this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2025
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Paid off my student loans (feddit.uk)
submitted 20 hours ago by tetris11@feddit.uk to c/casualuk@feddit.uk
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It took 10 years, three ex's, two countries, and living with my mother for a bit, but I finally paid it all off.

Ask me how I feel. The guy who took my final payment on the phone was happier than I was

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[–] tiredofsametab@fedia.io 5 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Congrats!

I just transfered the cash to my wife to pay off hers (I couldn't before when she was a full-time worker due to tax implications in Japan, but as a dependent, it's fair game). Mine still have a huge balance (in USD which sucks for my job paying in JPY) for an over-priced and sub-par education at a for-profit university (the only option I could do as a full-time employee with frequent overtime).

[–] tetris11@feddit.uk 4 points 10 hours ago

Congrats yourself - and yeah that interest on the loan was 6% at one point, I genuinely toyed with the idea of just borrowing from a loan shark to get a cheaper rate haha

I hear from some people that it's just a loan that you kind of live with for the rest of your life until they decide to let you go.

Some student loan forgiveness would have been nice, but no politician seems to be floating that idea anymore, so

[–] blackn1ght@feddit.uk 5 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Made my final payment last year, felt so good!

[–] tetris11@feddit.uk 1 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

Congrats - has it been a real game changer, or do you just buy fancier groceries now or something haha

[–] blackn1ght@feddit.uk 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

It's certainly been helpful, my wife lost her job last year and we've also put our youngest kid into nursery, so they're costs we're able to afford that we might not have been able to do last year.

[–] tetris11@feddit.uk 1 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

I'm childless at the moment, but kids are definitely something I think about paymentwise

[–] Mendicant_Bias@feddit.uk 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I'm close to paying mine off so I will weigh in here.

Probably best to avoid "lifestyle creep", this is money you haven't had before now and it should probably be put straight into some investment, a stocks and shares ISA for example, or to overpay the mortgage (or save for deposit, so I guess that's LISA these days). I'm assuming since you're actually able to pay it off then you must be on decent money and you won't "need" the extra couple hundred quid a month.

Other thing to realise is that the 9% over whatever amount you've been paying back was after tax. So I think there's some decent argument to be made that you're leaving money on the table if you don't instead redirect a larger portion of your gross salary into your pension via salary sacrifice. Then instead of paying the tax man you instead significantly increase the contributions to your private pension.

I'm guessing the UK financial advice sub (or I guess "com" if there's one here on Lemmy, sorry, I'm new here) would be a good place to ask.

[–] tetris11@feddit.uk 2 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

Wow, good tips thank you. I guess I'll start paying more into my pension. My pension is currently tied to my workplace, and I've always been wary of paying into it more just in case I can't take it with me if I work elsewhere.

Is that the case? Can I take my company pension with me? Or that just stays in the company and I can't take it with me when I work somewhere else

[–] Nighed@feddit.uk 2 points 3 hours ago

Most people have standard defined contribution pensions now. You can probably log into some pension companies site and see how much you have in there?

If that's the case, then it's your money (locked away u til retirement) that you can move to any pension provider you like.

You can ask your company to pay some of your salary into there - therefore you don't get taxed on that bit of new salary (they might also match your contribution if you are lucky)

You can also just open a pension with another provider and pay money in. You will (eventually) get a bonis 20/40% tax refund paid in there too.

[–] Mendicant_Bias@feddit.uk 2 points 6 hours ago

To be honest I'm no expert on the possibilities so I'm not going to be able to answer that other than to maybe reach out to your HR people and ask for some details on what your options are. Or ask on r/UKPersonalFinance.

thesalarycalculator.co.uk is a good site if you wanna compare how different scenarios affect your take home pay. E.g. put your salary in with student loan ticked for plan 1 and your pension contributions at their current level, then note the take home pay per month. Then do the same but with student loan not ticked, to see how much that increases your take home. Then experiment with upping the pension contributions until the take home pay matches the value you were getting before you took the student loan off. That'll give you an idea of how much you can increase your pension contributions without noticing a difference in your monthly pay. Then head over to one of the various pension calculator sites (Aviva is decent and simple) and see how much bigger your pension pot could end up if you do that. Will probably be quite substantial!

[–] Schal330@lemmy.world 3 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

Congratulations 🎉

I look forward to my student loan getting written off (plan 1), there's no chance of me paying it all off, especially given the interest is almost the same as my monthly payments...

[–] Monzcarro@feddit.uk 2 points 1 hour ago

I'm plan one and mine won't get written off until I'm 65 (took it out before 2006), but I'm not making any payments due to working part-time in a public sector job.

I don't plan for this to change as my health won't allow me to work more hours or aspire to a higher paying job, so I may never make more payments. But I have probably paid back everything I borrowed when I was paying it, and everything that's left is the predatory interest.

[–] tetris11@feddit.uk 5 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

My brother's in a similar boat (almost triple digits), so he's hiding out and waiting for it to blow over. I could have done the same maybe, but it would have been another 12 years and I was just sick of it.

Why did they do this to us? Sell us on the idea that the only way to land a cushy job was to go to uni, when there were barely enough jobs going around when we got out.

I hate this. I look at my parents generation with jealousy, they had no idea how good they had it

[–] Schal330@lemmy.world 5 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I remember when I was in college and they specifically took us to another campus, they were talking to us about university. It was basically sold to us as if "it's practically a free loan, you'd be silly not to get it."

We were all around the age of 17/18. If a bank or any other service had done that to us there would have probably been massive repercussions, maybe there would have been something brought up about us being miss-sold a product.

Looking back I feel it was very predatory given we were so young and essentially in a vulnerable state while trying to decide our futures.

[–] tetris11@feddit.uk 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Predatory is the right word. We were literally still kids, and they asked us to make a huge financial decision that would impact us for the rest of our lives....

[–] ALiteralCabbage@feddit.uk 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I'm not being funny but if it's impacting you this much you must be earning a significantly above average wage, no?

I've been paying off my (plan 1) loan for 17 years near enough and it hardly makes a dent in my payslip.

[–] tetris11@feddit.uk 1 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

Hah. It's more that I was working in a country that was weak against the pound, and that for some reason SLC charges way higher when you're working abroad.

So whatever I was earning, half would go to rent, a quarter would go to the loan (once you factored in the exchange rate), and I'd have that glorious other quarter to myself.

I am doing better than most I would say, but I also have a sewing machine and have learned through time how to patch my clothes, if that answers your question

[–] ALiteralCabbage@feddit.uk 2 points 4 hours ago

It does indeed - the overseas thing is nuts! I guess they assume you've become an oil baron or something and must therefore be a secret moneybags?

You're doing better than me on the frugality front, I suppose I have the benefit of a UK based, mid level salary! I'm looking forward to my loan being written off in the not too distant future!

[–] smeg@feddit.uk 14 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Keep an eye on your next pay slip, they'll probably still take another payment and you'll then have to call them up again to get it back!

[–] tetris11@feddit.uk 3 points 10 hours ago

Yep, I'll be cautious like a hawk on that final payslip

[–] SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 3 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Plan 1 or Plan 2?

[–] tetris11@feddit.uk 2 points 10 hours ago

Plan 1, I was one of the lucky ones

[–] Smokeydope@lemmy.world 3 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

Was your education worth it? Did it pay itself off?

[–] retrolasered@feddit.uk 6 points 12 hours ago

Well if they only took 10 years to pay it off I assume theyre doing better than most

[–] tetris11@feddit.uk 3 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

Hard to say, AI is kind of making the whole purpose of the education I had redundant.

On the other hand, I feel smart enough to call it out on its bullshit, so maybe that's a skill in itself?

I've got high school friends who never went to uni, and are now heads of finance in various minor banks, and they seem to be doing pretty well in comparison.

But Banking has Looney tunes level of value, so I try not to let that drag me down.