first big lump sum about to launch

The paying-down-in-earnest of my fourth and final major debt will begin seven days from now: on Monday, December 17, I'll have sent over $10,000 to my US-based bank account—money that will go right to Navient (my previous creditor was Sallie Mae, but I got moved over to Navient... go figure). The current Navient debt is a bit over $43,000, and that number goes down, every month, by only a tad. Just to give you an idea of the debt's rate of descent (I've been taking notes), the figure was at $44,132.29 on May 15 of this year; as of November 5, the debt had gone down to $43,150.99. So it's been going down at a snail's pace because I'm on a thirty-year plan that won't pay out until I'm a very old man. That's why I'm taking advantage of my $1000/month raise and kicking my debt's ass—several times—over the course of the next year. My original hope was to have my debt entirely paid off before I turned fifty at the end of August, but the way things have been going, that's not likely to happen (I blame the big, expensive office luncheons I've catered, which have taken a significant toll). I will, however, have paid off the debt by the end of calendar year 2019. So there's that.