Debt free … oh, wait
I wanted to be debt free. But alas, that is not to be.
I did, however, pay off my student loan.
Or rather, attempted to.
The U.S. Department of Education offers a way to pay your student loans online. And offers to do it automatically if you choose, giving you a small break on the interest.
I’m all about paying bills online, and fixed bills, such as this one, automatically. Budget for it, and it comes out painlessly on time every month.
I’ve also been in the long process of switching bank accounts. If you’ll remember a previous rant, I’ve been vaguely unhappy with my bank for a while. The last straw was signing up for transfers between banks and then finding out, after the fact, that it would not only cost me $3, but would take at least three days to process in these days of instantaenous everything. And because I chose to do the transfer to a mortgage account somewhere near a holiday weekend, my transfer was further delayed, putting my mortgage payment in jeopardy.
Enough. I’d had enough. I decided to switch to the slightly more user-friendly bank handling my mortgage. It’d also make it much easier to make payments when the time comes.
So I started switching over my bills to the new account. But thanks to the Department of Education, apparently one bill didn’t transfer over right away.
I freaked slightly when I saw that this month’s student loan came out of the old account. Not to worry, I thought. I’m sure it’s still processing, but it’ll be OK for next month.
After making sure my automatic payroll deposit was working, I decided to close my old checking and savings accounts.
It was odd to close a two-year chapter in my life, but I had little regret. This bank had not treated me that well, though I did like their “Keep the Change” savings plan. I had little regret in closing my bank account prior to that, ending a financial relationship that began when I was four or five years old.
Banks are not something one needs to get attached to. Not when they suck more and more fees out of you.
And here I am, with all my money in my pocket, just burning … well, to be deposited into my new account, along with a hefty bonus check.
The new bank just has a slightly more cheery aura; less grim, utilitarian, desperate. Whether they ultimately treat me any better remains to be seen. It also helps that they have a branch in Niles, my adopted hometown.
I deposit my wad of cash and bonus check. Two tellers ask me if I’d like to set up automatic payroll. I sigh twice and explain it’s a bonus and not a payroll check. My automatic payroll has just gone through today. I know. I checked.
Always about the sell. That’s OK. I don’t like having to go to the bank to deposit my check. I know it’s already there, and don’t have to worry about dragging myself out of bed to deposit anything.
I’m surprised the bank didn’t try to tell me I should use the ATM instead of waste their valuable time; my old bank certainly did. That’s all right. I haven’t regularly used a teller in … well, forever. But for this one deposit of a hefty sum, I didn’t trust the ATM.
Back to the main story.
Accounts closed.
And I have a little extra change jingling in my pocket. After realizing that the payoff for my student loan was within easy reach, I decided to pay it off. Right now.
But the Department of Education is slow. Like any government agency, apparently. I went to pay the rest of my bill online, and found that my account change still hadn’t taken. After I already scheduled the payment.
I panicked. That account doesn’t exist anymore! But luckily, I was able to cancel the payment.
I started fishing around to see if there was a way to enter alternate information for a one-time payment.
Nope.
Frustrated and a little worried that the next payment might still be coming out of a non-existing account, I did something I almost never do: called.
Unfortunately, that did nothing to relieve the frustration.
I spoke slowly to the uninterested worker on the other end. He spoke slowly to me.
Hey, dude, I know I have a college education. What about you?
He told me that it takes 30 to 45 days to change over accounts. You’ve got to be kidding me! This is an electronic process. It should not take that long. But we are dealing with an inefficient arm of the government.
I told him with varying tones of irritation, I already did that. No, I can’t do that. No, there’s no way to enter the new number.
He didn’t believe me and finally confessed that the computer system was down and he had no way to help me. Kept saying, weird, when I told him I couldn’t simply pay my bill online without accessing a nonexistent account. I wouldn’t be calling you if I could pay it. No, all it says is MyAccount. No, it’s a pulldown menu, and all it says is MyAccount.
Eventually he told me either I could call back later — and maybe their computer system would be up — or I could just go ahead and send in a check the old-fashioned way.
How quaint. I knew I wasn’t going to call back; that would require talking to either the same or different idiot, with probably little result.
He said that if I sent the check today, it’d certainly get there before the amount I owed went up, owing to interest.
Well, let’s hope so. But I do know who I’m dealing with.
All the frustration of trying to pay a bill kept me from being jubilant, from doing the dance I imagined I wanted to do when I could finally say goodbye to four years of student debt. When I could even do it a little bit earlier than scheduled.
It was a time I looked forward to, and I couldn’t enjoy it. Of course, it didn’t help that my other phone call involved trying to resolve a monthlong debacle involving the title company and homeowners association fees. Each week, I call, and each week, the problem still isn’t resolved. But I’m not being charged a late charge. And each week, the same person, with no memory of having talked to me the three previous weeks, says she’ll look into it. She’s sure that it’ll be taken care of soon. Why don’t you call me later this week?
And now that the student loan debt is gone, there’s still the car. Which will be paid off, finally, later this year. I can’t wait.
And after that, there’s just a huge mortgage payment. Here’s to the American way: debt until the day you die.
Banks and credit card companies look for any way possible to nail you. What gets me is how some banks now advertise “free checking”…which implies that they could, in fact, be charging us to have a checking account, but out of the greatness of their soul, they are in fact letting us have our checking accounts for “free.”
Gee, I remember the days when there was no reason to distinguish between “free” and “not free” checking accounts.
On the subject of student loans, congrats on paying that off. Lynn and I will still be paying on her loans when we retire. I think we’re something like $78,000.00 in debt, and the interest on these loans is exorbitant. Since they are federal loans, we can’t consolidate them for a lower interest, either.
Funny how you we go to college to get a good job to pay for our college education.
In Lynn’s case, she’s a teacher…it almost makes no economic sense to even go to college to become a teacher because the cost of the education is higher than the pay-off from future employment. She could have not gone to college, instead working in jobs that don’t require a degree, and we’d probably be better off financially, today.
What kills me is that in order to get any kind of truly impressive free checking, you have to have more than $5,000 in the bank. If you deal in paltry chunks of small change, they want you to have automatic deposit. And for savings accounts, they want a minimum balance or automatic transfers.
Last time I checked, they had my money, were using it when I am not. Don’t know why it should cost money for these things.
I did find out at my new bank that you can get free checks. Ugly, cheap ones, but free. I haven’t been able to get free checks in years and years.
Matt, that’s a crazy amount of student debt. Did you guys ever think maybe this is not the best way to do this? I know in all my lazy thoughts about going back to school, I also thought about the financial payoffs and pretty much realized that anything I would be interested in doing wouldn’t pay much, and I’d be in debt to boot.
On the other side, there’s the intellectual satisfaction of doing something you want to do; if you and Lynn are both happy with what you are doing, then it was worth it. Even if you’ll be paying for the rest of your life.
It pained me to take out student loans. Loans were the reason I didn’t finish college in the normal four years.
When I went back to school, it became apparent that the only way I’d be able to finish and still be able to eat was to take out loans. I think I borrowed something like 3,500, which is peanuts to most people’s student debt. But it was also what I felt comfortable with, and my payments were also easily made.
And getting my degree did boost my earning ability; I wouldn’t have been able to get the job I have now without my degree, though I could’ve stayed at my last job.
It took me a while to go back to my education, but I’m glad that I did, and that I was able to pay my loans pretty easily.
And actually, I paid my first loan off shortly after I moved here two years ago. That also felt good.
Lynn’s undergraduate debt was postponed again and again. First it was postponed when she went to France to live and work for a year; then it was postponed when she came back and went to Graduate School. The Interest was building up, in the meantime…but how could a Graduate Student be expected to begin repaying student loans? Then when she got her first teaching job, she was still taking classes in the summer for dual certification in Spanish. So because she was still “in school,” we were able to postpone the debt some more.
Maybe it wasn’t the smart thing to do, but it made sense at the time to postpone repayment as long as possible.
When the loans finally came into repayment a few years ago, the interest had accumulated to such an extent that the original debt was far eclipsed. These loans were from the late-eighties, early-nineties, remember (Lynn is older than me). So now every month, we basically make a loan payment that just about equals what someone would pay every month on a loan for a luxury automobile.
Debt. How I love thee.
I was living relatively debt-free until the move West. I had a car that was paid off, which was good because with what they were paying me in Indiana, I couldn’t afford a car payment and rent at the same time. But I got here, got a new car. (brand-new car. hee hee. it goes vroom…) It’s more than half-paid, I think about 2/3 paid now, but that last third is gonna be hard to knock out, with this house.
Oh yeah, the house. Cue laughter.
But hey. I’m switching to the dark side this summer. iPod city, man. They’ll be hopelessly out of date by the time I let myself get one.
Cue more laughter. What a putz.
Yep, debt forever. Perhaps it’s unavoidable.
Thanks to generous parents, I never had to deal with student loan debt (a blessing, really, but kind of embarrassing to admit since most people I know have that sort of unavoidable debt). Elliot’s certainly not going to be that lucky, though if he opts to go to college wherever Todd’s teaching, he can still count on a free education.
Right now I’m money anxious over our medical bills from this pregnancy, our mortgage, and general living expenses like expensive utilities. Remember that $3000 we paid to get our roof “fixed” in the past year? Well, Todd checked the site of the original problem today and we have serious ice build-up behind the panelling in our family room again. Was buying our house a fucking mistake? It’s sure seeming like it….
Whatever money we have left over at the end of the month finds someplace “extra” to go, usually the doctor or the house, and it’s driving me crazy. I’m paranoid about debt, about having expenses we just can’t pay, and while we have a comfortable enough life, it seems we can never get ahead and set aside a decent amount in the bank.