Paying Off Student Loans: The Best Approach
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If you’ve been around Less Debt More Wine a while then you know I have some student loan debt. By “some” I mean a ton of student loan debt. In fact, I know very few people that don’t have student loan debt. I’ve posted a lot on here about different debt payoff strategies, from prioritizing your debts to splitting your payments, but paying off student loans is a beast in and of its self.
Repayment Plans for Paying Off Student Loans are Unlike Those for Any Other Debt
Sure you have standard repayment, but you also have income-driven repayment, graduated and extended repayment, and that is just for federal loans. Which doesn’t even touch on consolidating federal loans or deferment or forbearance.
Then, of course, there are private student loans where you might consider refinancing and or extending your repayment term. There is no one best way when it comes to paying off student loans. The best way for paying off student loan depends greatly on they types of loans you have and your current repayment situation.
Recommended Refinancing Company:
If you have private loans or your debt to income ratio allows, consider refinancing with a company like SoFi. Learn more about what it’s like to refinance with Sofi. Refinancing my bar loan with SoFi ended up saving me over $1,000. Use my link to refinance your student loan and you’ll get a $100 bonus.
How to Figure Out Your Next Step in Paying Off Student Loans
Since student loan repayment is confusing enough as it is, I thought I’d try to help you figure out how you can best approach paying off your student loans. I’ve created a quick quiz to help you map out where you are in your repayment. Then I created guides to paying off student loans (aka kicking student debt in the face) depending on your situation. Once you get to the end of the quiz you can download the plan that applies to you.
[tqb_quiz id=’5334′]
Your Motivation for Paying Off Student Loans Will Differ Based on Your Situation
Just as your approach to paying off student loan debt will depend on your current financial situation so will your motivation for paying off debt. The more debt you have the more likely you are to deal with things like debt fatigue. Not to mention you’ll probably want to cry over the amount of interest (not that I’ve done that).
Just know that you aren’t alone, we are an entire generation with student loan debt. I don’t advocate that it’s ok to do something just because others are doing it. But, we grew up with the expectation that college was necessary. So off we went and now as an incredibly hard working and innovative group, we will pay off those damn loans. I suggest drinking wine as necessary when looking at your student loan balance.
Where do you stand with your student loans? Let me know in the comments!
I consider myself very fortunate that I don’t have student loans, but I know I am in the minority. I will be interested to see what happens this eyar with some of the forgiveness programs, though! Isn’t this the first year where some of them will be redeemable?
redeemable? This is the first year that those eligible for public service loan forgiveness would qualify to have their loans forgiven if that’s what you mean? It’ll be interesting to see what the Trump administration does with various repayment plans and if they will actually introduce another option.