When I graduated Medical School in May of 2007 I had a HUGE student loan. I immediately started residency which meant I could essential delay paying on my student loan for another 4 years. I got paid during residency but it was pretty much enough to make our condo payment each month and keep us semi fed (thanks to the saltines in the call room at the hospital). I think when I figured it out I would have made more per hour at a minimum wage job….but then I finished residency in July of 2011 and started my first real job at a hospital with an actual paycheck. Which also meant I had to start paying on my load. And not only did we have my med school loan although it was by far the largest, we also had all of Clint’s college loans, his education school loans, and grad school loans. Plus we added 3 adoptions in the course of 18 months to the mix just for added fun. And a semi unplanned bathroom renovation last summer secondary to a huge water leak and all sorts of rotted wood. So that mountain 8 years ago was huge and things got added to it as we climbed. And at times it felt like there would not be an end in sight. Last December when I sat down and put together my goals for this year I put on there that I wanted to pay off my loan. I knew it was a long shot at best, but I also knew how we had slowly chipped away at each thing big or small along the way and made sacrifices along the way. But last week we made the final big payment on it and now we have no student loans left. The cars and credit cards are paid in full and minus the house payment everything is paid off.
I didn’t really know how to celebrate because I’m not the best at celebrating things anyway, but finally thought we could go on a family hike. And that post is coming tomorrow. But Clint and the kids got me flowers last week and made me cards. And apparently, at least according to their drawings, I drive monster trucks. There were many many drawings of me driving monster trucks around. Not something that I was aware that I did or could do, but hey I’ll take it, especially with the sweet notes they included with pictures of me driving those monster trucks. It’s been a lot of slow steps along the way, and tons of hard work but finally we can say that things are paid in full.
Hiking Mommy 