Student Loan Sneak Attack Plan

I started my adult life off with almost $30K in loans.  Ouch!  Not how one would choose to begin, but looking back, the debt is definitely worth what I gained from it.  I had the opportunity to go to a great school with an amazing engineering program that could cater to my specific needs – something that wouldn’t have happened without the debt.  For that reason, I’m okay with my debt.  However, I want to get it paid off so I can feel more financially free than I do now!

My $30,000 was made up of three different loans from two different lenders.  Here was the (approximate) breakdown initially:

Lender 1: Loan 1 - $24,000 @ 6.55%  (I signed up for automatic payments of the minimum from my checking every month, bringing the original interest from 6.80% down to 6.55%.)

Lender 2: Loan 2 - $3,500 @ 5.35%  (Automatic payment of minimum gave a reduction!  Down from 5.60%)

Lender 2: Loan 3 - $2,500 @ 6.55%  (Automatic payment of minimum gave a reduction!  Down from 6.80%)

I looked into loan consolidation, but decided against it for two reasons:

1)      My rates are fixed already.

2)      There was no guarantee they would actually go down and I hope to get these paid off long before an effect could be seen.

My plan of attack could have gone two ways, either pay off the highest interest loan (#3), then the next (#1), then the lowest (#2), or pay off the lowest value loan (#3), then the next (#2), then the highest (#1).

While paying off the highest interest first would have saved me more money in the long run, I plan to get all three paid off in a timeframe where the difference in money saved would be negligible.  Because the two smallest loans were from one lender, I decided to tackle those first (#3 then #2 to at least save myself SOME interest) and then the BIG GUY could take over my payments.  This was mostly a headache-prevention method.  Since I think I can get both loans from Lender #2 done in just a few months, and then spend another year or year-and-a-half paying off just Lender #1, I think it will be easier to keep all of my payments to one company.  (Fewer online passwords to remember!)

As of the end of this month, Loan #3 is GONE!  That’s right, my extra paycheck this month puts me in a position to calculate a payoff date and close out my loan!

Now I can focus my energy (and money) on Loan #2, which I hope to have disappear by the end of March 2014, but would love if it could be sooner.  If I pool any Christmas money I receive and reign my spending in just a little, I definitely think it’s doable to eliminate Loan #2 by the end of February!

Then the BIG GUY will be all I have left and I won’t have to continue following multiple loans with different lenders (definitely worth the amount I’ll save in interest, which I estimate would have been less than $50).  Any other suggestions on how to make the BIG GUY go away entirely?