Hi! I am 26 and live in NYC. I have a total of $120k in student loans. I’m sure many people here feel similarly (by reading other posts), but I’m feeling pretty hopeless in ever paying this off. I’d like to get married within the next few years and have a family one day, but these payments along with rent just feel like I won’t ever be able to move forward in life like my peers without loans. I genuinely feel bad getting married one day and being in so much debt.
One loan is currently $98k at 3.6% and the other is 22k at 9.38%.
My older sister had a similar amount in loans after college. But she’s had a higher paying job throughout her twenties and will probably be paying her’s off in the next 5-8 years. We aren’t really close enough for me to ask for advice and coming from an immigrant family, asking my parents for advice on this sort of thing just isn’t helpful.
Can anyone recommend if there’s a way to figure out the best payment plan with my salary? Is there like an affordable accountant / financial planner I can talk to (even though I don’t know much about finances/have a fixed salary)? Even if there are any books you can recommend to read about this, that would be helpful.
Sorry if this is a strange question, I just feel unsure of how to actually move forward. I don’t have any friends with student loans so I don’t have anyone to talk about this with in my circle. Thanks in advance for any help!
Is there a way to make my salary & student loans work?
byu/justanotherbandmate inStudentLoans
Posted by justanotherbandmate
6 Comments
Assuming you have federal student loans your long term income based repayment options are IBR and [RAP](https://www.mass.gov/info-details/repayment-assistance-plan-rap). RAP isn’t available yet. PAYE will be available for a few more years, so it will be a short term option.
If you haven’t chosen a plan yet I would go with PAYE if you qualify. Unlike leaving IBR, leaving PAYE isn’t an interest capitalizing event… this gives you the most flexibility.
What is your salary? How many hours a week do you work? What line of work do you do?
My rent is currently around $1,300 (highest it’s ever been). I’m trying to find a cheaper spot and move in with my SO by the end of the year. My current salary is 80k and my loan payments are around a total of 1k a month — with the loans and rent, things just always feel out of reach. Normal 9-5 / M-F type of job.
It may sound silly but use chat gpt to recommend a payment plan for you. I plugged in my take home salary, monthly bills, the interest rate of each loan, and told it my repayment goals and it laid out a monthly payment plan based on what I can afford. You can tweak it as you like. It was super helpful for me to see the reasonings behind which loans I should focus on first, what dates they’d each be paid off by, etc
Are these Federal or Private loans?
Hey— you’re in relatively good shape really. Pay the minimum on your big loan until that small one is paid off, and pay off as much as you can (reasonably) on that small but expensive one in the meantime. Even if that’s just an extra $20, it’ll speed things up. When you can because your credit score is high enough, consolidate the little loan at a lower interest rate.
Full disclosure I’m not a New Yorker, but I have been working on paying off a $204 k loan on a salary that’s averaged $50k or below living in Baltimore. It might feel bad now, but you can absolutely make this work, especially if you do manage to get a cheaper living situation.