$101,400 and 27 Months Later, My Student Loan Debt is Gone.
Ten Free Tips Anyone Can Use to Tackle Any Hard Goal.
In January 2020, I decided to finally tackle my student loan debt. Though I’d borrowed far less, on 1/1/2020, it had ballooned, thanks to income-based repayment, my relatively low income, and the power of interest, to $101,400. On March 14, 2022, at the age of 49, I made the last payment, and am, for the first time since the age of 18, student-loan-debt-free.
Comically, the next day I received an email from my lender, letting me know I’d overpaid by one cent, and could expect a check in the mail “representing the overpayment.” This may be a check I never cash.
This is an average-person success story, and this kind of story was, in part, what kept me chasing the impossible-seeming dream of paying off my student loan debt before I turn 50. I once had no earthly idea how to get free of my student loan debt — a person must die or be so severely disabled they can never hope to work again in order to legally have their student loans discharged — and now I do, thanks to others who shared their stories, their mistakes, and what they’d learned. How does anyone ever learn anything, other than the hard way or through the wisdom of people who have been there?
