Debt

Pay Off Your Student Loans Now – It Doesn’t Get Any Easier Later

Last Updated on January 10, 2017January 10, 2017 28 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links.Financial Panther has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Financial Panther and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

I recently realized that I’m turning 30 in a few weeks. As I was reflecting on entering my 30s and the things I’ve achieved, one thing occurred to me – I must be in the minority of recent lawyers that will be entering their 30s with absolutely no student loan debt remaining.

This is sort of interesting when you think about it. Student loans have become so normalized in our society that we just expect everyone to have them now. This is especially true for most high income professions that require many years of post-college schooling. When you include all the time spent accruing debt in grad school, it’s not uncommon for someone to keep their debt around for a decade or more. A lawyer graduating at age 25 could easily still have their student loan debt kicking around until they’re 35 or older. I know of dentists that will be paying their student loans well into their 50s!

A common refrain is that you’ll pay more on your student loans sometime in the future…

Why I Prefer To Pay Off Debt Aggressively

Last Updated on February 5, 2017November 2, 2016 28 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links.Financial Panther has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Financial Panther and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

Anyone with debt and a decent cash flow will eventually find themselves with a choice. What should be done with all of that excess money? Assuming your goal isn’t to spend it all on buying things, you’re basically left with two choices. Pay off your debt aggressively. Or invest the surplus.

The pure mathematical answer is to play the interest rate arbitrage game. Excess money should go into assets that provide a rate of return higher than whatever interest rate your debt is at. It’s a pretty simple calculation from that vantage point…

Do You Know How Much Your Debt Costs You Per Day?

Last Updated on January 22, 2018October 28, 2016 27 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links.Financial Panther has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Financial Panther and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

One of the things that surprised me when I began my student loan payback journey was how much interest I had to pay when I started making my payments. What was even more surprising to me was how much interest my loans had accrued while I was in school (and making no money). In fact, when I graduated and made my first student loan payment, it didn’t even reduce my student loan balance at all. All of it went directly towards the interest!

Interest is one of those things that we all sort of understand in theory. Most of us basically know that when we borrow money, we agree to pay it back at some point, with a little extra on top. But I don’t think we’re very good at really understanding what interest looks like on a daily basis. Maybe that’s why we sometimes let debt linger in our lives…

The Only Secret To Paying Off Debt Is To Be A Weirdo

Last Updated on May 15, 2017October 17, 2016 57 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links.Financial Panther has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Financial Panther and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

One of the things I always tell people about debt is that there isn’t any secret to paying it off quickly. There’s no magic method that will make your debt disappear. No secret tricks that will crush your loans any faster. And you probably shouldn’t count on someone else paying your debt off for you.

In the end, paying off debt really just comes down to a single basic principle. Live on less than you earn and use what’s left over to pay off your debt. The more you have left over to pay towards your debt, the faster it’ll be gone. It’s basically that simple…

A Breakdown Of How I Paid Off $87,000 Worth Of Student Loans In 2.5 Years

Last Updated on March 2, 2018October 12, 2016 43 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links.Financial Panther has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Financial Panther and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

One of the best things I did coming out of law school was to pay off my student loans as fast as I could. Doing this gave me a ton of flexibility in the type of money I had to earn. With my loans gone, I didn’t need to work in a job earning a certain amount of money, all so that a portion of it could go out the door to some student loan company. And I could rest easy at night knowing that I didn’t have to keep paying for a piece of paper that I had earned years ago!

Interestingly, even though I knew how much in student loans I had paid off, I had never actually looked at what I had paid over those 2.5 years.

I thought it might be an interesting trip down memory lane to see this information. So a few weeks ago, I requested my payment history from my student loan servicing companies and took a look.