Blogging Away Debt

Ashley’s September 2016 Debt Update

Better late than never, right?

After I realized I’d missed our extra student loan payment, I initiated it on October 1st (a Saturday). It showed “pending” in Navient’s system for several days and didn’t actually show up as being applied until Wednesday. I don’t like posting on Wednesday (I like to leave it for Hope), so here we are with our SEPTEMBER debt update nearly a full week into the month of October. So sorry about the late update!

Check it out:

Place	Current Balance	APR	Last Payment Made	Last Payment Date	Original debt, March 2014
Navient	$63527	6.55%	$2225	September	$74218
ACS Student Loans	$8585	6.55%	$25	September	$8215
Balance Transfer Student Loan #2	$5350	0% (through April 2017)	$500	September	$7650
Medical Bills	$5711	0%	$25	September	$9000
Balance Transfer student loan #1	$0	0%	-	Paid off in March 2016	$5937
PenFed Car Loan	$0	2.49%	-	Paid off in January 2016	$24040
License Fees	$0	2.5%	-	Paid off in April 2015	$5808
BoA CC	$0	7.24%	-	Paid off in June 2014	$2220
Mattress Firm	$0	0%	-	Paid off in May 2014	$1381
Wells Fargo CC	$0	13.65%	-	Paid off in May 2014	$7697
Capital One CC	$0	17.9%	-	Paid off in March 2014	$413
Totals	$83,173 (Aug balance = 85,553)		$2775		Starting Debt = $145,472

Several exciting milestones are coming up:

First, we’re just over $3,000 away from our next $10,000 milestone.

Second, the next digit we’ll be seeing is in the $70,000’s. That’s significant because our half-way mark is just above $72,000. So we’re just a little over $10,000 away from the half-way mark! Everyone keeps saying after we cross that threshold that the debt will just start melting away! It’s felt like a long, hard slog so far the past nearly 3 years of debt-repayment. I’m VERY excited to get over that hump.

Third, do you recall how one of our big 2016 debt goals was to pay $30,000 toward debt this year?? Check out where we now stand in terms of that financial goal:

Month	2016 GOALS	2016
January	Goal: $3500	$4013
February	Goal: $1000	$1261
March	Goal: $1000	$2134
April	Goal: $2000	$1521
May	Goal: $2000	$1325
June	Goal: $4000	$3500
July	Goal: $4000	$4928
August	Goal: $2500	$1374
September	Goal: $2500	$2775
October	Goal: $2500
November	Goal: $2500
December	Goal: $2500
Total	Goal: $30,000	$22,8310

It’s going to be tight, but we’re right on track to hit that goal. It’s so crazy to think that many families in America are struggling to survive on a total household income of $30,000. Meanwhile, we’ve been blessed with an increased income that has allowed us to put that much toward debt! I mean – whoa! Moment of silence or respect or something. That’s a massive figure!

So much to be thankful for and still so many exciting milestones on the horizon.

Full steam ahead!!!

Do you make annual financial goals? What were yours and how are you doing on them?

Navient is Back At It Again

by Ashley

Just the latest in my long, long history of grievances with Navient.

When I realized I’d missed that extra debt payment in September, I was carefully reviewing my account history and something jumped out at me that caught me off-guard: I’m being over-charged roughly $500 per month.

I’m embarrassed to admit that I hadn’t noticed the egregious error earlier. I blame it on my busy schedule, but really there’s no excuse to have not noticed such a HUGE discrepancy.

Here’s the short of it (I’m trying to run out the door for work, so sorry this is a little rushed)….

My minimum payment is about $130/month. When I re-did my paperwork for Income-Based-Repayment over the summer I was notified it would go up a little bit (like $20 or $40….I can’t remember now, but not much). Only, that’s not what happened. For the past two months (August & September), my auto-debit withdrawal has been over $650. I always make extra debt payments on top of the minimum and pay – in total – over $1,000 each month. So it didn’t make a big difference in terms of actual money spent because I always put well extra into Navient anyway. But what it did is take my money and mis-appropriate how it was spent. Instead of putting all the extra (over and above my true minimum of about $150-ish) toward the unsubsidized loans, it was being equally distributed across all loans. That’s not at all how I would appropriate it myself.

So I called up there to ask what the deal was. And I was told that apparently there was some issue. The system “shows” that my payment should only be the $150-ish payment, but the auto-debits are actually around $650ish (yes, I know. That’s why I called). It was a total error on their part. They would put in paperwork to get it fixed. It probably won’t be fixed by the October debit, but then it will go back to normal in November.

The representative was all happy with herself for putting in whatever notes to bring it to their internal auditor’s attention. Happy that she had resolved the problem.

Ummmm……lady. You get this means you’ve been overcharging me to the tune of $500-ish per month for what will now be 3 months. That’s an extra $1500 you have basically stolen from me. Illegally. You think that’s just going to fly??? (yes, I would have given them that extra money anyway with my extra payments but, again, I would appropriate it completely differently than they have done; also, with the way they’ve done it, a great deal of that money has gone straight to interest instead of toward principal reduction).

The best I could get out of the representative was a promise that after the situation has been resolved, I can call back and they will allow me to re-allocate those extra funds toward the loans of my choice. Doesn’t really make me feel to warm and fuzzy inside. I also have about zero hope that this actually gets resolved as promised. I mean, Navient has quite a long history of lying to me. Repeatedly. All the time.

So there’s that.

Today, though, I’m going to choose to focus on the positives. I’m thankful that we have that extra money. that the extra $500 Navient is literally stealing from me does not force us to go without food, housing, or utilities. That we have the money to spare.

I’m going to try to let it go. I’ll call back toward the end of the month as they’ve requested and see if it makes a difference at that time. In the meantime, I just have to let go of the anger and the frustration. I don’t have any space or time for that negativity in my life.

But you better believe…..as SOON as the house stuff is done (currently set to close on Oct 14th! EEEK!!!), I’m consolidating with a private company as fast as humanly possible. I’m SO STINKING SICK of Navient and their absolute incompetence (at best) and downright illegal activities (at worst). Sick of it. Also, my last ACS loan has notified me that it’s going to be migrated to Navient, too. Fabulous. Last time that happened my loan “switched” from being subsidized to being unsubsidized. An issue that I spent months dealing with and countless hours (and even wrote my legislatures and involved a 3rd party group for problem resolution) and, ultimately, nothing happened. They just f-ed me. And they got away with it. So I’m pretty excited to rid Navient from my life once and for all. As SOON as the closing is behind us, I’m done with them.

Have you ever experienced serious over-charging by a student loan company? Trying to focus on the positives, what’s something good that’s happened recently or something fun you’re looking forward to this week? To share one of mine, we had an awesome weekend! Saturday was packed full of fun stuff – two different kids’ birthday parties. Sunday was full of relaxation. A nice mix of fun/activities and family time/relaxation. The perfect weekend balance!