One of my two biggest money mistakes was being okay with taking out student loans. When I was in high school they offered a full ride to any in-state public university if you got exceeded on all three sections of the state exam. I not only didn't study I exceeded in one and got within a few points of exceeding in the other two and didn't retake it.

Well, 12 years after taking out my first student loan, add a car loan thrown in there, and I.AM.DONE! From the time I graduated with my master until I paid everything off it took me 5 years and a total of $78,480.90!

I know it was that much because I'm a crazy person and tracked all my payments throughout the process, I like to punish myself apparently. That number doesn't include the $17,500 I got in loan forgiveness or payments I made while in school. If you want to see if you qualify for something check out my post about it here. 

When I began repaying I targeted my loans where I had a cosigner, which was my car with my mom and a private student loan which had my dad. I didn't want them associated with any of my debt. Once those were done I picked off all the smaller loans and snow balled into the bigger ones. I actually had to slow down the rate I was go at because I knew I would be applying for loan forgiveness and wanted as much as I could. When that write off came in it was a magical day! I never got an email, call, letter, nothing. I just logged in one day and it was taken off!

Once that came in and I saw it, I didn't want to wait any longer and just paid off the remainder. I spent that weekend celebrating and sharing a toast of 'Screw you loans!' at any chance I could!