Student Loan Debt Help...Vol. Sallie Mae is a B.....

[upandcoming32]

Whats up NT, Im gonna keep it short....
I have student debt, a lot of it, and need some help...

I started paying minimum interest payments every month since Jr year.....I just graduated school last May....just got a letter in the mail from Sallie Mae saying my payments,starting january 2012 will be $900+ a month.....i JUST graduated 6 months ago...I work on-call part-time (sometimes 0 hours a week). my question is....

What is my best way in going about these payments? Deferral? Forbearance?

I am thinking about having my payments deferred 3-6 months, just stack up some $ and throw a few Gs ($5-15k) down all at one shot to lower my monthly payments....thoughts? help is appreciated....thank you

 

[krazy88s]

Forbearance. Just keep an eye on your interest. Your interest will still grow if you have private loans.

 

[ksteezy]

900$ a month bro?...can I ask what you studied?

 

[upandcoming32]

^business administration

$900+ caught me off guard for sure

 

[ins]

If you don't mind me asking how much debt did you stack up. I'm about to graduate in May and i have atleast 15g's

 

[crcballer55]

If you're working that little, get a part time restaurant or delivery job.  It's not the most glamorous job, but it'll help you out until you can get a good paying job to knock your loans out.  Putting them in forbearance will only delay payments while interest racks up, thus putting you even further behind and making the payments larger once you have to repay them.

 

[aepps20]

Op,

Are these federal or private loans? If they are federal I have a plan for you. Go on google and type in federal student loan consolidation. Go to direct student loans and complete the application. While you wait for the process (usually 60-90 days) to complete, defer your current payments. Student loan consolidation is great way to reduce your payments and u can make extra payments to offset the interest issue. Direct student loans provides several options to pay including an income contingent model. I went to law school so you already know
how much student loan debt I'm in and this method saved me.

 

[food4thgt]

900 tho?

 

[brandon3000]

Your not alone, most recent grads are in your shoes including myself. Im doing the same with sallie mae. I work over time and even moved in with some buddies to help keep my bills down and meet my min. Payments. I too want to learn more about consolidation, my only fear with that is I don't wanna be paying these things back for the next 30 years. The current pan I have triples my initial debt due to outrageous interest.

But yea just pace yourself. I pay a set # off every check to my student loans and I'm trying too. My federal student loans have much lower interest.

sallie Mae is the worst. But yea I'll be checking back here to see what options guys reccomend.

 

[krazy88s]

Another option is to lower the loan rates. It'll stretch the lifetime of the loan but it'll reduce the amount you pay each month. Not sure if it works for private loans. Private loans are by far thee worst. They're damn near set in stone.

 

[aepps20]

Brandon3000, I was initially nervous about the idea of paying on something for 30 years too. However, direct student loans offers at least 5 different repayment options which have different repayment terms. Some plans will allow you to pay the loan off in less than 10 years and some plans extend the terms out to 30 years. There is tons of flexibility when it comes to how to repay the loan not to mention some companies will allow you to change the repayment plan mid term.