Twenty Years? That's Just Not Good Enough

So as the things settle in with Jonny's new job, and we clean up the things we've had to let slide (car repairs, house essentials, etc) we've started looking at the UGLY reality of our student loan payoff. What we've discovered is this: by paying only the minimum due of just over $800 a month for all of our student loans, it would take us until February 2032 to pay the darn things off. TWENTY YEARS!!! I'll be 51! That's ridiculous. I've said this a million times in this blog: If you are a high school or college student who is reading this DON'T TAKE OUT STUDENT LOANS. Please! You can (and must) find a way to pay for school without them. Don't let the darn things follow you for the rest of your life. Please read my previous post which has some suggestions on things you can do to avoid taking out student loans while still attending college.

Luckily, we don't intend to only pay the minimum. In a few months when we get things cleaned up we will be able to pay $1200 a month towards the student loans, versus the $800. That extra 50% drops my timeline almost in half: The new payoff date would be July 2022.

But...that's still just not good enough. I really REALLY want to throw at least $2000 a month at this monster. Why? Because I want it GONE. It's not fun watching my money come in and money go out, and as Dave says, only the names are changed to protect the innocent. With a $2000 a month payment, our new payoff date would be... wait for it... September 2017. That's just over 5 years from now, and that's shortly before what will be our 10 year wedding anniversary. Debt freedom for a 10 year anniversary gift? Yes please.

So the question now is... what can we do to get another $800 a month? Well, realistically, we probably need another $1000 a month to account for taxes and tithing. I really need to get serious about applying to be an online professor...I'm just intimidated by the process and I haven't quite found all the tools I need in order to make sure I have the proper credentials to do so.

So anyway... I'm not sure what we're going to do to bring in that extra $1000 per month...but we know this is what is necessary if we want to meet out goal of having everything paid off in 5 years. I really wish I could deliver pizzas again, but it would be detrimental to my healthy eating lifestyle I'm trying to follow. Ugh. Hopefully I'll have an answer to this problem before too long.