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The psychological benefit of paying off my student loans early was immense. While mathematically illogical and not in my best interest, I sleep better at night

The psychological benefit of paying off my student loans early was immense. While mathematically illogical and not in my best interest, I sleep better at night knowing that if I wanted to drop everything I was doing and do something else, I wouldn't have to worry about loans hanging over my head.

HCIdivision17 12y ago
Precisely. Getting rid of that burden is staggeringly valuable in many non-monetary ways, so much so I'd say it's more than worth it. Put another way: how much would you pay to be able to take any job you wanted, anywhere? There's a lot of caveats if you've got to make at least $5-15k a year in take-home pay just to keep up with interest payments.
schimmy_changa 12y ago
Definitely agree - it would have been tough for me to quit my stable job on the east coast and come out to SF (to earn much, much more) had I not eliminated my debt. The freedom can help you earn more as it allows you to take opportunities that might otherwise not be available to you. I wrote a blog post on this, actually: http://colinschimmelfing.com/blog/why-im-irrational-about-repaying-debt-and-why-its-actually-rational/ http://colinschimmelfing.com/blog/why-im-irrational-about-re...
- tswartz 12y ago
  Completely agree with your last point that being in debt keeps you from properly exploiting opportunities. I'm working on paying off my debt as quick as possible too. btw great job on Clever...very interesting.
autokad 12y ago
to each their own i guess. I myself would feel much better having 30,000$ in cash and 30,000$ in student debt than having 0$ either way. I know myself would be a lot more 'free' to do what I wanted more with the former than the later.