Achieving Goals

I just paid off my smallest student loan. The minimum payment was $50 a month, which never seemed to make the loan shrink. This was a loan that I could pay online or over the phone with no additional cost, so I tried to make a payment every payday. My weekly paycheck is usually $XX8.48 and I realized I could pay this off much quicker even if all I did was pay the $8.48 from each week's paycheck; it added up to about $33 so in three months I would make two extra payments.

Then I decided to try paying it off faster. I started out by dividing the balance by the number of months from January 2008 to June 2009 and dividing to find out a monthly payment. Then I decided to put my tax return toward this loan as well as my economic stimulus payment, which helped a lot!. Getting this loan out of the way gave me a huge psychological lift and I'm ready to tackle my next challenge!

The next smallest loan, on which I have also been making minimum payments as about two and a half times the amount of money as the last one; it has been re-calibrated several times and the minimum payment has jumped around a bit. The minimum payment on this loan has been lowered a few times with the Fed's rate cuts, so I have continued paying the same amount and am reducing the loan more quickly.

I would like to pay this loan off by the end of the year, but that will only be possible with continuing employment and focus on paying it off. If a project comes my way, I should be able to achieve this goal.