Planning to pay off my loans August of this year 😭.

Hi guys I have never aired out my student loan laundry before but here I am. My loans in total was 26k after I graduated in 2016, and I've been chipping away at the loans very slowly because I thought the amount wasn't a big deal, all the while I have been putting aside money into savings. When COVID happened, I had to make a decision whether to save more and stop pay loans or pay it off and save, every paycheck I put in about $300-500, while my loans were sitting at about $17k (I have $11k in savings currently.).Mid way into 2025 I started to put down $500 a month towards the loans, everything looked according to plan until my boss from the last job was selling his company because he was getting sick.

I was looking for jobs until I stumbled on a job that is a couple miles away from the previous job. It pays a little more but nonetheless I was blessed that I was able to find one almost back to back from getting layoff. After calculating on monthly payments, I can aggressively throw down $1,000 each month. As of today of typing this, I have $9,409 in student loans with $71 accrued interest.

Hopefully I can pay off these loans so I can have the rest of my check to myself 😤.