Contacting Sallie Mae.

It took several emails, several attempts to reset my username and pass word, several calls and I finally got though to Sallie Mae. It took them 10 mins or so to fix it so I can redo my user name and pass word.

I got in. And saw the accumulation of  debt for a useless degree that I never was able to get. Yea it pisses me off. But I do have to see what is going on and what I can do.

First find last years tax returns. In order to find out any of my options I need to know what we made last year. Yea and of course I put the tax returns in a place where I can find them and they are not there. Yep so its a project for this weekend to tackle.

What I did see is all the loans I took out during my stay at the Pittsburgh Art Institute online division. Looking back I wonder why I had to take out more in some loans than others. Seems to me if I had paid attention I might of save myself some money and questioned this. But I did not and how many students think to question this kind of thing? Not many I am sure. We trust the financial aid department and the government to know what they are doing and just go along with it. Stupid stupid thing to do.

Now all the loan amounts are not the same.And if taken one at a time instead of all at once it could be more manageable. But they clump all the loans in one lump sum and charge you one great big amount that you can not afford to pay back. Unless you got that degree and got the job and pay raise that would benefit you to be able to pay that amount. But if you do not get the degree because you was scammed in a way then guess what you are sitting here wondering how in the hell am I going to pay on this???

So I went and I saw. Now I need to find out what my options are. You can only do forbearance for so long so I do not want to use them up. I do not want  to mess up my credit any more than I already have. After all the house needs repairs and I'll need another car in a few years. So having this will not do at all. My credit and life is suffering because of this and I have to review my options while I still have time with this first forbearance.

Hey I did get myself here. I did not expect this end result. I feel taken advantaged of and it sucks. But if I want to keep my home and life as it is now I can not ignore this.

If I can somehow each year raise enough money to pay off even 1/2 of one loan that would be progress in my book. 1000.00 or 1500 a year would knock off a big chunk of even one loan. Then work on the rest. This is going to take time. But as you see there is a bit of a goal. Work on 1000.00 extra a year and put it toward these loans. How to do that?? I"m not sure yet. A second job one or two days a week?? I'm thinking about it. I might see if I can work in a sign shop or something new. Got to keep thinking positive on this one folks. Its not going to be an easy decision to make in the end.