The Good Life on a Budget

• Posted by JvW on January 22nd, 2010 filed in Student Loans

I have finally joined the digital age.

By that I mean, I finally set up my student loans to auto deduct the monthly payment from my checking account. I graduated in December 2004. So for the past 5 years, I have been logging in every month and manually initiating the payments.

Which is a pain in the butt.

The problem is I have a lousy memory. I can remember to pay the bill, but it takes 10 days to process the auto payment. By the time I log in to pay the bill, there isn’t 10 days left until the due date. Then after it’s paid, I completely forget about it for the next month.

Rinse & repeat for 5 years.

I’m ashamed to admit this because, aside from being much more convenient, enrolling in automatic payments makes me eligible for a 0.25% reduction in my interest rate. My current interest rate is 4.75%. Based on some rough calculations, the reduction in interest will save me a little over $3/month. Over the remainder of the loan, I will save about $385.

I would say that is worth the 5 minutes it took to sign up.

Have you been procrastinating on something that could save you time and money? DO IT NOW!