Student Loan

I’m taking a short break from grading papers for my recently-concluded online classes and going through some bills that came in the mail today. I notice that my bill for my student loan is unusually low. So I scrutinize the bill and discover that the amount due is equal to the account balance.

This is not an accounting peculiarity. It means that I have finally paid off this student loan! I’d been paying it aggressively for about a year — more than the minimum balance every month. That’s two down, one more (the consolidation loan) to go.

The last one will take a while unless I come in to some money suddenly and can’t think of anything better to do with it (like buy a house) but it’s also the one with the most gentle interest rates, so the smart thing to do is pay it off slowly since there won’t ever be cheaper money than that loan.

All the same it is a nice thing to have that particular weight taken off my shoulders. With the high cost of living in California, having one less bill to worry aobut each month, and another item out of my debt-to-income ratio, is an unvarnished good thing.