Comments on: Am I Stupid to Pay Off Our Student Loan?

By: John

John — Fri, 22 May 2009 11:34:40 +0000

@Carl – that’s a great verse to throw around – thanks!

By: Carl

Carl — Thu, 21 May 2009 12:39:32 +0000

I’m not saying that you should pay it off, but if you want to throw Bible verses around, consider this:

Proverbs 22:7 (King James Version)

7The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.

By: John

John — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:14:33 +0000

Thanks for all the comments, guys. After writing the post, reading your comments, and discussing it more, we’ve decided to start the process….
Thanks for the support!

By: Tom E

Tom E — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:30:11 +0000

Hey John,

Here are my thoughts for paying it off:

1. It sounds like the $70G is sitting fairly idle (~3% in your E-Trade account), netting you out to almost break-even…on a fairly large sum of money.

2. You and your wife are in the high-earners bucket and that, combined with your aggressive savings focus can replace that sum fairly quickly.

3. The freedom you will both feel is liberating, and worth making the move. Speaking from experience…my wife and I paid off the last $30K+ from my student loans a couple of years ago and I haven’t missed the money since.

Reasons not to pay it off:

1. You already stated you temporarily lose your emergency fund…(which I personally am not a huge fan of…I mean how ‘liquid’ does that money need to be? I know a lot of experts advise a 3 month reserve in a ‘cash-type’ account, but I can get to any of my mutual fund investments within a week and that is good enough for me.

2. Your wife isn’t 100% comfortable with it.

3. You can’t buy out of your wife’s contract.

It seems the key to me is determining how serious your wife is about retiring in the next 18 months? You answer that question and your action, or inaction will present itself.

Good luck and we’ll pray for peace of mind through this process.

By: ChristianPF

ChristianPF — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 15:06:06 +0000

I am with Pete on this one… I try to get rid of them as soon as possible!!

By: The Happy Rock

The Happy Rock — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 04:08:13 +0000

Vote three for pay it off get the extra cash flow and don’t look back!

Borrow from none right. With the cash flow you will have savings built up pretty quickly again.

The Happy Rock’s last blog post…A Guideline For Your Budget And Spending Plan

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 21:07:57 +0000

John: My advice…pay it off…freedom is on the other side. To only have the mortgage to pay is huge. You can begin to save the money that you were putting toward the loan and it seems that as long as your wife is working you can continue to build that nest egg. If you decide not to do it, let me know…I’ll give you my bank account number so you can transfer the fund to me and I will pay off our car loan and student loan!

“He gives and takes away, my heart will truly say…blessed be the name of the Lord…blessed be Your name.”

By: John

John — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:55:30 +0000

Pete,
I am definitely leaning that way…and I might do it very soon. Thanks for the support!

By: Pete

Pete — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 15:55:24 +0000

My take is this – you can never go wrong in paying off debt. With the money you no longer have to pay in payments every month there are a ton of things you can do with that money. Plus, it is so freeing to have your debts paid off!