My last day of student loans
$54,263.29 PAID, $5,736.71 to go
A part of me can’t even believe I am typing this. But it’s true.
Tomorrow I am paying off my student loans.
It’s a little hard to hold back the tears. This has been such a long, heart-opening, mind-bending, life-changing journey. The funny part is on this last leg of my journey I’ve become increasingly more at peace with my money and my debt. Even as I make this last payment, I don’t feel the urgency to do it. It’s more on the side of inspired action to take the magical leap into the next chapter of my life.
Maybe it’s fitting this happened now. June is graduation time and millions of college grads are leaving school to start their journeys, too. Paying off my student loans this week is my graduation, again.
I’m ready to take all the lessons I have learned about personal finance, money mindset and entrepreneurship to a new level. I’m ready to become the person I have been planning to be for years.
Here’s how I know I have come full circle and I’m ready to pay off my loans. After years of resenting my loans and feeling overwhelmingly negative about my financial situation, I’m looking at my situation with new eyes. It’s like when you are a kid and you have a fear. It all feels so real. It all feels so overwhelming. Then when you grow up you see the most of the fear and angst was in your head.
My fear was that I was broke. I had education but no money. The little girl in me truly believed I would be that way forever.
Now I know that story isn’t true today. It never was. But I needed to open my eyes and learn from others to really see the truth. Money has always been here for me when I needed it most. Even when I was “broke,” I’ve always been able to make money. And when I started to learn about personal finance, I’ve always been able to save and manage money.
Now I can see clearly my loans were never a burden. My loans were a gift. Because of my education I am able to pursue the freelance career that fills my days and heart with meaning and purpose.
My student loans provided the $60,000 I needed to fund the education of my dreams. When I was staring at an acceptance letter to USC’s Annenberg School of Communication but had no idea how I would pay for it, money was there for me. It was there when I needed it then, it’s here now and it always will be in the future. I know this because I deeply believe the universe has my back.
I still believe our higher education system is deeply broken and that we need to make college more affordable overall.
I’m forever grateful to companies I found along the way that are trying to change student debt in this country, like CommonBond. They allowed me to refinance my outrageously high-interest rate loans and make actual progress toward knocking out my debt.
My journey paying off student loans has also revealed to me what it means to have unrelenting support from the friends and family I love most in the world. And of course, the process has taught me what it means to have a true partner in life. Someone who embraces me wholly and has never turned his back on me.
When I was overwhelmed by my debt, he didn't just give me emotional support (though that in itself can move mountains). He rolled up his sleeves and jumped into the trenches with me as we took on extra jobs and explored every possible way to tackle this debt — together.
Perhaps most importantly, when I said I wanted to be a freelancer he believed in me as much as my own parents and sister do. He still believes in me and never waivers.
All this to say that I’m walking away and saying good-bye to my student loans with a very full and grateful heart. Not just for the money that funded my amazing education, but for the life lessons I learned and the unfathomable growth I experienced as a human along the way.
So gracias and good-bye student loans. It’s been a good run.
