When Will I Be Debt-Free?

Lately I have been spending a great deal of time thinking about my financial situation.  How should I balance investing versus paying off my student loans?  What types of investments should I be making?  Can I day-trade my way to wealth?  (No.)  I'll address many of these issues in later posts.  Today, however, I want to talk about figuring out how long it will take to pay off student loans.

As the title of this post implies, I wanted to know when I would be debt-free.  I created a spreadsheet that helped me figure this out.  I would like to share that spreadsheet with you.  It's reasonably straight-forward.  How much do you owe on your loan?  Place that amount in B2.  What's your annual interest rate?  Place that in C2.  How many years do you have to pay off your loan?  Place that in, you guessed it, D2.  From there, the spreadsheet does the rest.  Your monthly payment will be given in E2.

You can play around with the figures.  Maybe your loan servicer offers a lower rate if you set up automatic payments, as mine does.  Change the interest rate to find out how much you can save on your monthly payment by doing so.

Maybe you decide you want to pay off your loan faster.  Simply reduce the number of years in D2, and the formulas do the rest.  It's a wonderful tool.  Put it to use.

Welcome!

Welcome!  I am a recent law school graduate.  I have a massive amount of student debt, but have begun the journey to becoming debt free.  I am starting this blog with the intention of posting thoughts and tips I find helpful as I continue on this journey.  Please feel free to post your thoughts and questions in the comments.  What would you like to know?  What tools would you find helpful in making student loan-related financial decisions?

I'm new on this journey, too, and am looking forward to learning from others who have done this before.  Thanks for stopping by.

-Corey