I still have a bunch left and can't wait to eat it! Yum!
So I've been paying off student loans quite aggressively for the past 2+ years, gradually increasing the amount I paid each month to ~$1200. The idea of debt is unsettling, especially when you walk across a stage and accept a single sheet of paper that sets you back $34 grand (3,400,000 pennies).
I remember wondering in 4th grade "how much is a million?" My math teacher sarcastically recommended I see how long it takes to glue 1,000,000 toothpicks together. We as a class took the challenge literally and spent the next day gluing toothpicks together in bundles of 100, then rubber banding groups of ten to make a chord of 1000 (this seemed logical).
We stopped at 4000. Our hands hurt.
Three million four hundred thousand toothpicks.
Apple is on track to sell 100,000,000 iToothpicks this year via the help of thousands of hand-hurting workers... and we are fueling this (but I love mine as you love yours).
Right before I graduated in May '08, I put together a spreadsheet of how I would pay off my colossal debt. I somewhat naively said I could finish paying them off by "December 2011" (a lot of my loans were at 6.8%... pretty high, and in just a decade this would grow above 50 grand). I thought about consolidating, but some of my loans were fixed at 2.4% and somehow they were contingent upon having the higher 6.8% loans. I found solace that after 12 months of on-time payments, the 6.8% fell to 5.8%, where they've been floating ever since.
Last month I got more antsy than $1200 a month satiated and decided to pay off one of my lenders in full, to the tune of $2107.38. Oddly, they still sent me a bill for $0.00 this month, with no indication that the loan is over.
This month, I've been even more antsy and this morning I decided to pay off the remainder of the balance: $7952.14
And with that car-size chunk of bits, I now have no student loans and absolutely no debt!
To recap, I just forked over $34,000+3500 in interest in 29 months (24% of my income). With 15% of my income going straight into a Roth 401k, 18% going to taxes, and 15% going into a non-roth etrade account, What on earth am I going to do with the extra income?
0. more in Roth IRA (up to 5k)/401k (up to 16500) (1)
1. Increase my emergency fund. At the end of this year, my medical plan is dropping from 100%/no deductable (i.e. heaven) to 90%/less heaven, up to $2000 a year in expenses... This means I need to set aside at least 2000 additional dollars to get the same safety net I have today in case I have an unexpected medical event. (2)
2. invest it, obviously. I want to have the option to retire at 35; not that I will, but life is all about options. This will keep me working where I want to. (3)
3. Blow and hookers.
and yes I zero-index linked lists.
