July was a pretty busy month for me. I had a couple of back to back weekends with a wedding and a baby shower that I had to help with.

Work has been crazy busy so that has also been mentally draining. As for my free time, I spent a great deal of it planning for my family trip this fall. This is the first time I’ll be going with my extended family and I wanted to tread lightly as picking itinerary and hotels can be a sensitive topic when it’s not with people you’ve travelled with (or seen in over a decade!).

At some point, I just completely forgot it was time to look at my spending for the month.

July Budget

Fixed Spending

No changes.

Variable Spending

Utilities – Just my gas & electricity bill this month.

Gas – Stayed local for the most part. Just a few trips here and there.

Food/Drink – Ate out a few meals with friends and family.

Shopping – I blame Prime Day for this shopping. I bought a replacement tablet, a Fire TV Stick, and a bunch of home improvement items.

Miscellaneous

Contact Lens Litigation – I received (yes that’s right!) over a thousand dollars worth of class action lawsuit money. It seems that unlike some other class action lawsuits, this one required you to actually sign up and submit receipt to receive it and I guess most people were too lazy to do that hence the huge payout for the people who did.

Home Improvement – I bought some new shelves and a water softener system. As I’m writing this, I’m actually waiting for someone to come with a replacement part to finish out the installation of my water softener.

I spent $350 in July to have it installed (this does not include the actual appliance itself) by a handyman my friend recommended as he and one of our mutual friends had actually gotten it installed by the same person.

I am annoyed that I didn’t try to get quotes from other plumbers or handymen I had worked with as I met quite a few while my house was being built.

$350 in hindsight was overpriced for work that was less than an hour long. He could not even finish because there was a part he said needed replacement.

I obviously have to take his word that there is an issue with the part itself and that it wasn’t his installation that caused the problem. He did make sure that he called and spoke with the company to send the replacement part and a person to finish out the work.

Overall, it’s not the worst mistake I can make, but it’s definitely a lesson learned that I shouldn’t always trust other people’s recommendation. He did not give the best impression when I was first trying to get a hold of him and maybe that impression never left my mind. He was actually very personable in person and his work itself seems fine. He offered to complete the work if the company only sent the replacement part without sending someone to complete the installation.

Investments/Savings

I added $2k to my brokerage account. I’m hoping to continue putting $2k/month for the rest of the year.

Student Debt

Student debt paid this month: $880.77

Student debt remaining: $20,748.88

Here are all my previous student debt statements.

Student loan forgiveness is officially out the window. As interest will start accruing on my federal loans in September, I’m highly considering just fully paying off the $4,317.17 balance left and be done once and for all with the federal loans.

Student Loan Reflection

Update: As I was updating my Debt Progress page, my calculation shows that as of this month, I’ve paid off $150,000 worth of student loans from my original loan amount!

In total, as my student debt statement shows, I’ve actually paid out over $161k including interest.

I never cared much for “blog anniversary”, but interestingly enough, as I was scrolling through my debt payments, I realized that I started this blog and student debt repayment in July 2017. So exactly 6 years later, I’ve paid off $150,000.

It’s crazy to think that I’m on the home stretch. If I’m being completely honest, a little disappointing as well. If I remember back, my original goal was to completely pay off my student loans in 3 years.

That certainly didn’t happen as I still had $50k debt by July 2020. My decision to refinance and make minimum payments since 2020 definitely slowed the progress. However I can say I have no regrets over this decision as heavily investing that money allowed my net worth to jump by $300k since I refinanced in early 2020.

I’ll be curious and excited (scared?) to see how much I’ve paid in interest over the lifetime of my student loans when I finally pay off my student loans.