Paid off my $84K loan last week and I feel absolutely nothing but rage
I made the final payment on my private student loans last Friday afternoon. It was exactly $1,142.03. I stared at the screen for maybe ten minutes waiting for the confirmation email, and when it finally hit my inbox, I didn't celebrate. I didn't go out for a drink. I just went back to my desk and kept working.
Everyone in my life who knew about my debt situation keeps telling me I should be ecstatic. They talk about how a massive weight must be lifted off my shoulders and how I am finally free. But honestly, I just feel empty and incredibly angry. I graduated in 2019 with a degree in data analysis and spent the last seven years living like a complete monk to pull this off. I took the highest paying corporate gig I could find even though the management team is toxic as hell and the hours frequently push past sixty a week.
To throw every extra dollar at the principal, I lived in a damp basement apartment with two random guys from Craigslist who left dirty dishes in the sink for weeks. My diet consisted entirely of cheap meal preps, frozen chicken breasts, and generic coffee. I skipped every single bachelor party, every group trip to the coast, and every holiday dinner that required a plane ticket. My friends stopped inviting me out years ago because my answer was always the same. Sorry man, not in the budget.
I sacrificed my entire twenties for this balance sheet. I sacrificed my mental health, my hobbies, and any semblance of a social life. Now that the number on the screen says zero, I realize I cannot buy those years back. The money is just gone, swallowed up by a predatory interest rate that kept me awake at 3 AM for a decade. I looked at my bank account this morning and realized that while my net worth is technically no longer negative, I have absolutely no memories or experiences from the last seven years to show for it. I am just a shell of a person who is really good at making spreadsheets.
I am writing this here because I know people in the real world will think I am being ungrateful or dramatic. They think paying off debt is the finish line of a movie where the main character smiles and the credits roll. It is not. It just feels like I paid a massive ransom to get my life back, except the kidnappers already spent the best parts of it. I have a whole weekend ahead of me and absolutely no idea what to do with myself because my brain has been hardwired to just work, sleep, and restrict spending for so long.
If anyone else felt this weird post debt depression, let me know how you dealt with it. Right now I just want to stare at the wall.