Since I'm new here, I'll backtrack and give an update. When I finished my undergraduate in 2007, I had just under $17,500 in student loan debt to repay. For a while I was making positive payments, paying almost 100 over the minimum payment for a total of 300 bucks a month, but then I had worked my due date way out in advance and decided to just leave it alone and focus on other things (pretty literal, I just bought some 'things').
So 5 years after conversion to repayment I had done a decent job but in retrospect, it wasn't nearly that hardcore. I still had about 7700 dollars remaining at the beginning of 2013. I made a decision to eliminate my student loan debt by the end of 2013. To this end, I started making payments of 300 dollars every two weeks. I decided that wasn't hardcore enough either and began making plans to have them finished by the end of June, so I would up my payments to 600 biweekly. That was getting me close, but not quite there, so then I started paying 800 biweekly and that put me on track.
My last two payments, 800 on June 7, and the remaining 500ish on June 21 are setup in their online system and barring a disaster, the loan will be closed before July.
So here is some motivation for you guys, it can be done, I put together an Excel sheet in February to start tracking it. I will definitely update with a "Paid in Full" screenshot soon.
Balance Interest Due Payment Amount Interest Rate Date
6753.66 300.00 6.54795E-05
6459.85 6.19 300.00 6.54795E-05 2/15/2013
5865.76 5.91 600.00 6.54795E-05 3/1/2013
5271.14 5.38 600.00 6.54795E-05 3/15/2013
4675.96 4.82 600.00 6.54795E-05 3/29/2013
3880.25 4.29 800.00 6.54795E-05 4/12/2013
3083.81 3.56 800.00 6.54795E-05 4/26/2013
2285.43 1.62 800.00 6.54795E-05 5/10/2013
1310.08 0.89 976.24 6.54795E-05 5/24/2013
513.68 3.60 800.00 6.54795E-05 6/7/2013
0.00 0.47 514.15 6.54795E-05 6/21/2013