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Brain dump about priority of goals, etc.

January 28th, 2013 at 10:16 pm

Omigod, worst title ever. Sorry, I'll be writing this in dribs and drabs between bits of work, so it'll probably be scattered too. You have been warned.

I'm in email contact with a lawyer about our immigration/tax-filing question; if he consults with us it'll be $250. I'd really like to pay that upfront without disrupting the momentum of our goals, so I started looking around at credit card deals.

There's a Barclays NFL card where you get 10K points, good for a $100 statement credit, after your first purchase! If we each got approved for this, we could easily cover the lawyer fee. I'm going to cancel some errant card accounts and then try for this.

***

creditcardfree's contemplation of paying off the car loan really got me thinking about the loan that bugs me the most: NT's student loan with Direct Loan, the federal loan place. Not only is it our highest interest rate (6.175%), but their site is terrible and frequently posts inaccurate, delayed or confusing information regarding the balance and how payments are applied. I don't want to empty our savings accounts to pay it off, which is what it would take, but I would LOVE to see this one gone.

So I started thinking what it would take to get rid of it by the end of the year. First, I'd need to virtually ignore adding to the medical fund for the rest of the year. I'm kind of OK with that. We have enough in there for now, and could always rearrange the budget and slow down student loan payment if we had an emergency that took more than what we have saved.

And, I'd probably have to pretty much ignore the house/moving fund, except the UK money that goes toward it (that wouldn't be worth transferring over here to pay down debt, so I'd just let that accumulate toward the moving fund.

Also, to avoid taking out any more money with Direct Loan, I'd have to cashflow NT's fall tuition, which would run us about $4K.

OK, so if I did all that, how close could I get? I'd need $18K to finish off the student loan plus $4K to avoid taking any further loans from Direct Loan, so $22K total.

I currently have $1062 extra to put to education per month, plus about $50 that goes to principal on this DL loan when I make a $100 payment to cover interest. That would knock $12,232 off, leaving $9768.

I believe AS has $1850 of freelance income due to her in the next couple months, so if we put all of that toward this, that would leave $7918.

If we put the $101 per month I have earmarked for the house moving fund, that would be another $1111, leaving $6807.

If I really scraped the barrel and put the $75 I earmark for the medical fund monthly, that would be another $825, leaving $5982.

Starting in July or so, I could start siphoning money from our travel budget, say $350 per month for those 6 months. That would be $2100, leaving $3882.

We could potentially each double-dip the Chase Sapphire reward, the last big-money credit card reward, if we staggered it throughout the year. We should be able to clear at least $1290 that way, leaving $2592.

Hmm...that's still a $236 average monthly shortfall if we wanted it paid off by the end of the year. It also assumes no budget hiccups where money would need to be diverted toward an unexpected expense.

Oh! And if NT took a summer class, that's something else we'd have to cashflow. Probably a couple grand.

So I guess it's not looking very likely that we'd be able to completely rid ourselves of this annoying loan. The question is, should I go ahead and do all of the above and try to get as close as possible? Or should I continue to contribute something to the medical and moving funds every month?

4 Responses to “Brain dump about priority of goals, etc.”

  1. mjrube94 Says:
    1359414044

    If that's "scattered", I'd hate to see what "focused" looks like. It seemed pretty organized to me!

    I'd go for throwing everything at it. Worst case, it's gone a few months into next year. Best case, you may get a few unexpected snowflakes to pay it down more. Good luck!

  2. ironicine Says:
    1359417757

    I have regularly seen the Barclays card at 200-400 cash back.

  3. FrugalTexan75 Says:
    1359424679

    I think I'd go for it too .. as long as you have some money set aside for the hiccups. Even if it takes 14 - 16 months to get rid of it, it would be one less thing to work off, and then you can refocus on your other goals.

  4. ceejay74 Says:
    1359424974

    Darn, ironic, I found a few mentions of an offer like that from late 2012, but it seems to have expired. I wish I'd been paying attention in November/December!

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