This blog post is part of the Pay Down My Debt (PDMD) blog tour, sponsored by US Equity Advantage. PDMD is a solution that accelerates debt payoff and helps consumers monitor their credit and make smarter purchasing decisions. If you’re looking to pay off debt find out how they can help. When I meet new people, eventually the topic of my debt payoff journey comes up. I tell them that I write about personal finance and that I paid off my ... Read more...
How I Paid Off My Student Loans: My Five Best Strategies
When I trying to pay off my student loans, I decided that I had to find a few different strategies to becoming debt free. I wasn't earning much ($30,000/yr) and owed almost that much ($28,000/yr). Because of my limited salary, I needed to become more diligent about my finances than I had ever been. I learned so much through that process and want to share the five best methods that you can use for your own debt payoff goals: Track Your ... Read more...
How Much Interest Are You Paying?
One of the biggest reasons I started paying extra on my student loans was because I realized how much money was going to interest. When I started paying off my student loans, my minimum payment was $350. About half of those initial payments were going to interest. That means $175 a month - or 10% of my take-home pay at that time - was being flushed down the toilet. Interest is the money you pay to the bank for letting them lend you money. ... Read more...
Less than $10,000 of student loans left!
Today I celebrate a happy day. Today my student loans are in the single digits! I used to read about people with $10,000 worth of student loans and get so jealous. Even now I almost can’t believe that in 11 months, I will be debt free. Even though I am getting closer to my goal, I’m still learning more about my relationship with money. I’m a perfectionist and it’s easy to get discouraged when you want your finances to be perfect. Even when I ... Read more...
One year later and a look back
About a year ago I started this blog to chronicle my attempt to pay off my student loans. In that year, I have paid off more than $10,000 worth of student loans. Let's take a look back! How have I done this? I moved from a one-bedroom apartment to a three-bedroom duplex. Savings: $359/per month I moved to the same city as my boyfriend and stopped driving 6 hours to visit him every weekend. Savings: $150 I started earning more at my ... Read more...
Setting a date
I started this blog because I hate debt. Debt weighs me down. Every time I want to see a movie or go out for dinner, I feel guilty. I have debt, I think. I shouldn’t be allowed to have fun. I feel guilty for all those careless nights in college when I drank and ate with no thought about how I was paying for it. I worked throughout those four years, but I also had loans that covered half of my tuition. Now, a year and a half after ... Read more...