Celebrate with me dear readers, because I just paid off another loan!
I got paid unexpectedly today. A deposit appeared in my checking account from my catering company that I wasn’t expecting until next week. I got my weeks mixed up and thought that I was going to be paid a week later. Yesterday also brought my second nonprofit paycheck, making this week a windfall for me.
So what’s a girl to do with all this cash laying around? Pay off a loan of course! I realized I had enough in my checking account to knock out the MyCampusLoan that I’ve been steadily working on this month. So I did what I do best: took money from my checking and sent it straight to a loan lender. (I can’t wait until that’s a skill I don’t need anymore.) And boom! With the push of a button I have made the final payment on that loan!
That leaves me with one loan left, my final Navient loan. My remaining loan balance is $4,008.68, with an interest rate of 4.35%.
Recently I’ve talked about the burnout I’ve been feeling and the stress levels I’ve been experiencing. Take this morning for example. After being out until 1:30 watching my boyfriends band play, I had a meeting at 9:15 this morning with a board member for my nonprofit. I had to be home by 10:30 to meet a ceiling repair man (my ceiling had a big old crack in it). I have a lot of data entry to do for the nonprofit, two articles to write for tomorrow, seemingly endless emails to send and respond to, and a lacrosse game from 7-9:30pm tonight.
I was in a bad mood this morning thinking about my day. It’s just rinse and repeat for tomorrow too, followed by 9 hour catering events both Saturday and Sunday this weekend. Then we hit the ground running next Monday. I was craving a break, and feeling somewhat bitter about how jammed my schedule is and how much I have to work.
The arrival of this deposit and the resulting loan pay off this morning has totally changed my mood. I am feeling downright elated! I’ve been secretly hoping to pay off this loan before the end of April, but I didn’t really know how I was going to do it. Turns out, as much as I cater, I almost always forget to factor those paychecks into my monthly earnings. Since the amount varies depending on length and frequency of events it’s hard to predict the amount I’ll earn. I tend to just ignore that money and be pleasantly surprised when it comes in. Today was one of those pleasant surprises!
While I do still have a boatload of work to get through this week and a lot of catering to survive this weekend, I am feeling much better about it. I’m in the final sprint with my loans. If I play my cards right, I might even be able to knock out this remaining loan sometime in July. That would be amazing/totally bonkers. Remember when I thought I wasn’t even going to be able to pay off my loans in 2015? Now I would have to actively try NOT to pay my loans to not pay them off this year. And we all know that ain’t gonna happen!
So here’s to working multiple jobs, late nights catering Texas weddings, going without and pinching pennies. Here’s to setting a goal and chasing it down completely. The results are pouring in now and I am overjoyed. Just a few more months till the finish!
Kara Perez is the original founder of From Frugal To Free. She is a money expert, speaker and founder of Bravely Go, a feminist financial education company. Her work has been featured on NPR, Business Insider, Forbes, and Elite Daily.