Student Loan Debt Destruction Update – September 2013

If you’re new to Money Manifesto, in December 2012 we decided it was time to open up to you, my readers, and shared our very first debt update.

In case you missed last month’s update, we’re married! We had an amazing month last month because we merged our finances and I used some money I had been saving. This month was another great month, but nowhere near as awesome as last month. We’re still making progress even though Tori hasn’t made it back to work yet, but that’s a story for another day.

Private Student Loan 1 – 8.0% Variable  DESTROYED!

This loan was originally over $20,000 but was destroyed in the August 2013 update.

Federal Student Loan 3 – 6.8% Fixed DESTROYED!

This was a smaller loan than the first, but it too was destroyed in the August 2013 update.

Private Student Loan 2 – 5.75% Variable

The current balance on this student loan is $20,788.02… ouch! This is a decrease of $1,083.86 since the last debt update. This is the highest balance loan but it has a lower interest rate for now. After running the numbers, we decided paying the variable interest rate loans off first would only cost us minimum amount of extra interest. To us, the piece of mind of getting rid of a variable rate loan is worth it.

Private Student Loan 3 – 4.75% Variable

The current balance on this student loan is $8,132.64. This is a decrease of $26.05 since the last debt update. This is likely the second loan we’ll be getting rid of due to its variable rate nature.

Federal Student Loan 1 – 6.55% Fixed

The current balance on this student loan is $7,433.72. This is a decrease of $62.22 since the last debt update. This will likely be the last student loan we pay off.

Federal Student Loan 2 – 6.55% Fixed

The current balance on this student loan is $6,984.09. This is a decrease of $58.72 since the last debt update. This will probably be the 3rd student loan we pay off.

Total Balance – $43,328.47 (-$1,280.35)

Our realistic goal is to have the student loans completely dead by the end of 2016. However, if things continue to go well with my side business and Tori doesn’t have to continue having more foot surgeries, we may be able to get this debt paid off much sooner than anticipated… more news on that in the coming months.

Lance Cothern, CPA

Lance Cothern, CPA holds a CPA license in Indiana. He’s a personal finance, debt and credit expert that writes professionally for top-tier publications including U.S. News & World Report, Forbes, Investopedia, Credit Karma, Business Insider and more.

Additionally, his expertise has been featured on Yahoo, MSN, USA Today, Reader’s Digest, The Huffington Post, Fast Company, Kiplinger, Reuters, CNBC and more.

Lance is the founder of Money Manifesto. He started writing about money and helping people solve their financial problems in 2012. You can read more about him and find links to his other work and media mentions here.