Again, I’ve got an estimated net worth here. I think I might be being extra-conservative with the estimate, but I’m okay with that. The honeymoon money is almost spent/moved to another account, so that’s good. I’ve started to get a little overwhelmed with all things wedding, and realizing the expenses that we’ve yet-to-incur, and what they may be. I was looking into getting a string quartet/some kind of classical string performance for the ceremony, but I just can’t justify spending $800 on an hour. iPod Tchaikovsky it is! At some point I’m going to have to do a few posts about what we’re spending on the wedding, and what we’re prioritizing (and what we’re just plain unwilling to spend money on).
Now for the reason you’re here: March Recap!
Student Loans Principal Year-To-Date:
Thought #1 is… YAY! This is 30% of the way there, with 25% of the year behind us! The bad news is, my tax return and my bonus have already happened, so I won’t have these kinds of windfalls for the rest of the year. But I’ll keep plugging either way, and for now, I’ll be happy about the progress.
I saw another blogger’s post on the monthly interest they’ve paid (who was this? I would like to give you a shout out!) Here’s a little bit of a view of mine. I think in 2013 I was still paying some old accrued interest, but really started paying aggressively around that time, so after that I was just paying the interest that accrued monthly. It’s not terribly easy to see, but there was a significant drop in October (paying only a partial month’s interest), that’s stabilized right around $380. Other than monthly variation (months with 31 days, months where the payment date falls on a weekend, so the payment doesn’t go through until Monday) this number should slowly go down every month. I’ve been guesstimating the interest for my undergraduate loans, but they’re around $10 a month at this point. My numbers should be pretty exact once the last one is paid off in August (and it WILL be paid off by my 32nd birthday). I’m hoping to see serious changes here once the man in working. For various reasons (co-signer, low balances, multiple loans, the fact that I’ve had them for TEN YEARS) I’ve been paying off my undergraduate loans first, even though they have the smallest interest rate (3.25). Starting in August, my extra payments will be going toward my highest interest rate loans (5%). The difference between the two isn’t huge, but I’ll take it!
Now for the main event: My puzzle of total(ish) student loan progress! My current loan balance is:
That gives us 46 pieces in the puzzle–16 more than last month! I’m pretty happy with that–that’s almost 10% of the puzzle! And, you know, almost $10,000 from the $100,000 I’m counting down from. 16 pieces is probably the most at a time we’re going to see this year. And I had a 16 piece chunk ready to add on–after the colored pencils are done it’s going to get significantly more difficult. But, it’s going to be a while before that happens. For now, here it is: 46 pieces representing $9,200 of payoff since the $100,000 mark. I feel confident that in May, I’ll get over 50 pieces, for 10% of the puzzle. 10% of $100,000 feels pretty good, I think.