This week I reached a milestone. I finally paid off my student loan. It was also the last loan I had outstanding from my "twenties". Two student loans, a line of credit that turned into a consolidation loan and two credit cards.
Now, to be honest, I racked up so much debt because I spent two years unemployed and six years making less than twenty thousand dollars after taxes. When you factor in trying to pay rent and actually function, you end up with a lot of bills. At one point I pretty much had to live off my credit card. Suzy Orman would have a heart attack I'm sure.
So you can imagine how great it felt to finally pay off that last loan. It actually felt kind of weird seeing as I had been putting a large chunk of each paycheque into my savings account anticipating the pay off. I also waited on this last loan because here in Canada you can use the interest on your student loans on your taxes. And when it all came down to paying it--you have to call the bank to have them close out the account, it ended up taking longer than I expected and more phone calls than was really necessary.
In the end, I paid it all off, had a little hyperventilation moment and realized I was officially broke.
How did I celebrate you ask?
By paying for an oil change, a fuel system flush, new brake pads, a tire rotation and four brakes serviced. That was the moment was when I was officially broke. At least my credit card company will be happy.
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Musings about life and other unimportant things...
4 comments:
I have resolved myself to the fact that I will never be completely debt free, what with mortgages and the like. I've actually purposely avoided paying off my student loans - just keep refinancing them because the interest is so ridiculously low that I earn more money by investing what I could use to pay off a 3% loan. It still bugs me to see the balance out there every month, but my accountant talks me out of it every time I mention paying them off!!!
congratulations! That is great - hooray for you!
That's awesome you've got them paid off! Good for you. In a few months I'm only going to just begin paying mine off. I'm not looking forward to it, but it's good debt. It's like investment debt or something.
I was tempted to keep it and just keep reaping the interest on my taxes...but in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't worth it. The interest rates on our student loans up here go up and down depending on the prime lending rate. Which meant that my loans were as low at 5% at one point and as high as 9% when I finally paid it off. I figured, I'd rather take that $200 a month and invest it into an RRSP and use that tax deduction and get the added benefit of using towards the downpayment on a new house.
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