Money Makeover, via Omar. It happened just in time since I was ready to get out of debt. After I paid off my credit card debt I knew my student loans were next.

While reading The Total Money Makeover, I learned about the debt snowball method to pay off debt. With the debt snowball method, you pay off your debt in order from smallest amount to largest amount, while paying the minimum amounts on your larger debts. Some people recommend paying off debt starting with your highest interest rate; this is known as the debt avalanche method. I came to realize that the debt snowball method would be the best method for me to use to tackle my student loan debt. I preferred this method because I wanted to have a sense of gratification once I paid off my first small loan, which was going to be faster than going by interest rates. This would be my motivation to keep going.

First Up —> CitiBank

The total amount of my student loan debt was $36,500. I had to ask my dad to take out 3 parent plus loans through CitiBank to help me pay for college. Although I had good credit, I was required to have a parent co-signor for the student loans. These were the first loans to be paid off because they were smaller amounts. I was glad that they were the smallest amounts because I promised my dad that I would pay them off. He wouldn’t have to worry about it even though they were in his name. Each time I paid one off I was beyond proud to call and tell him.

    • $2,000 paid off 10/01/10
    • $3,000 paid off 12/10/10
  • $5,000 paid off 10/04/12

** side note: The two-year gap in time was because I stopped paying extra towards my student loans so we could pay for our wedding debt free.

Next —> Service Cancelable Loans

I liked my service cancelable loans simply because I didn’t have to pay them back in the traditional sense. All I had to do was work as an RN (for a specified amount of time) in a required setting that provided full-time health care services directly to patients, and they would be paid in full. For me, this meant that I needed to work full-time in a hospital. This was fine because I wanted to do that anyways. I also had to provide yearly documentation from my employer that I was actually working.

I had 2 service cancelable loans. 

One of them was through Georgia Student Finance Commission. Although it was more expensive than the other service cancelable loan, I only had to work for 3 years in order for them to cancel this loan.

  • $7,000 paid off 04/03/12

The other service cancelable loan was a Perkins Loan through Mercer, which took 5 years of employment as an RN for it to be canceled. 

  • $5,006.74 paid off 08/07/14

** side note: This last service cancelable loan was paid off just in time for me to be able to consider going part-time after having our son.

Last, but not least —> Federal Student Loan

My biggest student loan was my federal student loan. Omar and I always referred to this one as “The Big One.” I remember after I graduated and saw my student loan bill I thought, “How will I ever pay this big ass loan off?” 

  • It was $14,497.85

If I only made the minimum payment of $164.30, then I would still be paying on this loan until 10/28/19. I can’t even fathom that at this day and time! Not only that but with the interest accruing I would have ended up paying $19,550.36 instead.

I could have paid this loan off sooner, but since Omar and I decided to buy our house in June 2013 we had to save for our down payment. Just as we were planning to start paying The Big One off and estimating how long it would take, my dad passed away. The balance at the time was $8,155.43. I used some of the money I received from my dad to pay it off. Even without the money from my dad, we would have paid the loan off in 2015 but later in the year.

  • $8,155.43 paid off 03/13/15

Final Thoughts

So again, there were no tricks or gimmicks to paying off my student loans. I didn’t win the lottery either… Although that would’ve been great! All I did was make up my mind that I was going to pay them off, and that’s exactly what I did using the debt snowball method. It took almost 4 years to make it happen since we had a wedding and bought a house during the same time, but I/we did it! It’s definitely a great feeling to have paid my student loans off early. 

Next week Omar will wrap this series up with Why You Should Save For Your Child’s College Education.

Did you pay your student loans off early? Do you think it’s a good idea to do so? Why or why not?

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Personal + Finance Tagged With: college, debt, debt free accomplishments, money, student loan debt, student loans

See what’s happening on Instagram…

thinkingofsomeday

No long caption. I just wanted to make our last “mortgage principal payoff” calendar update. 😆 It’s been a month and it still feels surreal to us...
On Christmas Eve morning, Omar left out of the bed On Christmas Eve morning, Omar left out of the bedroom saying that he had to go work on something. When he came back he handed me a letter that said:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
“As I sit here on the edge of paying our home off I understand that it isn’t completely about us. Our job is to set the next generation up to do better than us, which makes me think of the generation before me. This final payment would not be possible without [Kim’s dad]. He spent his life working for this money and passed away before he got to use it for himself. We agreed to use that money in a way that would always honor him. So for the past 6 years it has funded our oldest son’s 529 [via the minimum required distribution]. Today, that money has grown enough to pay off our mortgage without touching the initial principal. Today we sever ties to debt forever. Today, we say thank you to [Kim’s dad] for the sacrifices he made and the foundation he laid that made it possible. THANK YOU!!”
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Of course after l finished reading the letter I was like... 🥺😭. Truth be told, I still kind of feel that way. It’s part of why it took so long to share the details of paying off our mortgage. Losing a parent is hard.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Pictured is my dad and I... my favorite picture of of us. He passed away 6 years ago on NYE. He was only 62. After he passed, I found out I was “entitled” to receive part of his pension. Omar and I decided to use some of this money to pay off our mortgage. This is how we were able to pay off most of our $54k balance 7 days into this year.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
This is the short version, but if you want the full details, we wrote a blog post sharing:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
• a recap of our initial mortgage payoff plan + payoff journey
• some background info about the pension + how we almost cashed it out when we first found out about it
• the breakdown of the $$ that it took to make this happen + why we did it this way
• how some things didn’t go as planned
• and each of our thoughts in regards to all of this
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
You can find the link in our bio.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
“In all that I do, I strive to make my parents proud. I like to think my dad would be damn proud of me... of us, for this one.” Kim #piecesofsomeday
#tbt To last Thursday (1/7/2021) when we became mo #tbt To last Thursday (1/7/2021) when we became mortgage free!! Yes, you read that correctly! We are 100% debt free! Like debt free, debt free. 🤣
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
To be honest, it’s been a week and it still doesn’t feel real to us yet. But it was real watching that money disappear from our account and no longer seeing our mortgage balance when we signed into our credit union account. We must say, our credit union works pretty fast! Lol.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
We didn’t even get around to sharing our mortgage payoff goal for the year with one of the little cute pictures explaining how we were going to do it. But here’s a quick recap of the numbers that we were working with...
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
• mortgage principal: $54,507.37
• mortgage interest: $35.84
• reconveyance fee: $69.00
• paying off our mortgage... definitely not priceless, but oh so worth it!! 😂🙌🏽
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
We’ll share more in depth details soon because you’re probably wondering how we came up with that amount of money 7 days into January. It definitely wasn’t from hitting the lottery! Lol. But until then, just know that...
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
WE’RE MORTGAGE FREE!!! #piecesofsomeday
So we took some Christmas / family pictures back i So we took some Christmas / family pictures back in 2020 (as if that was so long ago), but I never got to share them. 😩 So here’s one. I actually like the fact that it’s in front of our house. #piecesofsomeday
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
And I also wanted to add that we finally did another blog post after quite some time. Maybe we’re the world’s worst bloggers. 🤷🏽‍♀️🤷🏽‍♂️ But if you’re interested, we’re sharing a recap of quarter 3 and quarter 4 from our mortgage payoff journey. We’re also sharing what our mortgage payoff goal is for 2021. We’re a bit excited about it! You can check it out at the link in our bio.
2020. This has been a year that I’m sure none of 2020. This has been a year that I’m sure none of us will ever forget. While this year has been ok for us for the most part, there are many people that it’s been a really really tough year for. Whether it’s been financially, emotionally, health wise, etc. etc. etc. So here’s to hoping that next year will be much much better, for everyone, but especially for those who had a tough time this year. ✨♥️
We started 2020 off with owning 43% of our house a We started 2020 off with owning 43% of our house and we now own 69% of it. We had paid off 39% of the mortgage loan and we’re finishing the year out at having 66% of it paid off. (These 2 numbers are not the same for us because of our 5% down payment as well as when we refinanced to a 15-year mortgage.) It’s been really exciting to see these numbers increase this year.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
(Annnnnd this concludes our December numbers. I can’t believe I managed to share them all before the end of the year!! 😂)
Q4 was our best quarter by far, mostly due to the Q4 was our best quarter by far, mostly due to the RSUs that we were able to use. However, even if we hadn’t been able to use them, Q4 would have still wrapped up nicely thanks to us still being able to stick to our 70/30 plan.
For December we were able to color in 4 rectangles For December we were able to color in 4 rectangles. This puts our mortgage balance for the end of 2020 at $54,507.37.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
• 132 rectangles total
• 88 rectangles colored in
• 44 rectangles to go!!
The total of our mortgage principal payments for D The total of our mortgage principal payments for December was $3514.74.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
$995.13 came from our regular payment and $2519.61 came from our budget.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
This put us at meeting our second stretch goal of putting a total of $45,000 towards our mortgage principal for the year! Yes, we did a little magic with our budget in order to get it at exactly $45k, but I’m sure that’s what we all do in when we’re trying to hit a certain number!! Haha.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
We’re soooo happy that we were able to meet this goal because we really weren’t sure if it was going to be possible or not!
Follow Us

Comments

  1. Danielle says

    May 18, 2017 at 12:29 pm

    Wow, great breakdown! Your dad would be proud to hear you paid your loans off ???? I paid mine of in February of this year. I think it should be everyone’s primary focus to do so, but we know that will never be the case.

    • Kim says

      May 18, 2017 at 1:04 pm

      Thank you. ♥ I think he would be too especially since he already knew that I had started paying them off.

      Congrats on paying yours off! It’s a great feeling isn’t it?

      You’re right – It’ll never be the case until people decide to make it a priority.

      • Danielle says

        May 21, 2017 at 7:38 am

        YES! Super great feeling! 😉

  2. Chad Belinfanti says

    May 18, 2017 at 2:22 pm

    Great read… I liked the break down and the side notes that explain gaps or specific items. No short cuts, just patience and execution!

    • Kim says

      May 18, 2017 at 3:24 pm

      Yep… No short cuts at all although it would have been nice. Ha! But since there were no short cuts it makes me think twice about borrowing money again.

  3. Nicole says

    May 18, 2017 at 8:03 pm

    Great step by step! I paid off my student loans early. I had almost $30,000 in student loan debt for my engineering degree. I paid it off so I would have one less bill to worry about 🙂

    • Kim says

      May 21, 2017 at 3:36 pm

      Thanks! Congratulations to you for paying off your student loan debt as well, and early at that! Having one less bill/debt is always a nice thing to have.

  4. Jessica says

    June 5, 2017 at 2:51 pm

    <3 Great read, as always. I know it s a wonderful feeling to have a zero balance for student loans…and to have paid them off while buying a home and wedding-ing is AMAZING! Lol!

    • Kim says

      June 5, 2017 at 4:24 pm

      It is a wonderful feeling. Sometimes I wonder about the amount spent on the wedding or getting the house before paying off my student loans, but always come back to the same conclusion of not regretting our decison!

  5. Kris says

    June 9, 2017 at 5:39 pm

    Nice step by step description of how you paid off your student loan. I had about the same amount of student loan debt as well from getting my master’s in business administration. It was supposed to be a 10-year payment plan but I paid it off around that sixth year. And like you said, it felt great to pay that off since I didn’t have to worry about making that monthly payment and crossed off my last debt.

    • Kim says

      June 10, 2017 at 10:23 pm

      Thank you. And congratulations to you on paying your student loan debt off early as well. I’m convinced that if you can pay off your student loan debt early, then that’s the way to go.

  6. Alex says

    June 11, 2017 at 8:04 pm

    Wow great job. This is helpful. I think it is really important that students are money conscious and know their options when it comes to different student loans and their cost. Thanks for sharing, students need all the help they can get.

    • Kim says

      June 12, 2017 at 3:22 pm

      Students definitely need all of the help they can get. That’s why we’re trying to spread the word. Thank you!

  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Looking For Something?

Hey! We’re Omar + Kim.

A married couple making someday a reality all while balancing family + finances + avoiding debt. Find out more about us, here.

Get a free budget spreadsheet when you subscribe + receive post updates

See what’s happening on Instagram

thinkingofsomeday

No long caption. I just wanted to make our last “mortgage principal payoff” calendar update. 😆 It’s been a month and it still feels surreal to us...
On Christmas Eve morning, Omar left out of the bed On Christmas Eve morning, Omar left out of the bedroom saying that he had to go work on something. When he came back he handed me a letter that said:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
“As I sit here on the edge of paying our home off I understand that it isn’t completely about us. Our job is to set the next generation up to do better than us, which makes me think of the generation before me. This final payment would not be possible without [Kim’s dad]. He spent his life working for this money and passed away before he got to use it for himself. We agreed to use that money in a way that would always honor him. So for the past 6 years it has funded our oldest son’s 529 [via the minimum required distribution]. Today, that money has grown enough to pay off our mortgage without touching the initial principal. Today we sever ties to debt forever. Today, we say thank you to [Kim’s dad] for the sacrifices he made and the foundation he laid that made it possible. THANK YOU!!”
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Of course after l finished reading the letter I was like... 🥺😭. Truth be told, I still kind of feel that way. It’s part of why it took so long to share the details of paying off our mortgage. Losing a parent is hard.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Pictured is my dad and I... my favorite picture of of us. He passed away 6 years ago on NYE. He was only 62. After he passed, I found out I was “entitled” to receive part of his pension. Omar and I decided to use some of this money to pay off our mortgage. This is how we were able to pay off most of our $54k balance 7 days into this year.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
This is the short version, but if you want the full details, we wrote a blog post sharing:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
• a recap of our initial mortgage payoff plan + payoff journey
• some background info about the pension + how we almost cashed it out when we first found out about it
• the breakdown of the $$ that it took to make this happen + why we did it this way
• how some things didn’t go as planned
• and each of our thoughts in regards to all of this
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
You can find the link in our bio.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
“In all that I do, I strive to make my parents proud. I like to think my dad would be damn proud of me... of us, for this one.” Kim #piecesofsomeday
#tbt To last Thursday (1/7/2021) when we became mo #tbt To last Thursday (1/7/2021) when we became mortgage free!! Yes, you read that correctly! We are 100% debt free! Like debt free, debt free. 🤣
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
To be honest, it’s been a week and it still doesn’t feel real to us yet. But it was real watching that money disappear from our account and no longer seeing our mortgage balance when we signed into our credit union account. We must say, our credit union works pretty fast! Lol.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
We didn’t even get around to sharing our mortgage payoff goal for the year with one of the little cute pictures explaining how we were going to do it. But here’s a quick recap of the numbers that we were working with...
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
• mortgage principal: $54,507.37
• mortgage interest: $35.84
• reconveyance fee: $69.00
• paying off our mortgage... definitely not priceless, but oh so worth it!! 😂🙌🏽
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
We’ll share more in depth details soon because you’re probably wondering how we came up with that amount of money 7 days into January. It definitely wasn’t from hitting the lottery! Lol. But until then, just know that...
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
WE’RE MORTGAGE FREE!!! #piecesofsomeday
So we took some Christmas / family pictures back i So we took some Christmas / family pictures back in 2020 (as if that was so long ago), but I never got to share them. 😩 So here’s one. I actually like the fact that it’s in front of our house. #piecesofsomeday
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
And I also wanted to add that we finally did another blog post after quite some time. Maybe we’re the world’s worst bloggers. 🤷🏽‍♀️🤷🏽‍♂️ But if you’re interested, we’re sharing a recap of quarter 3 and quarter 4 from our mortgage payoff journey. We’re also sharing what our mortgage payoff goal is for 2021. We’re a bit excited about it! You can check it out at the link in our bio.
2020. This has been a year that I’m sure none of 2020. This has been a year that I’m sure none of us will ever forget. While this year has been ok for us for the most part, there are many people that it’s been a really really tough year for. Whether it’s been financially, emotionally, health wise, etc. etc. etc. So here’s to hoping that next year will be much much better, for everyone, but especially for those who had a tough time this year. ✨♥️
We started 2020 off with owning 43% of our house a We started 2020 off with owning 43% of our house and we now own 69% of it. We had paid off 39% of the mortgage loan and we’re finishing the year out at having 66% of it paid off. (These 2 numbers are not the same for us because of our 5% down payment as well as when we refinanced to a 15-year mortgage.) It’s been really exciting to see these numbers increase this year.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
(Annnnnd this concludes our December numbers. I can’t believe I managed to share them all before the end of the year!! 😂)
Q4 was our best quarter by far, mostly due to the Q4 was our best quarter by far, mostly due to the RSUs that we were able to use. However, even if we hadn’t been able to use them, Q4 would have still wrapped up nicely thanks to us still being able to stick to our 70/30 plan.
For December we were able to color in 4 rectangles For December we were able to color in 4 rectangles. This puts our mortgage balance for the end of 2020 at $54,507.37.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
• 132 rectangles total
• 88 rectangles colored in
• 44 rectangles to go!!
The total of our mortgage principal payments for D The total of our mortgage principal payments for December was $3514.74.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
$995.13 came from our regular payment and $2519.61 came from our budget.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
This put us at meeting our second stretch goal of putting a total of $45,000 towards our mortgage principal for the year! Yes, we did a little magic with our budget in order to get it at exactly $45k, but I’m sure that’s what we all do in when we’re trying to hit a certain number!! Haha.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
We’re soooo happy that we were able to meet this goal because we really weren’t sure if it was going to be possible or not!
Follow Us

Contact Us                             Start Here 

 

About                                        Subscribe

Copyright © 2021 · Thinking of Someday · Terms of Service · Disclosure

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.