Not sure what to even put as the flair lol. Advice? Support? Rant? Complaint? All of the above really.
My Fiance and I (both 26M/F) are in the most student loan debt I’ve ever heard of outside of medical school. I have about 70k from undergrad and partial Master’s program. My payment is not too bad considering I’d like to have my debt paid off in 10 years. Hers however? She has ~283k from undergrad and her Doctorate of Physical Therapy program. We also want to have wedding. Kids even. But I’m literally sitting frozen in fear. We want kids. We want a wedding. But I don’t know how realistic these things are.
We sat down and budgeted out everything yesterday, and are going to refinance her private loans and leave federal as they are due to the “protections” behind those federal loans. We also live in a low cost of living area, and don’t spend too much outside of our fixed expenses.
Any words of encouragement, advice, or anything in between, would be helpful as I feel completely defeated and terrified…
Edit: Forgot to put incomes. We are both just starting in our careers, so keep that in mind as well
Hers: 77k
Mine: 50k guaranteed, consistently bonuses could bump it to ~70k at most with end of year. But I try not to count on those ever.
My Fiance and I are in a combined 350k in student loan debt….
byu/Proof_Raisin_2129 inStudentLoans
Posted by Proof_Raisin_2129
8 Comments
We can’t give advice without knowing your income.
Go find a certified loan planner to help you. Every loan planner I’ve met with recommends NOT to refinance and keep them with federal govt. I’m 600k in debt from dental school and will be riding it out for forgiveness as of now based on their projections
Check out Dave Ramsey baby steps. Without your income and monthly budget, we can’t begin to estimate how cooked you are. With regard to marriage, you can pay 50 dollars at the courthouse to get a marriage license. No need to wait. You can have a reception when you can afford it. With regard to children, it will be very difficult to afford unless your salaries are very high. It is a double edged sword. If your partner stays home, you lose the income. If you pay for daycare, it is easily 2k per month per kid.
I added more context in the Edit section at the bottom. Thank you!
Depending on income, consider filing taxes MFS and going the IDR plan route. My wife is also a PT with $172K debt making $85K and that’s what we’re doing. Makes the payments tolerable as long as her income isn’t too high
I hate to say it, but if she doesn’t get into home health or something that pays more, you guys are never going to get out of debt. I’m a physical therapist myself, and had to fully switch careers because the amount of money that I was making wasn’t enough to support the lifestyle that I wanted, which was basically just buying a house, getting married and having kids all while being able to take an occasional family vacation.
Roughly how much is federal and private what interest rate?
Is plsf an option for her?
Weddings can budget friendly. We did a getaway to Hawaii. Kept it small about 20 guests and it was about 8k including the flight. A moissanitte ring can be a great wedding ring.
Best thing you can possibly do is make the student loan payment a “non negotiable” in your budget.
The way I think of it is your salary is not your salary. Your salary is your salary MINUS your student loan payment. It’s an absolute. Always there. Must be paid.
For example, if you make $50K a year but have a $1K/month payment, you really make $38K a year.
Once you start treating it like this, I’ve found the mental block of the student loan goes away. It also makes you stop beating up on yourself.
I think a mistake many people make is they don’t treat student loans like this, instead they treat it like an optional bill. When you ignore something, it becomes a monster under the bed.
Just face it head on. Make your payments and deal with the suck for a while. With that type of debt, I’d imagine the income can scale quickly. If your wife is suddenly making $150K/year, that payment seems a lot less scary.