I just sent the final payment to my only Perkins loan. WooHooo! Let's have a moment of satisfaction before reality re-enters the room.
In the big scheme of things,that debt was infinitesimal. Miniscule even. My other remaining student loans are monsters by comparison. I will be paying on them for the next 25 years. But, for now, it feels good to knock one down.
After flunking out of my undergrad, I swore I would never waste my parents' money again. So I took out student loans to go back to school. My intentions were good, and I am proud of where I am at now. That experience helped make me the person I am today. But the burden of having so much debt is huge. It affects every daily decision Christopher and I make. We would have been able to move to Tuscaloosa 2 years ago, if it weren't for my student loans.
If we have kids, I will do everything I can to keep them from making the same mistakes I did. We will help them out with college (notice - I don't mean give them a free ride. I think working for it is important in the growing-up process), but we will also make sure they are financially savvy and are saving to help themselves.
Lesson learned on this end.
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2 comments:
Congrats! I hope the other loans manage to get paid faster than you think. We were lucky that Andrew had such a good job, and that for a number of years I had Grad assistantships that basically paid for my college. I know it would have been much harder on me had things been different.
Yep, student loans are soul-suckers. Even Christopher's relatively small one is a monthly bill I'd rather not have to pay.
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