My student loan balance for the last 12 months.
This morning I made a payment of $4,662.48 onto my student loan debt. My tax refund finally came in, and it was huge. I qualified for a pretty sweet refund because of my previous tuition payments, and I’ll probably never have a return like that again, so I didn’t screw around trying to figure out what to do with it. After paying for my Turbotax receipt, the rest went to my student loans.
The result? I now owe $5,132.66 on my student loans.
Ladies and gentlemen, the end is officially in sight.
Let’s forget for a moment that I still have around $8,000 owing on my car that I’ll be tackling after my student loans are gone. Let’s forget for a moment that I still have a wedding to pay for, let’s just focus on the fact that I’ve paid off $24,805 in 16 months. Let’s focus on the fact that, if I don’t hit any bumps in the road, my student loans will be gone before I get married this summer.
With a little over $5,000 left owing on my student loans, I’m finally starting to visualize what it’s going to be like with no debt at all, or at least with just a car loan and no student loan. Life will be simpler. I’m not going to stop paying down my debt just because my student loans are gone, but knowing that they’re gone, and that I’ve only got my car loan to focus on, is going to be a huge weight off my shoulders. That weight has been getting lighter and lighter as my debts have decreased, but once that student loan is gone, I know I’m going to feel a big difference.
The Role Of Windfall Money In Debt Repayment
I didn’t manage to pay down so much debt in so little time by just buckling down, budgeting, and throwing all of my extra cash at my debt. I haven’t been in the work force long, I don’t make very much money, so there wasn’t a whole lot of extra going around for debt repayment. A good chunk of what I’ve managed to pay off has come from windfall money, or money that I wasn’t expecting to receive.
In the past, if I got a big tax return like this, I would’ve been tempted to spend it. When I turned 21, I went to Vegas for a week, and paid for that trip with my tax return. Nowadays, I know better. I never expect to receive windfall money, I’m not counting on it in any way, so why not just put it towards debt? The amounts never seem to be very much at the time, and I’m always tempted to spend them, rationalizing it as “it’s not going to make that much of a difference anyway”. It really does though, and since starting to pay off my debt, I’ve thrown at least $10,000 in unexpected money at my student loans.
The Way Forward
I owe $5,132.66 left on my student loans, and $8,050.00 on my car loan. If everything goes according to plan, I should have my student loans paid off before my wedding in June. My home province offers a nice little rebate to student loan slaves who had provincial income tax payable, and applying for that should net me another $1,900 in windfall money, which I’m planning on putting towards my student loans. I’m also planning on paying at least $1,000 per month towards them, and whatever else I can scrape together from my side hustle.
After my student loans are paid off, I plan on attacking my car loan with the same enthusiasm I’ve directed at my student loans. If nothing bad happens this year, and I don’t experience any bumps in the road, then maybe, just maybe, I could be debt free by the end of this year.
- Maybe, if everything goes according to plan.
- Maybe, if nothing bad happens.
- Maybe, if my car doesn’t break down.
- Maybe, if the dog doesn’t get sick.
- Maybe, if I my side income doesn’t take a nose dive.
Jeeze, that’s a lot of maybe’s!
But it’s something to shoot for.
Did you get a tax refund this year? What did you do with it?