Milestone - No Student Loan

I did it! In just under 10 years after completing my tertiary education, I completed paying off my student loan!

My university life spanned from 2011 to 2015 and in those 5 year amassed over $70,000 NZD in student debt.

The following year, 2016, I started work as an optometrist and along with that I made my debt obligations while living in New Zealand. Luckily enough, the loan remains student free unlike other countries. One example is Australia, where they reindex the student load based on inflation (this is what I’ve heard and have no source to back this up!).

Leaving New Zealand for more than six months also meant I would incur an interest rate. So I made it a goal to stay in New Zealand and explore other options when I completed my student loan. In hindsight, this probably didn’t make much sense since you could get a more lucrative offer overseas which offset the interest incurred.

I did have a little career break while I was making a switch into software development and here we are now, where I have killed my student loan completely.

This point marks the first time I have been debt free in my adult life. I don’t have a mortage at time of writing (nor do I have any worthy assets apart from small investment accounts and cash in the bank).

I have this temptation to remain debt free for the entirety of my life. But this is probably detrimental, since having a mortage or other forms of good debt (like my formerly student loan) aren’t bad in anyway. They are investments to make your life better in the long term - and are much better than credit card or short term loans.

Without overthinking too much, I just want to thank you for celebrating this milestone with me.