I'm a long time reader, but don't post that often.
I wanted to share that DW and I have paid off over $60K in student loans in under 6 years. $45K of that was in the last 2 years. It's an amazing feeling and I'm glad we've pushed through it. We both make mid ~40k but that was pretty much just last year that we hit that mark. I was re-reading
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/04/18/news-flash-your-debt-is-an-emergency/ 6-7 months ago when I said screw, let's just throw everything at the loans and get it done with.
Now I feel like we can get started actually saving for FIRE! We had been saving some in our 401(k), so it's great to pay off student loans and actually have a positive NW.
During this time we did buy a very reasonable house with a 5% down payment but PMI isn't terrible and we lucked out to close when interest rates were a 3.5%, so I don't think we're going to rush to pay off the house. We have the will power to actually invest what would be extra payments. Gotta love me some Vanguard.
The most facepunch deserving action we did was buy a used 2015 Nissan Leaf and an extended warranty plan (shame) all rolled into a loan All in it was like $12,000 :( That being said, DW charges for free at work and gets a small cash incentive for buying an eco vehicle. I love not buying gas or having to do oil changes. So I think I can rationalize the purchase a bit. We'll push to get it paid off in probably 2 years vs the 5. The interest rate is <5% so it's not murderous, but nothing to be proud of.
Commute is about 10 miles for me, 15 for DW and the areas closer to work are either prohibitively expensive or gross. Our second car is a 2007 prius with 200,000+. I'm hoping we get another good 5 years out of it. Sometimes we partially commute together, sometimes I take the bus with a work paid Transit Pass. Biking takes 45-50 minutes in and longer on the way back thanks to the hills. I'm hoping I can make the case for a e-bike since the bus isn't that quick either.
The wife recently joined me in the 800+ credit score club according to Credit Karma.
Now that student loans are paid off we should be set to save around 30% of our pay without it really hurting. We did offer ourselves a small degree of lifestyle inflation since DW isn't quite set on the RE portion of the path so we aren't committed to a breakneck speed towards FI, but we're pleasantly on our way to Financial Stability. I can't imagine the stress of living paycheck to paycheck, but I see the impact of it in my in-laws.
Sorry for the rambling disjointed statements. I'm still at the stubble stage of my Mustachianism, but I'm hoping for a big bushy beard soon.
