Think I’ll feel even better about it once the student loan organization posts the payment, but due in part to a sudden reckoning by family re: support to date and capacities today, I was able to pay off the last bit of my loans without screwing up my immediate need finances.
10 years in the making, lol. Just kinda feel like shouting this into the void, despite faithfully making the payments it still never really felt like this day would ever come.
Congrats!
Let us know what happens to your credit score lol
That’s the one reason I’ve been making minimum payments for a couple years. I’m down to some low thousands left (unsure as Nelnet is a piece of shit and won’t let me log in since taking over for Great Lakes, thankfully the auto-pay auto-restarted and hasn’t had any problems), which I could easily just pay right off, but it’s less than a dollar a month of interest, and it’s definitely propping my credit score up a bit. The minimum payment is like $75/mo. My payments were ~$45 a month before the long pause, and I have no idea why they went up when they restarted (they weren’t income-driven or anything), and I have no way of knowing the true reason, re: Nelnet sucks. Pre-pause, I had 6-7 years left at minimum payment, I would assume it’s significantly less now, if everything is being calculated properly, but again… No way of knowing.
Lol, we’ll see 😬
My payment was $342/month (this was the post-COVID lowered amount), so despite any credit hit that’s going to be a nice chunk of change to get back every month. Before recent events, I could have paid it off but I was prioritizing my kid’s tuition instead so they wouldn’t have to deal with it. At the current balance and with assistance, can kill off both for his last year :)
Yeah that’ll be nice to have back in your bank account each month, for sure!
I’ve been debating just blasting mine away and praying I don’t take too big a hit… If the payment hadn’t gone up, it’d be no question, I’ll just leave it be, but getting close to $100 a month is annoying.
And that’s great news! My parents helped me a decent amount with school, but I still had almost 100k in loans. The most help, though, was letting me live at home for free for 3 years, I literally just put my entire salary into those loans and they went down pretty quick (engineering degree, so I got a decent salary right off the bat). Not having any other money or a social life or anything was a bummer, but I am forever thankful for their sacrifice, and my own willingness to make my own sacrifices.
No real fault of their own, but my parents weren’t really able to support me much when I decided to go to uni. So the loan amount reflects both school and living costs, supplemented with (an admittedly pretty great, all things considered) part time job. That and once they were better established, my sibling required much more immediate and intensive support anyway (long story, it was a pretty bad situation). Living with them wasn’t an option (posted elsewhere).
It was a very weird but appreciated call this weekend - my mom’s pretty blunt so it was literally:“Hello?” “How much do you have left on your student loans” “Uh, $X? Why?” “I’m sending you money, some now and some next month.” “Wow, ok, thank you?” “Just send me a reciept so I know it went to your loan. Love you!” click
I blame the planets aligning this weekend, 'cause at this point that’s all I have to go on aside some very hand-wavy “we were thinking about what we’ve done and what we can do recently” statements, lol. Still a very, very nice thing for them to do, I’m super appreciative. Was just kind of a shock.
Paying off your loans will actually raise your credit score because it will lower your credit utilization ratio and will reduce your overall debt. Even after you pay off your loan, it doesn’t disappear from your credit report… the loan’s history will remain on your credit report for quite some time (7-10 years).
The best thing I ever did to improve my credit score was to replace my debit card with a credit card, and then I’d pay the credit card off each month. Not only do I get cash back from the credit card, but my credit utilization ratio is always low.
Well at least I know how much I still owe, now lol. Figures the credit bureaus are actually able to get information out of Nelnet, while us “consumers” are stuck in the dark.
I think in my case it’s the average account age that’s fucking me over. 2 Credit cards and car both under 5 years old, no other accounts besides my 15 year old student loan. My debt to credit ratio is only like 7%, so paying off the small student loan wouldn’t improve that much.