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Greek State of Mind

My Recent Trip to the United States Department of Education

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Last month, I had a chance to visit a place that I’ve contributed quite a bit of money to over the last few years – the United States Department of Education (USED) in Washington, DC! Okay, so while most people would find no humor or excitement in going to the USED, I found some great sense of fulfillment by actually visiting their headquarters building in our nation’s capital.

The one thing that struck me the most about the headquarters building is that it’s pretty much a fortress. I mean, it’s built like it could withstand any major natural disaster or attack. I honestly think that if a foreign country attacked the capitol, the USED building would be left standing – mocking the foreigners and their wimpy weapons. But that’s just the impression you get from the outside. Once you’re inside you see that it’s really just functional office space. I liked the mission statement of the USED, which was put up right on the wall for everyone to see when you entered the building. Take a look:

The USED's mission statement - give it a read

Pretty good mission statement for the USED, huh? I was down in Washington, DC for a conference on charter schools which I won’t get into in this blog entry. However, I couldn’t help but think that I actually helped build the impressive structure in which the charter school conference was being held in thanks to all of my student loan payments. It was a weird feeling – not necessarily a bad feeling, but one that made me take a step back and think, “Well, here’s the place where my checks have been going for the past few years.” It was just an interesting feeling.

What was not a good or interesting feeling, though, was the physical pain that I endured as I rode Amtrak’s Acela down to Washington, DC. Believe it or not, these asshats actually sold more tickets for the Acela than there were seats for the passengers. Sure, you’ll never get any official response from the Acela people saying that it was standard practice to do that or that they were sorry (apologizing is an acknowledgement of guilt). However, the conductor on the train – who was a very nice guy, by the way – told me and the fifteen other seatless passengers that this was common practice. It was outrageous. So, I rode down to the nation’s capitol sitting on this:

Imagine sitting on this for two and a half hours

Yeah… not comfortable at all. Anyway, I visited one of my two major student loan lenders last month. And while I don’t think that I’ll ever willingly or happily visit the headquarters building of the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority (NJHESAA), I’m actually going to be really close to some of their associates starting tomorrow. Turns out that NJHESAA and my company will both be exhibitors at the New Jersey Charter Schools Association conference in Atlantic City this week. I don’t know if we’ll be anywhere near each other, but I feel like being in the same room as those people is going to drive me nuts. Frankly, I have half a mind to walk up to their booth and ask them why they felt the need to treat a highly intelligent, good-natured person (me) like a dumb, moronic piece of garbage every time I called them. And that same half of my mind wants me to ask them why they wouldn’t contact the credit agencies to report their mistaken even after admitting that they made a blunder when they reported that I made a late payment when no payment was actually due. Those idiots lowered my credit score for a few months until I had to go out of my way to get that stupid mistake wiped clean from my record. Idiots.

Anyway, enough of that tangent. The point of this entry is that I visited the USED headquarters building in Washington, DC and I was pleasantly pleased with the visit. I hope that they do their customers well as they continue to ramp up their student loan production.

Student Loan Debt Drops Another $1,000; Now Comfortably at $40,000

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As someone who reads and writes a lot about student loan debt, it seems totally bizarre to write that my student loan is sitting “comfortably” at $40,000. Yet, I felt that using the word “comfortably” in the headline of this entry was absolutely appropriate because it is completely true. Whereas two years ago my student loan debt was somewhere above $100,000, I think it’s obvious to see why I feel a bit of relief and comfort with having only $40,000 left outstanding in principal.

Comfortably at $40 thousand

A few days ago I sat down and completed my personal budget form for the remaining payments on my entire student loan debt burden. By the way, you can download a version of the spreadsheet that I created for this personal budget form by clicking here and scrolling to the bottom of the entry. My projections show me paying off my student loan in full by June 1, 2013, but I should be able to move a little bit quicker than projected.

There are some variables that I can’t anticipate yet so my projected final repayment might change by a month or two (closer, not further away). In the next year or so some of my major volunteer obligations will be coming to an end. Along with the increased free time that I’ll have (where I could potentially make more money), I’ll also be free of some annual donation requirements that I accepted when I assumed these volunteer positions. With a few extra bucks to play with I might be able to bring that final repayment date back another month to May 1, 2013.

Also, I always have the option that I exercised last fall to accelerate my repayment and final payoff of my NJHESAA student loan. That option is to cash out of my small stock portfolio and use all of the proceeds to repay the balance of my USED student loans. If I was to exercise that option, then the final repayment date wouldn’t be June 1, 2013 or even May 1, 2013, but instead it would be somewhere around December 1, 2012 – or about one year from now.

While I enjoy having my small stock portfolio it is very tempting to cash the whole thing out to speed up the repayment of my student loans. I’m going to have to think about that for the next few months and see which way I want to go with that option.

Not much more to write about today. I did want to note, though, that not only is my student loan debt sitting at $40 thousand, but as of today I’ve repaid some $30 thousand in interest and another $81 thousand in principal. Pretty spectacular (when the alternative seems to be marching around Wall Street and complaining that my student loans are too big).

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. Since I started repaying my student loans in July 2006, I’ve repaid a total of $61 thousand in principal to various lenders including the federal Perkins loan program, the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority, and CitiBank. I currently owe $40 thousand in principal to the United States Department of Education’s Direct Loans program – a loan which started repayment in July 2006 with a balance of $59 thousand. To date, I’ve repaid well over $30 thousand in interest to these lenders. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

My Slow and Steady Repayment Inches Closer to the $40,000 Benchmark

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It’s a new month and I’ve got a new update on my student loans. As of earlier today, my student loan debt dropped another thousand bucks to $41 thousand left outstanding. This follows my recent $3 thousand drop from a week and a half ago. Dropping another thousand in my total student loan debt in two weeks? Not bad.

Just $41 thousand left

I really don’t have any big, thoughtful discussion to accompany this student loan debt drop update. However, I thought I would take a little space to write about the United States Department of Education’s (USED) recent update to their online payment system.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while now, then you may remember when I wrote about how utterly useless and totally not helpful the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority’s online payment system was when it was implemented. By the way, that entry from February 2010 is one of the most viewed and most popular entries on this entire blog. In fact, if you go to Google and type in “NJHESAA” there is a link to that entry in the first four or five results that come up on your screen. Pretty good for some random guy’s personal blog, huh?

Before I start to go off on a tangent, let me get back to the short point that I want to make here. The NJHESAA’s online payment system was totally useless. Much like the government-enforced monopoly held by utility companies (which are keeping a large portion of New Jersey literally in the dark right now), NJHESAA actually charged borrowers to make online payments. It was pathetic. On the other hand, the USED doesn’t charge their borrowers to make online payments and even allows you to add additional funds to your regular monthly payment amount. It’s a great system – very easy to use.

A few weeks ago when the USED transferred their system to the new MyEdAccount.com website, I wanted to come on here and rant and rave about how much I hated having to wait for the new website to be implemented. Well, after using the new website and the new system for a few weeks I have to say that I’m very impressed. They didn’t cut many corners putting that website together and yet they still managed to pack it with a bunch of great information and keep a simple, no nonsense look.

Anyway, after my latest payment I’m down to $41 thousand left outstanding. That’s about $80 thousand in student loan principal repaid (and another $30 thousand in interest paid) since July 2006. Absolutely amazing. I definitely could have used that $110 thousand for other purposes over the last 5 years (buying a house, getting a new car, not working around the clock at multiple jobs during my mid-to-late 20s, etc), but it’s okay. The end is near for this repayment plan. Soon, $41 thousand will drop to $40 thousand and then $40 thousand will become $35 thousand and so on and so on until we’re counting down the last $10 thousand together. We’ll get there sooner rather than later.

It’s just a matter of sticking to your guns no matter what people suggest that you do with your money or your life. Most of the time in life, only you know what’s best for you. For me, repaying these student loans as quickly and efficiently as possible is what’s good for me.

And that’s what I’m going to do.

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. Since I started repaying my student loans in July 2006, I’ve repaid a total of $61 thousand in principal to various lenders including the federal Perkins loan program, the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority, and CitiBank. I currently owe $41 thousand in principal to the United States Department of Education’s Direct Loans program – a loan which started repayment in July 2006 with a balance of $59 thousand. To date, I’ve repaid well over $30 thousand in interest to these lenders. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

My Student Loan Debt Drops From $49 Thousand to $46 Thousand in One Shot

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After some careful planning and budgeting, I was able to make another big dent in my remaining student loan debt balance. You may recall last month when I finally broke the milestone $50 thousand mark in terms of the total balance remaining on my student loans. For a guy who started repaying a pile of student loan debt that once sat at about $121 thousand and as short as 24 months ago was sitting at about $100 thousand, breaking the $50 thousand mark last month was certainly big news.

Total debt down to $46 thousand

But I’m excited about this month’s news, too. Not only did I move my student loan debt from $49 thousand down to $46 thousand, but I managed to do it in a way that did not have a negative impact on my savings and investments or my regular monthly cash flow. Now some of you might be asking, “Geez, Joe. How did you manage to do that?” Well, it’s actually relatively easy to do. All I did was redirect some of what I call my “excess” income to repay these loans.

And what exactly is “excess” income?

I define my excess income as the money that I make outside of my regular, daily job. Many of you know that I work like a madman: I own and operate a small website company which, in turn, owns and operates a few different web properties; I’m an adjunct professor at the local college; and I’m an online mentor for a very popular online university. One of the reasons why I work like a madman is not because I like being busy 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I work like crazy because I direct all of that excess income that I earn from these activities directly towards repaying my student loans. Period.

And when the time comes that my student loans are fully repaid (by my estimate that could be as early as 12 months from now), I’ll have a few significant income streams coming my way. Unfortunately (or fortunately, whatever), I’m not going to be able to take an immediate break from working like crazy. The reason for that is because I’m going to have to work just as hard to rebuild, bolster, and dramatically increase my savings and investment accounts as I did to repay my student loans.

If I can repay the balance of my student loans over the next 18 months, then I’ll be 32 when my repayment is complete. By that point in my life, I should have been able to save (through investments, savings, CDs, and my 401k) a little bit over $150,000. While I definitely am on my way towards that goal, the aggressive student loan repayments obviously make it such that I have some catching up to do.

But I’m clearly not worried. I’ve knocked down over $100 thousand in student loan principal and interest in the last two years. With my income increasing each year and my now relative ease living with extreme budgeting to reach specific financial goals, I should be well above $150,000 in savings by the time I turn 33. It’s just a matter of stopping the useless, meaningless spending and directing your funds towards the things that really matter – like paying off debt! 🙂

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. After completely repaying over $61 thousand in student loans (not counting interest) from the federal Perkins loan program, the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority, and CitiBank, I currently owe $46 thousand to the United States Department of Education’s Direct Loans program. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

Another Student Loan Milestone Shattered – Now On To Bigger and Better Success

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It was just a little bit earlier this month when I wrote about how my student loan debt was sitting on the brink of another big break. That big break was smashing through the $50 thousand threshold and entering the $49 thousand area. And, well, I’m pleased to report that I’ve crossed over the brink and managed to successfully reduced the remaining balance of my student loan debt to below $50 thousand!

Smashed down to $49 thousand

Things are clearly starting to pick up a little bit in terms of my student loan repayment. While I’m not as crazed this year as I was last year in my goal to eliminate the NJHESAA debt, I’m still pretty focused on building a solid financial base for when I do begin to rev up and attack the balance of my USDOE debt. What it comes down to for me right now is making sure that before I start any large, monthly student loan repayments that I’m in a position where any major life change doesn’t knock me on my butt.

For example, let’s say that for some reason one of my roommates has to move out. That would bump my portion of the rent an additional $300 per month or $3,600 per year. Well, before I begin to send thousands of dollars down to Washington, DC to repay my student loan debt, I want to be sure that I’m in a position to be able to pay for any increased costs that may come my way. A more likely example of an increased expense is having to purchase a new car. As I wrote about on here a few years ago, my Chevy Blazer died in August 2008. Since then, I’ve been driving my Mom’s old Honda Civic. I’ve managed to run up the mileage on the Civic to about 140,000. And while I understand that Civics are built to last a long time, 140,000 miles is still a lot of mileage for a car. In the event that I need to buy a new car, I want to be sure that I can put a substantial down payment on the purchase instead of just a few thousand bucks.

So I’ve been spending a lot of time and effort bolstering my cash reserves. Thus far (and without going into any detail), it’s been a pretty successful enterprise. The end result of this success is my being able to slowly shift my focus from building up the reserves to decimating the remaining student loan debt… and that’s what I’m beginning to do.

Stick around at JerseySmarts.com because I’m going to start kicking the balance of this student loan’s ass really soon!

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. After completely repaying over $61 thousand in student loans (not counting interest) from the federal Perkins loan program, the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority, and CitiBank, I currently owe $49 thousand to the United States Department of Education’s Direct Loans program. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.