Can I pay off $62,000 in Student Loans in ONE YEAR??

Hi, my name is Enyioma :-) It means 'Good Friend' in my language - Igbo.

This is my first time on Steemit and I'm so happy to be here and to hopefully share something useful with this community.

My account is going to be documenting my journey towards becoming debt free, sustainable and minimalist living, and my progress towards a zero-waste lifestyle. I will be sharing my tips with you all, mistakes I've made and lessons I've learned along the way. Here's a little background:

Like the majority of Millenials in America, I am so deep in debt that it at times causes me anxiety.
Why am I in debt?
You guessed it: SCHOOL!

I spent 4 years in a wonderful pharmacy school but I was required to borrow $96,000 (broken into 3 loans) for my tuition alone.

I was an international student at the time, and the only loans available to me were private student loans - SALLIEMAE -which required cosigners.
Unfortunately for me, the only people who could cosign had less than stellar credit as they were themselves also drowning in student loan debt.

So, my interest rates for each loan were as follows: 6%, 10%, and 13%. MY LAWD!
Fast-forward to 7 years later (and a whole lotta life events which will be discussed in later posts), my total debt had blossomed to approximately $130,000!

I've made many financial mistakes in the past 7 years such as taking up wonderful but expensive hobbies (aerial yoga, pole fitness, lyra, etc), eating out excessively, being an active member of the Food Waste Coalition - FWC [I came up with that ;-)], and generally allowing interest to accrue on my credit cards by making purchases I couldn't afford to pay back right away. Not to mention my Amazon buy-with-one-click addiction. Don't get me started.

The thing is, I know I'm not alone. Statistics derived from the website studentloanhero.com state that "In 2012, 71 percent of students graduating from four-year colleges had student loan debt".
And according to the U.S. Department of Education, "During the tracking period for the FY 2014 borrower cohort (Oct. 1, 2013 to Sept. 30, 2016), more than five million borrowers entered repayment, and 580,671 of them—or 11.5 percent—defaulted on their loans."

I've been blessed to not default on my loans but to also see the error of my money-wasting habits before it was too late.
I reconsolidated my loans and originally got a variable interest rate of about 5.4%, however as the FED keeps raising interest rates, my rate has now risen to 6.8% which is HORRIBLE because my interest rate alone is ~ $700 a month!! You can see part of the trend below.

My plan is to reconsolidate for a fixed 3-5-year pay off plan before the end of 2018 so my interest rate can be much lower.

I am currently employed as a pediatric clinical pharmacist and have challenged myself to pay $62,000 off of my student loans between December 2017 and December 2018.

I will write weekly updates on how I'm doing with money-saving habits which include my budget and lifestyle and some tips I've picked up along the way.

I will write monthly updates and include pictures of my loan balance and payments made in the past months, explanations as to why I met or did not meet my goal for the month, and challenges to my followers to make the decision to erase debt (student loan or otherwise) from their lives. Hopefully, we can keep each other motivated and accountable.

So here's January's update:

I have a bottle of sparkling cider ready for when that principal number drops below $100,000!!

Who's ready to join me??

LET'S GO!!

PS - obviously Star Trek >>> Star Wars. Don't even bother to argue...