I accidentally invested money by paying off my private student loan

I just paid off my private student loan. I started with $15,000 when I graduated and for the last two years, I've been paying $600-800 a month. I'd been decreasing the amount over time because I have a variable interest rate private loan, and the interest rate got higher over time. I used to be paying $1,000 a month at the start, but for the last few months, I've been paying $600 a month and the principal hasn't been changing, so I know I'd been barely covering the interest. <br><br>I'd been paying so much money for two years and barely saw the principal go down. But for some reason, I didn't think about the fact that the interest was so high that the principal wasn't decreasing much and that I was barely covering the amount of interest I was accumulating per month. It makes no sense, but I was paying so much money but didn't realize I wasn't getting anywhere because I wasn't looking at the numbers. This last month, I finally looked at the math. I made all of my payments by May 31st for June and decided to make a big payment for June by paying $8,000 (I have about $10,000 in my savings account and decided I could spare $8,000 by keeping a buffer of $2,000). I made the payment for June and checked the principal, and it finally went down. It made me feel amazing thinking about how it was finally moving. I made the payment for July and by the time I made the payment for August, the balance was $0.00. I'd finally paid off the loan, and I felt so good. <br><br>I'm also living in a new city, and I thought it would be a good idea to have cash available in case I needed it so I didn't use all the money in my savings. I have another loan with a 4.5% interest rate, but I'd been paying $1,000 a month for the past two years and the principal had barely moved and I didn't feel like I was getting anywhere. I felt awful about how much time it was taking, and I was worried I'd never be able to pay it off. I didn't want to put the money in the loan with a 4.5% interest rate since I'd feel like I was wasting the money and didn't want to lose the cash. I made the payment for August for my 4.5% interest loan, and I decided to use the rest of my savings to make a big payment by paying $8,000. I just made the big payment, and the principal decreasing was amazing. I'd also accidentally invested money by paying off my private student loan. I'd been needlessly hoarding cash and didn't realize it. I had the money to pay off the private loan but hoarded it. <br><br>The point of this story is that I didn't realize I'd been holding onto so much money and didn't realize I had the money to pay off my private loan. I finally made big payments for both loans and saw that it was possible to make big payments by paying $8,000 for both. I didn't realize I'd been capable of paying more than I thought, and I didn't realize how much money I'd been holding onto. I accidentally invested by paying off my private loan with a much higher interest rate, and I feel good about it even though I didn't know I was doing it at the time.