Freed by 50

Confession time: I forgot about a loan I had outstanding. In my defense, I didn’t exactly forget about it. I knew it was there and I’ve been paying it all along, but the interest rate was so low, and it was on my existing power bill, so I just let it ride. Time to pay the piper.

The loan was a solar loan I took out almost six years ago in my bid to remove PMI from my home by increasing the house’s value rather than paying down the mortgage. It actually worked, to an extent, but I became so obsessed with the mortgage and student loans that I just let the solar loan slide. I was recently looking at my power bill and saw that I had 105 payments remaining on this silly loan and that just made me angry.

As loans go, this wasn’t a terrible one to deal with. It was around $9k outstanding at 3.5% interest. It went unnoticed because it was a $115/month payment wrapped into my power bill which was always around $200/month before the solar was installed. It only amounted to about $375 in interest each year, so it didn’t feel like a burning dumpster fire. But the fact remains that it was there, and I had to pay it at some point if I wanted to be debt free.

Although I got the loan from the state, it was serviced by Concord Loan Servicing. I don’t know much about them, but I can say they are a little harder to deal with than I’d like. They offer a loan portal online, however you can’t make any payments through it. They have a call center you can interact with, but they can’t see your loan payoff information if it is using an “on bill financing” program. They have multiple email addresses you can send information to that never respond.

Thankfully on my third attempted phone call I resolved to pay the loan off by the time I hung up or I’d just never hang up. I got the same schpeel about them needing to speak to the power company and getting back to me in three to five days…I’m impatient. I wound up deciding to pay $115 less than the amount shown as my outstanding balance in the portal. If I’m under, I’ll pay the loan in full on my next power billing cycle. I won’t be over.

So as of about two hours ago, I have only a mortgage outstanding. I’ve pretty much made up my mind to pay it off very quickly now. This is something I’ll revisit in August. For now, though, I’m celebrating yet another expense eliminated forever!