Getting Back on Track Paying Off My Student Loans

Filed under: All, Debt Elimination, Finances, Personal

Previously I posted about tricks I was using to pay off my ridiculous amount of student loans and the little strides I was making to cut those down. If you’re a long time reader, you probably noticed I promptly stopped talking about it. This wasn’t out of laziness but more out of shame because I backslid majorly during most of last year.

From the end of April to the beginning of December last year I was unemployed. I searched endlessly for a job, but all I had to support myself was unemployment and some money here and there from temp work and freelance projects. Unfortunately that was not enough to make my private student loan payments of $1021.59 each month (my federal loans were in unemployment deferment). I was determined not to go into forbearance again, because that’s how my student loan payments ballooned so much in the first place.

To make up the difference each month I drained my savings account until it reached the minimum I needed to have to keep the account open ($300) and then I had to start borrowing money from my boyfriend to make the payments. Then we reached a point where we couldn’t afford to make the student loan payments and pay our other bills.

I still did not want to put my loans in forbearance, so instead I started making two payments on my loans. When my due date came, I would pay what I had and then pay the rest as soon as I had the money. Luckily enough, Sallie Mae has a grace period of about two weeks or so after your bill is due where you can still pay without any penalties or late fees. I did that for a couple months, but as a result each month my monthly payment amount was slowly rising because I was being charged extra interest on the amounts I didn’t pay in time each month.

This became a vicious cycle where I couldn’t keep up, but then I got lucky and scored two part-time jobs and was able to catch up on my payments so I’m paying normally again. Even though I recently quit my seasonal job, I should still make enough money to cover my student loan payments as long as I’m smart with my money and stick to my budget.

Now that I am back on track, my monthly student loan payments are $1024.70. That’s 27 cents more than when I started making payments in January of 2009. I’ve basically undone all of my work and then some. Now I’m ready to get back on track.

I filed my tax return two weeks ago and received my refund on Friday. I decided to be smart with my refund money, so I transferred half of it to my savings account and used the other half to make an extra payment on my student loans to the amount of $650. I don’t know how much of a difference it will make, but hopefully I can lower that monthly payment soon and get back on track with snowballing away my debt. I will continue to round up my payments each month and pay whatever extra I can.

From now on I hope to do monthly updates on how my debt repayment is going. After I receive my next Sallie Mae bill and see how the extra payment effected my bill amount I’ll post an update. For now, I’m just excited to be back on track.

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Posted at 9:16 AM, February 21, 2011 by Tiffany

Free Advanced Movie Screening “Beastly”

Filed under: All, Entertainment, Free

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Boy it’s been awhile since I posted one of these. But I’m excited to finally find a free screening to post about.

This one is for a new movie called Beastly. The plot description via IMDB: A modern-day take on the “Beauty and the Beast” tale where a New York teen is transformed into a hideous monster in order to find true love. The movie stars Vanessa Hudgens, Alex Pettyfer, Mary-Kate Olsen, and Neil Patrick Harris. Beastly is out March 4th in the US. I’ll include the trailer at the end of this post.

This screening is being presented by Forty Three Kix. There are about 50 US cities available at the time of posting, so I’m not going to list them all, but you should go check it out.

The way this screening is done is with mobile tickets. Click on the city you want and enter your phone number and zip code. You’ll then receive a text message with a mobile ticket good for two people. Seating is on a first come, first serve basis, so arrive early.

If you’re new to advanced movie screenings, check out my tips.

Here’s the trailer:

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Posted at 9:18 PM, February 19, 2011 by Tiffany

Rescheduling and Reprioritizing

Filed under: All, Personal

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Life has been busy busy. I’ve been working two part-time jobs, keeping me busy for six out of seven days of the week. It’s definitely tricky. The stress started to effect me a lot more quickly than I expected. Suddenly it seemed like my life became an endless cycle of sleeping and going to work, with me scrambling to live the rest of my life in the pockets of time in between. I was falling behind on everything, but I was making money.

I was making a lot of money. Enough to catch up on my student loans and my other bills and have extra spending money to buy all the things I’ve wanted or needed and just couldn’t afford while I’ve been unemployed. Problem is, there’s no time to go buy those things or even enjoy them.

After a lot of soul searching I decided I didn’t want to be miserable anymore, so yesterday I gave two weeks notice at my second job. Part of me feels relieved. I look forward to having a real weekend again and time for myself. The other part of me is worried because of finances. Cutting the second job means that extra $600 or so a month is gone. That makes for less wiggle room in the budget and less fun stuff. Instead I have to be disciplined and, well, thrifty in my spending.

I’m optimistic though. Hopefully soon my main job will become a full time job and I’ll finally be able to get into a steady groove with my finances and paying off my debt. And of course, I’ll be posting here more.

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Posted at 5:33 PM, February 6, 2011 by Tiffany

Blizzard 2011 in Chicago

Filed under: All, Patio Gardening, Personal

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We’re in the midst of the great blizzard of 2011 here in Chicago now I get to work from home today, which is good because there are snow drifts out in the street close to 4 feet and the snow is still falling.

We made a short little video of what our patio garden looks like under all this snow.

Check it out: