Freed by 50

Freedom comes at a price.  For my wife and I, that price was $34,865.80.  I  must be out of my mind!

Being older than my wife, my college loans have been paid off for almost eight years.  But we were six years from fully repaying her loans.  My wife graduated right at the end of the wild West period of college loans.  She had no idea Citi and Discover had put her on a 20 year repayment plan.  The loans were so out of hand that we had to consolidate twice just to cut it from twelve loans down to one!  And then I went nuts.

I’ve been sending up to $1000/month at a $72k debt for so long I lost track and I’d had my fill.  We planned, we saved, we sold stock and squirreled away bonus’s for months, and just a couple weeks ago, we bought our freedom.

This will take time to recover from.  We had an eight month emergency fund and this knocked it down to two.  Plus changes in seasons tend to be expensive.  There are necessary repairs and replacements around the house and yard.  And we needed a new car because we couldn’t fit two car seats in our old car because we’re having a baby in a matter of days.  But that was all part of the plan, I think.

Freedom.  A $1000/month raise that I just gave myself.  $12,000 post tax dollars per year ($17,490 pre-tax!).  This is what dreams are made of.  It’s a bill that will never come back.  It’s a 6% bump to my 401k, bumping my Roth contributions to the maximum amount, increasing my ESPP contribution by 2%, AND being able to save an extra $500+ each month to hopefully send to the mortgage at the end of each year.

Bye student loans.  Hello freedom.