As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I finished my first semester.  My official grades finally posted last week, and I received an A in one class, and an A+ in the other.  Good by me   I went ahead and submitted the grades and payment receipt for tuition reimbursement, and got confirmation this morning from HR that they will be reviewing all of this period's requests on Wednesday and will let me know if they need anything further from me.  If all is good, then reimbursement will be processed along with the Aug 31 paycheck.  That reimbursement will get sent directly to one of the existing 401k loans, and in combination with reimbursement for the fall semester (which HR coincidentally informed me that I am approved for as well lol), will pay that loan off, and I will begin looking at what I am eligible to take as a new loan for surgery (which I've decided to push until next year, for a multitiude of reasons.  That should eventually be its own post...)  

I took another one of the exams for credit last Friday, and missed the mark by 4 points.  Ugh.  Thankfully, I can re-take the exam (have to wait 3 months), and can get another voucher to do so for free.  I'm bummed but it is what it is....I have another one scheduled for this coming weekend that I am a bit nervous about, and then waiting for vouchers for the remaining 3 that I am quite confident in the material so shouldn't have any issues passing.  Once these are all done, and I finish the fall semester, that will take me to 44 credits earned since June 1!  I couldn't be more pleased with how school is going.  

On another topic, I received an offer to convert my remaining balance with the debt settlement company to a personal loan from one of their partners.  I was approved, and even though the terms are terrible, I decided to go ahead and accept.  This fixes the "reporting issue" I was having with regards to keeping track of what I actually still owed, vs the balances that were left to settle.  It also pays off all of my balances still with the creditors, so that they reflect as paid off on my credit and hopefully makes an improvement there faster.  I've zeroed out the consolidated balances line item on my tracking, and added a new one for the loan (they don't balance because of the reporting issue I just mentioned, but now this is an accurate picture of how much money I actually still owe everywhere!).  I will be aggressively throwing extra money at it so that it is still paid off when the debt settlement program would have been completed.  It is not the wisest financial move, but overall will be better, in my opinion.  I'm aware of the drawbacks, and since I'm the one paying for it, I'm the only one who gets a say haha.  I'm hoping that I can maybe refinance (either with a new personal loan, a mortgage refi, or a credit card balance transfer) at some point in the next few years to try to save on interest and pay it off faster.  I'm still on schedule to be debt free (except for mortgage and student loans) by August 2023.