One Down, One to Go

It was a little over a year ago when I shared my student loan spreadsheets and how I'm working to knock them out. And I'm pleased to say that I have finished paying off my second-to-last loan!

Yeah, my congratulatory message to myself is weird this time. When I first took out my loans, I didn't really know the difference between federal and private loans, and I didn't realize that, at the time I took them out, the interest rates between the two were DRAMATICALLY different. And not in the way I expected them to be. Which is why I wound up with two private loans at 3.25 and 4.5 percent interest rates, and four federal loans via Sallie Mae at 6 and 6.8 percent. Ridiculous.

Sidebar: It really should be a requirement that someone explain exactly what the different types of loans mean and what their implications are before any student is allowed to take them out. Other than "you'll have to start paying them off six months after you graduate, from then until THE END OF TIME," I don't think I knew anything about the different types of loans, how they could (or could not) be consolidated, what consolidation meant, or anything else, and it would have been nice to know exactly what I was getting myself into.

ANYWAY.

I started paying down the high-interest ones immediately, at least a year or two before the six-month grace period started. When I graduated college, my parents — generously — paid off that horrible Sallie Mae, and allowed me to pay them back instead at a much lower interest rate.

Thanks, parents!

Only one more to go!!! It is ON.

(Still working on yours? As always, I'm happy to share my handy-dandy "blank" interactive spreadsheet, if you e-mail me!)