I just repaid my student loan!
Summary by Eva Marcus & Aisa Amagir
At the time of her graduation in 2007, Maaike Wind had accrued a large amount in student loan debt. As soon as she landed her first job, she started repaying her loan, still full of confidence.
She purchased a house during the economic crisis of 2008. At that time, one's student loan was not considered when applying for a mortgage. Maaike felt optimistic, and the specter of having to sell her house again in times of crisis did not scare her in the least.
This all changed when she turned 30, her relationship ended, and the financial crisis of 2012 came knocking at the door: her house turned out to be worth much less than the mortgage she had taken out.
Early thirties: head buried in the sand
In her early thirties, Maaike not only had tens of thousands of Euros in student loan debt, but also had to take out a loan to pay for the residual mortgage debt that remained after she managed to sell her house. Fortunately, she had a permanent job at that time and was allowed to stop making payments towards her student loan for a period of five years while she repaid her other debt. This gave her enough money to pay for her expensive rental apartment and for her long, exotic trips abroad. She never intended to get rich fast anyway and being single proved to suit her well. Optimism was her middle name.
However, that optimism gradually started fading away. Her travels to faraway countries were enjoyable, of course, but she had nothing to fall back on: no partner, no kids, no money, no garden. And no clue.
The turnaround: 36 years old, pregnant, and tired of having to pay for that student loan
Then several things happened that changed everything. She saved up a few thousand Euro for treatment in a fertility clinic. She received a letter from DUO informing her that the repayment-free period for her student loan had expired. The additional loan to pay for the residual mortgage debt (charging an interest of 10 percent!) was almost repaid in full. And Maaike became pregnant, which meant that taking control of her finances suddenly seemed a lot more urgent.
At the end of 2018, she came up with an ambitious plan to pay off the remainder of her student loan, over 30,000 Euro, at an accelerated speed. She used a spreadsheet to create a clear overview of her monthly expenses and deleted everything that she considered a luxury. Based on this, she calculated that it would take two years and two months of living frugally to repay the full amount. Maaike was sure she could pull it off faster than that. Her goal was to do it in no more than two years.
She started writing a blog about how she ended up with such a large student loan and how she was planning to repay it: www.fuckdiestudieschuld.nl.
It can be done!
Repaying turned out to be much more fun than expected, despite the fact that she had no money to travel, go out to dinner, or buy presents for two years.
On Monday, December 28th, 2020 at 8.53 p.m., the moment finally arrived: she clicked on the button that had been staring at her for the longest of times – the button that said: ‘Pay remaining amount in full’. She had 1,509 Euro and 98 cents left to pay.
And then she was done.
Done? Well, not really. The student loan had been repaid and Maaike was completely free of debt, but she was also close to broke and lacked a steady income.
She decided to turn her passion into a profession and started writing about repayment planning for a living. Fuck die studieschuld is no longer a hobby now. It is the name of her company.
Link to article: https://www.fuckdiestudieschuld.nl/studieschuld-helemaal-afgelost