In the effort of transparency I am going to breakdown all of my debts, from where I started to where I currently am. Like I said in my intro blog, I didn’t realize how much student loan debt I was actually acquiring while trying to pay for schooling, BUT I am particularly glad that I did not have a credit card during school (“Oh no! But you need credit to have good credit!” -Hush. I will get to my VERY good credit score in another blog post). I watched many of my classmates fall further and further into debt because, when you are broke in college, it’s real easy to just “charge it”. Thankfully, I was terrified of doing that, so I didn’t.

Here is the breakdown of the loans:

(These are the totals of each type of loan over the course of the 3 and a half semesters)

SELF Loan $32,000.00

This is obviously the biggest amount in one single type of a loan, this is the main loan students can get by themselves in Minnesota. There is a $10,000/year limit with a SELF loan but the rates are pretty great, I have a 3.03% variable rate on all of them. These were all from FirstMark Services.

Ford Federal Un-subsidized Loan $5,447.00

This was a loan presented to me through the school I attended. After you filled out a FAFSA for each year, they would send you what you were “awarded” (LIES.). I would be “awarded” a few small “grants” and “scholarships” which barely covered my books, and then I’d also be “awarded” the ability to accept these special loans! Which were “a great deal”, I was assured. Here’s the thing though, I’m not a loan officer for a bank- I don’t know what subsidized, or un-subsidized means. I don’t understand all the fancy jargon hidden in the fine print! I still don’t, sorry I can’t actually help you with that.

Ford Federal Subsidized Loan $16,323.00

Same as above, but for some reason this is significantly more. I don’t know why that is, but it leads me to believe it is the more evil of the two.

Parent PLUS loan $5,000.00

This loan we tried to avoid, I didn’t want to involve my parents anymore than I had to. Obviously I had to to a certain extent, your parents have to co-sign on loans, but I was very determined not to put strain on my family. I only applied for this loan with my mother after it was suggested I take an online class through ANOTHER campus so that I could move into the upper division courses for my minor and thus graduate at my desired time. At no point did either campus alert me to the fact that I would be charged for the class, online fees, and a “campus fee” for a campus I (to this day) have never set foot on! I received an email over the Summer I took that ONE class, saying I owed the other campus $4,000.00 and needed to pay them by the end of the week. I was a hard worker but I didn’t have $4,000.00 cash, just laying around, burning a hole in my pocket. Hence, the dreaded call to mom and dad “I need money…”.

All in all: $58,770.00 and my darling, amazing, loving parents, are not making me pay back the $5,000.00 parent loan.

My personal debt total in 2014: $53,770.00

Ouch. Since graduating December 18th, 2014, I consolidated the subsidized and un-subsidized loans through Great Lakes, a consolidation group. I also paid off a baby SELF loan that I had taken out for my last semester of school and I am officially down to $48,545.99!
Over the next few blogs I’ll be talking about how I do my personal finances, what I do when “life happens”, and my plan to pay off the $48,545.99 in the next 6 years!

Sugar and Savings,

xoxo Taylor