Paid it off!

[Aas4630]

Just posted my final check....paid off $116,221 in student loans in 3 and a half years! (And I don't make a 6 figure income!!). Lived off half my income and put every raise or monetary gift towards the balance....all while contributing to my retirement accounts. Ready to start seeing that investment account balance start to multiply!!!!

[Retired To Win]

Super congratulations!  Great job!

[Jeepbabe]

Way to go! 

[TurtleMarkets]

Nice, that  is some discipline.
You paid more in student loans then I made before taxes my first several years of working.

[Shor]

Question, has all extra cash gone toward attacking this debt? Were you diverting small bits to the Roth IRA and / or 401k to match (if available)?
Regardless, it's time to start ramping up those contributions!

[rocksinmyhead]

that is fucking awesome! major congrats!!!

[fallstoclimb]

Wow, that is amazing.  Way to go!!!

[HAULIN3]

Nice job!!!!  Lots of ppl say it cant be done... You have proven it can!!  Awesome!!

[stachethis]

Solid work! Give us an update in a year!

[TurtleMarkets]

Nice job!!!!  Lots of ppl say it cant be done... You have proven it can!!  Awesome!!

I think some people say it cant be done just because they do not make enough money. Someone making 35K a year would have a very difficult time paying that off. But why would they have 100K in loans if they make that much? Who knows, I know a couple people who were tricked by society and their parents.

[trailrated]

Try not to laugh when your friends tell you how "lucky" you are for paying it off. Kick ass and take names, I bet the feeling is amazing!

[Aas4630]

So, someone asked re: if all extra cash went towards loans. I don't have a 100% clear breakdown! but basically half of my take home pay covered my expenses. I put enough towards company profit sharing plan to meet 3% match.  I do not contribute to an ira or roth at its point in time. That is a philosophical discussion for another day!

Some months I was super strict and actually whittled away a little more than my goal. Other months I just met my goal payment (not the minimum payment. I budgeted about twice the minimum payment for every month). I never skipped a payment once I got serious. Any time I had a 3 pay period month, the third paycheck went 100% towards the loan. Tax refunds went towards the loan. Any monetary gift went towards the loan. I got married during this period of time, and we spent about $700 on a private wedding (rental dress included!). All other "wedding money" went towards the loan. I am lucky to have a very supportive husband and parents through the pay off period!!

As for racking up that much in loans- I am a physician assistant, I had no undergraduate debt prior to getting my masters degree and became a PA. So this was all from the graduate program where they "strongly encourage" that you don't have an outside job. I also had a mortgage to pay. So I had to take out a loan to pay a loan-absurd! Many friends encouraged me to not worry about the amount of loans. "It is what it is" they kept saying. I went with that theory until I had a job and realized how much interest I would pay during the life of the loan. It pissed me off!!! I think you have to get mad at debt before you can get serious about it!!!

I have not made the most frugal decisions all the time...not the total picture of mustachianism here, but I am quite pleased with this accomplishment, so I had to share! Thanks for the congrats...

[Aas4630]

Oh, and by the way....average interest rate on those loans? 7.19%. Caught in the middle of the years when staffords and grad plus loans did NOT equal good debt!!! Ouch.... That was more than twice my mortgage interest rate!!!

[duck-duck]

Congratulations! Your story strikes a cord with me. I too am a PA started my first job about 6 months ago. Working on paying off 130k and my goal is 3-4 years. I refinanced to a private lender to drop 7.4% down to 3.5% with a variable rate.

I'm curious what field your working in and how you like it? I sort of fell in to a position in heptology/GI and am loving it! Thanks for the inspiration.

[Exflyboy]

What a superb effort! Congratulations!

Now keep living the same lifestyle and max out your 401k etc

You'll be FI before you know it :)

Frank

[malacca]

Wahooooooooo!

[nushagak]

I'm hard at work trying to pay off a similar balance on my spouses loans - you're super inspiring OP.

Congratulations OP and enjoy not having to write massive checks anymore!

[ArbitraryGuy]

Great work!  Keep it up and you'll be financially independent in no time at all!

[Theadyn]

Wow freakin cool!!!!     HUGE monkey off your back, so very happy for you!!! :)

[rujancified]

Holy cats! That's amazing. Really great work.

[Basment Dweller]

If you don't mind me asking what degree did you get?

[tomita]

awesome!
I only managed to pay 30K from 50K in 8 years, is hard to pay more whan you have a family, but I am accelerating the payments, hope to get rid of it in 1-2 years

[FIreDrill]

Dang! That's is a huge chunk of debt you paid off.  Congrats, now build that stache!

[Dicey]

Way to go. Your story will be an inspiration to others struggling to kill their loans.

[Hedge_87]

Holy frigging crap way to go!

[isbjshaffer]

Congratulations! I can't wait for the day when I can post that mine are gone too!!

[Blindsquirrel]

  That is serious badassity. Well done!

[water1974]

Very impressive.

[Basment Dweller]

paid off $116,221 in student loans

I am a physician assistant, I had no undergraduate debt prior to getting my masters degree and became a PA.

LOL @ this thread.

I find it amazing that someone would put themselves through this amount of debt for a degree that gets you a job as a PA and a'physician's assistant', then come onto a financial management forum to receive praise about it.

[Dicey]

LOL @ this thread.

I find it amazing that someone would put themselves through this amount of debt for a degree that gets you a job as a PA and a'physician's assistant', then come onto a financial management forum to receive praise about it.

I find it pretty amazing that you felt the need to be so critical. Your comment is unkind and unnecessary.

[Basment Dweller]

Am I the only one that thinks that putting yourself into over 100k in debt for a degree is financially irresponsible? Am I not allowed to be critical of this, or are you beyond reproach?

The education industrial complex is a scamming billions of dollars off people for useless liberal arts degrees and putting them into years and years of debt and indentured servitude.

Serious question...where's the return on investment on these degrees?

[TheNorwegianGuy]

paid off $116,221 in student loans

I find it amazing that someone would put themselves through this amount of debt for a degree that gets you a job as a PA and a'physician's assistant', then come onto a financial management forum to receive praise about it.

Why? Alot of people here come from bad financial decisions, big mountains of bad and stupid dept (I would not call student dept a very stupid dept), why isnt it awesome that people change and become awesome instead by paying all of this off? Off course we cheer for that! I cheer much more for that, than people that come onto a financial managment forum and spread negativity...

[JimLahey]

paid off $116,221 in student loans

I am a physician assistant, I had no undergraduate debt prior to getting my masters degree and became a PA.

LOL @ this thread.

I find it amazing that someone would put themselves through this amount of debt for a degree that gets you a job as a PA and a'physician's assistant', then come onto a financial management forum to receive praise about it.

Their pay is nothing to sneeze at: http://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/physician-assistants.htm#tab-5. Well worth the investment. They can do a lot of things that a physician can do with less schooling and, believe it or not, less debt. There's a reason PA programs are highly competitive.

[Basment Dweller]

Their pay is nothing to sneeze at: http://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/physician-assistants.htm#tab-5. Well worth the investment. They can do a lot of things that a physician can do with less schooling and, believe it or not, less debt. There's a reason PA programs are highly competitive.

Good observation, perhaps I was to quick to criticise here.

I retract my comment regarding the physician assistant job and apologise, it seems this is a technical job that pays well. I also misconstrued PA for 'personal assistant' ;)

Perhaps OP can comment on what she is currently earning to confirm this?

I would also support studying for professions in Accounting, law, medicine etc that require qualifications to practice.

I am however still very critical of people going into debt for degrees, especially liberal arts 'fluffy' degrees in HR, woman's studies, journalism, marketing etc. I know  for a fact that these professions don't pay well and all this information is available online and can be learnt on the job or through self study programs.

[UnleashHell]

congrats to the op.


basement dweller - I see your point and agree to an extent - don't think that THIS thread is the one to have a discussion though. This is about the OP managing to lift the weight of debt from their shoulders!!

[Tieke]

paid off $116,221 in student loans

I am a physician assistant, I had no undergraduate debt prior to getting my masters degree and became a PA.

LOL @ this thread.

I find it amazing that someone would put themselves through this amount of debt for a degree that gets you a job as a PA and a'physician's assistant', then come onto a financial management forum to receive praise about it.

I find it difficult to understand why people have such kneejerk reactions to people's choices about their education and career in the first place.  Both have a huge impact on people's lives over a seriously long period of time, so it's a pretty personal choice.  This is no different to someone who has chosen to live in a one room 'tiny house' for financial reasons criticising a fellow Mustachian who has chosen to live in a 2 or 3 bedroom house - we all make our own decisions about what's important to us and how much we're willing to sacrifice in return... 

[Tieke]

And more importantly - that is freaking awesome work, Aas4630.  Congratulations!!!

[Basment Dweller]

basement dweller - I see your point and agree to an extent - don't think that THIS thread is the one to have a discussion though. This is about the OP managing to lift the weight of debt from their shoulders!!

Understood, apologies for derailing the thread and congrats to OP for nailing the debt.

I'm not from the US, my degree cost next to nothing (about $1200/year) as it was subsidised, so it's hard to justify the investment from my point of view, even if you get a well paid job afterwards.

Once again congrats OP ;)