Stacking Pennies . . .

When I first graduated college, I knew very little about personal finance. I'd done a few smart things along the way, but wasn't even well versed on what I now consider the basics of personal finance. I knew enough to participate in my company's 401k and to consolidate my student loans, but I didn't consider a Roth IRA until I'd been out of school for over six months. I had an excellent credit score, but my asset allocation was completely out of whack.

I've been a huge NPR fan for years, and as I suddenly had paychecks coming in, I started listening to "Marketplace Money" on a weekly basis. From there, I found a the personal finance blogosphere, and the rest is history.

The very first personal finance task I tackled was my student loan debt. I had roughly 21k in federal subsidized Stafford loans, with another 6k in private loans. Since I had all this money coming in, I immediately started paying as much as possible on my private student loans. The interest rate was probably around 8%--nothing too terrible, but not a dream either. It felt so good to send them checks for $500 or $1000 and watch the balances decrease.

After the private loans were gone, I had a desire to tackle the federal loans. Despite the low interest rate, the balance really bothered me. I think part of it was influenced by my boyfriends mindset that all debt was bad. It took me months to convince him he really should get a credit card in order to build a credit history. It took me weeks to get him to move his money from a standard savings account to something that actually would pay him some interest. And though I have explained this to him more than once, I think it will take quite some time before I'm able to get him to understand that rushing to pay of my low interest loans at the expense of other goals is really not the best move.

As I've become more educated in personal finance, the student loan balance bothers me a lot less. In fact, it has dropped to the absolute bottom of my list of priorities. I still pay a little extra each month: Instead of the $133 due, I pay $175. This will shorten the life of the loan by about 8 years. I still plan to pay them off even more quickly than that, but I don't plan on accelerating them any more until bigger priorities are met: maxing out a 401k and a Roth, for example.

The reality is, most of my other personal finance goals would be out of reach if I had not borrowed that money to get an education. Each month when that money comes out of my account, I still think it was money well spent.

When I first graduated college, I knew very little about personal finance. I'd done a few smart things along the way, but wasn't even well versed on what I now consider the basics of personal finance. I knew enough to participate in my company's 401k and to consolidate my student loans, but I didn't consider a Roth IRA until I'd been out of school for over six months. I had an excellent credit score, but my asset allocation was completely out of whack.

I've been a huge NPR fan for years, and as I suddenly had paychecks coming in, I started listening to "Marketplace Money" on a weekly basis. From there, I found a the personal finance blogosphere, and the rest is history.

The very first personal finance task I tackled was my student loan debt. I had roughly 21k in federal subsidized Stafford loans, with another 6k in private loans. Since I had all this money coming in, I immediately started paying as much as possible on my private student loans. The interest rate was probably around 8%--nothing too terrible, but not a dream either. It felt so good to send them checks for $500 or $1000 and watch the balances decrease.

After the private loans were gone, I had a desire to tackle the federal loans. Despite the low interest rate, the balance really bothered me. I think part of it was influenced by my boyfriends mindset that all debt was bad. It took me months to convince him he really should get a credit card in order to build a credit history. It took me weeks to get him to move his money from a standard savings account to something that actually would pay him some interest. And though I have explained this to him more than once, I think it will take quite some time before I'm able to get him to understand that rushing to pay of my low interest loans at the expense of other goals is really not the best move.

As I've become more educated in personal finance, the student loan balance bothers me a lot less. In fact, it has dropped to the absolute bottom of my list of priorities. I still pay a little extra each month: Instead of the $133 due, I pay $175. This will shorten the life of the loan by about 8 years. I still plan to pay them off even more quickly than that, but I don't plan on accelerating them any more until bigger priorities are met: maxing out a 401k and a Roth, for example.

The reality is, most of my other personal finance goals would be out of reach if I had not borrowed that money to get an education. Each month when that money comes out of my account, I still think it was money well spent.

When I first graduated college, I knew very little about personal finance. I'd done a few smart things along the way, but wasn't even well versed on what I now consider the basics of personal finance. I knew enough to participate in my company's 401k and to consolidate my student loans, but I didn't consider a Roth IRA until I'd been out of school for over six months. I had an excellent credit score, but my asset allocation was completely out of whack.

I've been a huge NPR fan for years, and as I suddenly had paychecks coming in, I started listening to "Marketplace Money" on a weekly basis. From there, I found a the personal finance blogosphere, and the rest is history.

The very first personal finance task I tackled was my student loan debt. I had roughly 21k in federal subsidized Stafford loans, with another 6k in private loans. Since I had all this money coming in, I immediately started paying as much as possible on my private student loans. The interest rate was probably around 8%--nothing too terrible, but not a dream either. It felt so good to send them checks for $500 or $1000 and watch the balances decrease.

After the private loans were gone, I had a desire to tackle the federal loans. Despite the low interest rate, the balance really bothered me. I think part of it was influenced by my boyfriends mindset that all debt was bad. It took me months to convince him he really should get a credit card in order to build a credit history. It took me weeks to get him to move his money from a standard savings account to something that actually would pay him some interest. And though I have explained this to him more than once, I think it will take quite some time before I'm able to get him to understand that rushing to pay of my low interest loans at the expense of other goals is really not the best move.

As I've become more educated in personal finance, the student loan balance bothers me a lot less. In fact, it has dropped to the absolute bottom of my list of priorities. I still pay a little extra each month: Instead of the $133 due, I pay $175. This will shorten the life of the loan by about 8 years. I still plan to pay them off even more quickly than that, but I don't plan on accelerating them any more until bigger priorities are met: maxing out a 401k and a Roth, for example.

The reality is, most of my other personal finance goals would be out of reach if I had not borrowed that money to get an education. Each month when that money comes out of my account, I still think it was money well spent.

When I first graduated college, I knew very little about personal finance. I'd done a few smart things along the way, but wasn't even well versed on what I now consider the basics of personal finance. I knew enough to participate in my company's 401k and to consolidate my student loans, but I didn't consider a Roth IRA until I'd been out of school for over six months. I had an excellent credit score, but my asset allocation was completely out of whack.

I've been a huge NPR fan for years, and as I suddenly had paychecks coming in, I started listening to "Marketplace Money" on a weekly basis. From there, I found a the personal finance blogosphere, and the rest is history.

The very first personal finance task I tackled was my student loan debt. I had roughly 21k in federal subsidized Stafford loans, with another 6k in private loans. Since I had all this money coming in, I immediately started paying as much as possible on my private student loans. The interest rate was probably around 8%--nothing too terrible, but not a dream either. It felt so good to send them checks for $500 or $1000 and watch the balances decrease.

After the private loans were gone, I had a desire to tackle the federal loans. Despite the low interest rate, the balance really bothered me. I think part of it was influenced by my boyfriends mindset that all debt was bad. It took me months to convince him he really should get a credit card in order to build a credit history. It took me weeks to get him to move his money from a standard savings account to something that actually would pay him some interest. And though I have explained this to him more than once, I think it will take quite some time before I'm able to get him to understand that rushing to pay of my low interest loans at the expense of other goals is really not the best move.

As I've become more educated in personal finance, the student loan balance bothers me a lot less. In fact, it has dropped to the absolute bottom of my list of priorities. I still pay a little extra each month: Instead of the $133 due, I pay $175. This will shorten the life of the loan by about 8 years. I still plan to pay them off even more quickly than that, but I don't plan on accelerating them any more until bigger priorities are met: maxing out a 401k and a Roth, for example.

The reality is, most of my other personal finance goals would be out of reach if I had not borrowed that money to get an education. Each month when that money comes out of my account, I still think it was money well spent.