It’s time for another student loan update! Let’s look at the cycle between December and January. We’re going to look at how Group C in EdFinancial has progress, and a big update I have regarding my student loan payments.
EdFinancial
In my last update, I started to pay down EdFinancial’s Group C, which had a balance of $3,554.13. 5 weeks had gone by and I started making $200 payments every week to this account. So as of this writing, Group C has been reduced to $2,554.13.
Let’s take a look at my payment breakdown.
The next payment after my last update was on the 20th of December for $200. And every Monday until the 17th of January, I continued to pay $200. Big lesson here is to always set up auto-pay or schedule your payments in advance, so you don’t forget to make payments.
Unfortunately, EdFinancial doesn’t have a good system to set up auto-pay. I’ve explained this issue before in one of my older student loan updates. Basically, you can set up auto-pay in EdFinancial but the amount you pay will be used across all your accounts. That amount pays off the minimum for each account first, then adds the leftover to all of your accounts as well.
I honestly don’t understand how they weigh that, so I opted to schedule my payments manually instead.
I noticed something different as well with my December 13th payment. In my last update, the transaction was considered as one. But now, they have separated the transaction into two entries — one for the pay off for Group B, and another for the extra payment for Group C.
I also don’t understand why they do that. I’m guessing that in the last update, they put them together because the payment was being processed together. Then when the payment was cleared, they separated the entries.
It’s not a big thing when it comes to my balances, because it didn’t change anything, but it’s something to keep in mind for those who have loans with EdFinancial.
Anyway, there is still no change to Group A at this point. The balance still sits at $5,344.78.
Weeks Left to Payoff
With another extension from the US government on student loans, we will all resume payments on May 1, 2022. In my last update, I estimated that I would pay off Group C around the 3rd week of April. And even with this new calculation, that target date has still not changed.
However, the big update that I’ve mentioned in my net worth update in January will affect this calculation. For 4 weeks, I’m pausing my weekly payments because I need to use the cash to save for something else. This means that this timeline will also be pushed to the middle of May.
Final Thoughts
The balance as of January 25, 2022 for my entire student loan is $7,898.91!
Even though I’m taking a break in making payments to my student loans for a month, I’m not worried too much about it. I still feel optimistic about my student loans this year just because of how things progressed last year.
I still have some leftover excitement.
The goal to completely get rid of my student loans is still the priority this year, and I have complete faith that it will be done.
Since I will be taking a break from making payments, it doesn’t make sense for me to make a student loan update for February. You can expect to see the next update on March instead.