the 34-cent frustration

Good Christ.

So almost a week ago, I auto-scheduled my final payment to Navient, the company that's managing my scholastic debt.  The final payment amount, according to the site, was $1,120.63.  I dutifully scheduled a payment for exactly that amount, and when I checked my Navient account today, I saw the payment had cleared... but that I still owed 34 cents.  I sighed.  I've been through bullshit like this before:  you're constantly accruing interest, so even though you think you've paid the correct amount, time has passed since you scheduled your payment, so you actually owe just a wee bit more.  If I recall correctly, the last time this sort of thing happened to me for a different loan, I ended up having to call the loan manager to settle the issue; otherwise, I would have been paying in pennies forever.  It's a bit like using a dustpan to try to sweep up a bunch of sawdust, but you can never quite sweep up that last bit of dust that accumulates at the edge of the dustpan.  (I've written about remainders before.  This sort of thing is a law of nature.)

Again, if I recall correctly, I called the loan manager, last time, because had I tried scheduling a payment for the tiny remainder, and another remainder had popped up.  This time around, I've scheduled a 34-cent payment with Navient that is to be processed today, i.e., the 19th of December.  The Navient site wouldn't allow me to overpay, e.g., by scheduling a whole dollar so as to cover any further accruals.  So I'm going to check on Monday or Tuesday to see whether the 34-cent payment has processed through, and if it has, and if my account is definitively at zero, I'll break out the bubbly.  If not, well... I guess I'm going to have to give Navient a fookin' call.