Another big [financial] pat on the back for us because today is the final payment of Somara’s second-smallest student loan! Not bad work. This one took only a year to kill off despite the set-back of her surgery, a smaller escrow refund and the IRS dragging ass on our Economic Hail Mary. The bigger boost was refinancing the house to re-allocate a substantial amount.
This now puts us over the 20 percent mark on paying off Somara’s education. Even I’m amazed how well we’ve managed this in less than two and a half years. I only wish the remaining pair of loans were equally as small but sadly, they’re not but don’t fret for us, we’re still way to ahead of most Americans. I’m not terribly worried due to the strategy I mapped out. My friend Bryant probably would give the credit to Dave Ramsey yet I recall my parents giving me the same advice back in 1992, too bad I didn’t take it until 1996.
All the money allocated to loan number two [code name John Glenn] will be put into loan number three [code name James Lovell] after our puny Citibank balance is killed. Then, according to my calculations, we may be left with nothing but the monstrous loan [code name Neil Armstrong] in 17 months; sooner should there be a decent financial windfall in our favor.
My favorite part about this final payment mainly deals with Sallie Mae’s horrible customer service. When I worked with them in the Nineties on my student-loan debt, they were great. Now they’re a stressful chore. Firstly, their web site cannot separate the payments correctly for our strategy. I used to be able to get this corrected via e-mail until April. Secondly, should you need to call them on the phone, you get this Bangalore-based call center where you’re talking to “Jenny” or “Bob,” yeah right. Not only are their accents very thick, half of them lecture you about something they know nothing about since Somara’s account is in great standing.