When i was about 24 i took out a loan for reasons i will not go into now. The loan was for $10.000 and if i remember correctly the interest was about 9% at the time. I don't remember much about the interest rate but i remember that the loan was for 5 years and the monthly minimum payment was $240.00 per month.
I finished paying that loan in the 5 years on schedule. I should also mention that about half way through this loan i decided to move to Canada (for only a year at that time, which turned into a permanent move).
Fast forward to today i realized that by paying minimum payments on that loan i gave the bank $4,400.00 in interest. Plus every time i send money home via bank transfer the cost of that was a bank fee of $28.00.
Now if i was smart enough to research ways to pay off the debt faster and learned what i know now about paying off that debt and just put an extra $100.00 per month extra only that debt i could have paid it off the debt about 18 months faster, saved about $2000 in interest AND if i shaved year off and not sent money down i could have also saved about $300 in transfer fees along. So when you think about it that is a lot of money i could have saved if i just paid that little extra every month on that loan.
I am not dwelling on it or anything. I mean i paid it off within the time frame and i got what i needed from the loan but its funny the things you learn over time and realize you could have utilized that information years ago... also it gives me motivation to not let that happen again and pay off my debts faster so i don't overpay the bank again..