(Originally posted October 1, 2013)

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I keep obsessively checking the Sallie Mae website. I’m waiting for my final online payment to clear so I can see the long-awaited $0 balance I’ve been working so hard to create.

Current balance: $703.78

Pending payment: $703.78

And this time when it’s $0, it’ll be for real!

Four or five months ago I was doing my obsessive balance checking and one random morning it said I had a $0 balance!

I jumped for joy all around my office and called my mom immediately to thank her—because I couldn’t figure out how else the balance could have been paid. My mom insisted she hadn’t made any payments on my behalf and yet I continued to think she was just messing with me. Upon her suggestion I finally called the Direct Loan people and I was routed to a recording saying that my balance had been transferred to the Sallie Mae Servicing Center (with no prior warning).

<Bwa wa wa….> (that’s the sound you hear on game shows when someone loses…)

Talk about a bubble-bursting letdown moment! I’d even called my close friend “Amy in Alabama” (as I usually refer to her) and left a debt-free scream on her answering machine! That’s a funny thing to have to take back: “Uh, Amy…ignore that previous message, it was a little premature…” I’d even already sent out invites to a few friends to join me in a little celebration!

Tomorrow I should finally see the $0 balance for real. Unfortunately that won’t mean I’m completely debt free, but it’ll mean I’m darn close…And now when I massage people (which happens rarely), I’ll do it without the burden of that massage school student loan hanging over my head.

My target is to be able to call Amy with that debt-free scream by the end of the year. Putting it on record here.