I can’t afford these monthly payments that Aidvantage is setting me up with for the future. I have consumer debt and we want to buy a home in the near future. Do I pay off consumer debt? I can go back into forbearance and wait out the Education Department or until I make enough money to make these payments.
When I called them back in July they had me on SAVE and I was paying $245 until they were changing it to $480 in August. I entered forbearance because any other option was so much more expensive. What would you guys do?
ETA:
I wish I could include a picture..
(5) Student loans are $112,383
The earliest loan is 10/2017
Household income is $140,000
The consumer debt is CC and it’s $27,000 we are working on paying it off using the avalanche method. I’ve been ignoring my student loans for now.
I signed up for the SAVE program and honestly thought I was on it. Now it says im on an IDR. I messed up something I guess? Not sure so I have to deal with it. I’ll give them a call this week.
I guess I’m not meant to have a good life.
byu/Chickadee25 inStudentLoans
Posted by Chickadee25
11 Comments
You said they had you on a certain amount then they changed it…who? Are you in an IBR plan? What’s the consumer debt? How long have you had the student loan debt?
Pay off any CC debt. That shit will drown you quick. Are you on IDR (income driven repayment)?
You’ve given us zero information to try and answer your question. How much do you owe? What is your income? When did you take out your first loan?
What is your AGI from your latest tax return (combined with spouse if filing jointly), family size, and loan balance? When did you take out your earliest loans?
look up the debt avalanche. I would assume your consumer debt is high interest.
make more money. spend less money. yes, it sucks.
If you were truly on SAVE, you would have been in forbearance due to the court injunction anyway. Were you actually on SAVE or had you just applied for it? Was the $480 payment amount you were quoted for another plan? Were you trying to switch to another plan? You didn’t need to switch plans yet. I think your first step is to determine what plan you’re actually on right now. You can find that by logging into studentaid.gov and reviewing your account.
Students loans are one thing, but it sounds like you may need to become better with debt in general. You have what you call consumer debt. What is that, credit cards? And then you are looking to pile more mortgage debt on top of that, meanwhile you can’t absorb a <$250 monthly cost.
Homeownership will produce _tons_ of unexpected costs much higher that. I just had to pay my plumber $10k a couple weeks after buying my house, and that was after the full suite of inspections.
Please seek financial/debt counseling from a legitimate nonprofit before you dig this hole even deeper.
My advice is to figure out what amounts you have to pay monthly to cover interest on the student loans and the credit cards. IMO nothing sucks more than paying student loans for years, only to learn that you still owe more than you did before the payments.
That said, pay off the Credit Cards immediately and as fast as you can. The interest is ridiculous on them. I would look into two tools: 1) if you have some credit, open new cards that give a year 0% on balance transfers and move some of your existing credit card debt there. (You want to pay this off before the expiry of the 0% deal or they’ll charge interest for the whole amount). This will give you a little breathing room. 2) if you have enough cash on hand you can settle some of the debts with the credit companies for less than the total.
Good luck
You make almost 12k a month and you’re complaining about a $480 student loan payment?
Hey! I am in the same boat. We are going to be okay. I’m about to pay off 10k of CC and then have a 949/month payment starting next month. OH and a baby due in May! It sucks, but it is what it is and unfortunately we have to find a way. Focus on the high interest credit card debt first and snowball it. Can you make a budget spreadsheet? We did and it helped immensely.
Hey, I don’t want you to read into this at all. This is just my experience and with your income you can do the same.
I married into $150,000 off debt of which $140,000 were student loans. We attended financial peace university then put the whole Ramsey plan into action. It took 5 years of crying my eyes out and eating beans and rice, but we paid everything off and then bought 2 cars and paid those off too. Our household income was $88,000 pre tax at the beginning and maybe like $93,000 at the end. We were dead broke this entire time as every penny was for debt service. I hated every second of it to this day. I never thought we’d see the end but it happened. And now we’re trained on how to pay stuff out quickly, save, invest, etc. Feel free to DM me- or don’t.