Student Loans Domination

I wrote earlier about my student loan problem(s). To refresh any one's memory:

1. It turns out I have $2,000 more in student loan than originally thought; this loan was left out of my consolidation so once I get the official paperwork, I'll have to deal with this.

2. I needed to enroll in auto-debit to receive a 0.25% reduction in interest rate. I enrolled, but also prepaid some principal down with a surplus cash on hand I had. This payment (significantly more than multiple months of the minimum payment) postponed my next due date very radically. Thus, I was never officially enrolled in the auto-debit because they hadn't yet withdrawn any amount from the linked-account!

After speaking with "Judy" from the Sallie Mae call center in India (yes, I asked), I was able to sort things out. It took a while, as Judy was failing to understand my complaint and frustration with Sallie Mae's inability to allow auto-debit enrollment and pre-payment simultaneously if the money is coming from the same account.

It took a bit of finesse coupled with sternness, but I got my point across. As if by magic, I received notification that I have become officially enrolled in the auto-debit program and I have immediately received the 0.25% drop in interest. Big win!

Credit Card Reward Points

...talk about good timing. I just wrote about how my promised reward points still hadn't registered, and after posting, there they were! Sorry for "jumping the gun" but really it had taken over a month and a half to get fixed!

It's not exactly as much as I had hoped for, but still probably more than I deserve!

...MORE student loans?!!??!

In an earlier post I mentioned how I paid off $2,000 of my student loans in about two months. My father recently contacted me about some loan information for $2,000.

I'll save you the detective work: the loan company mis-filed the paperwork on the new $2,000 loan, and it was actually supposed to be assigned to me. So it skipped the loan consolidation AND, of course, I'm back to where I started because it adds the $2,000 back to my total payment.

The "good" news is that the new $2,000 loan is set at a rate or 5.00%, lower than my consolidated rate of 5.50%. Once the correct paperwork comes to me- I'll have to see if consolidating that loan with my other loan will average the rate between the two.

Either way- Sallie Mae (my loan consolidator) has been troubling me. By enrolling in automatic debit my interest rate was supposed to drop from 5.50% to 5.25% but my automatic debit still appears as pending.

I imagine that the pending status changes once the first automatic debit is withdrawn. This was originally set for November. I couldn't wait to start paying off the loans, so I made some prepayments (two thousand in two months, as you read) from the same electronic account my monthly debit will draw from.

While the prepayments have helped in the long run- trimming down the principal to save long term on total interest, it also pushed back my first automatic debit all the way to January and thus- its status, pending. This means the rate drop has not gone into effect yet.

I'm hoping to call them on Friday and see if they'll drop the interest rate for me since my prepayments were drawn from the same account anyway and besides- my prepayment of $2,000 was ridiculously higher than my first several automatic debits would have been combined!

Hopefully they'll budge. I'll talk to them about that first....then throw in the new loan for consolidation hope.

Update

As I predicted with my September Payday Update, this month has been filled with some pretty heavy spending. It's been pretty costly:

A trip back to Iowa to visit friends (mostly gas was the expense)
Anniversary (Gift and nice, fancier-than-usual date dinner)
Bulls Game (free ticket, but parking etc.)
Miscellaneous expenditures ...ambiguous, I know

I'm not complaining about any of the expenses, they were all mostly wants not needs, but they have severely cramped my style.

The thing is, I was really hoping to use October to calculate and track an actual budget. Of course, with all these one-time, luxury purchases, it has just become to much to go through all my records and pick apart everything effectively.

As if that weren't bad, I received some sour news regarding my student loans (post coming soon). I still haven't received my promised credit card reward points as told in an earlier post.

Worst yet, I won't be paid again for like two and a half weeks!

Pinecone Research Working

Thanks to an awesome referral from SavingDiva at Saving for a Home of My Own, I have signed up as a survey-taker/product panelist for PineCone Research. I have filled out three surveys and have already received two checks (in the snail mail) for $5 each. I know it's not my millions yet, but it will at least pay for my haircut tomorrow (in addition to a coupon I'll use)!