Student Loan Check-in

One of my financial goals for the year was to pay $3000 worth of principal in addition to my monthly payments (starting in April). I'm happy to say that January went well and I'm more than 1/5th of the way to my goal for the year. Mystery shopping payment that had accumulated in PayPal, some Xmas money, a few other mystery shopping checks, and snowflaking helped get me there. Seeing the numbers go down after each payment was seriously addictive.

What is even better is the amount of interest I paid off at the same time. Until Tuesday my account was in a grace period. All payments made during this time were applied first to interest and then principal. So in order to get to pay off $632.42 in principal I had to pay off all of the accrued interest. In January I made a total of 1435.02 in payments.

The part of this I'm loving the most is that my bill has dropped $15/month. I'm still going to pay the original amount I was quoted. It's built into my budget and will help me get a little closer to my goal each month. The only thing I regret was not getting some of that money in before the New Year. Student loan interest is tax deductable so any bit that I'd paid last year would reduce my 2007 tax liability. But you live and learn and I'll take what I've done so far.

Between now and December the remaining goal is 2367.58. I'll post another update next month.