Getting started is not easy.

I applied for the income repayment plan. You would think they could send you an email at least to say hey this is how it works, we got your information, you pay x amount by this date. You are all set. Reapply in a year. Done and done. Nope. I hear nothing. I am going to have to call someone, sit on the phone and wait for someone to answer and take down all my information again! As if doing it twice online already is not enough. Hello. Lets get this moving already so I can move onto the next step in this hell called Student Loan repayment.

Oh and Sallie Mae does not send out email to say oh hey you have a payment due, or your over due or your deferment is up so you need to do something. Nope weeks and months can go by and then the  phone will ring with an automatic thing on it saying you need to call them! Hello just send a paper bill or email! Geeze.

Until next time.

Student Loan Repayment plans.

I have finally jumped into the waters of the repayment plans for my student loans. I filled out the request and now I wait to see what happens. This is a scary thing because I do not know right now what the payments will be. They should be lower than the 600.00 a month payment they want me to pay now. We are also a small family and that makes a difference. I suppose they do not include a dog and a cat into that family equation size.

Part of what sucks about this is that if I had more kids I would be eligible for a better payment. But I only have one kid and that makes a difference. She is also heading into her adult years and I only have so much time that I can claim her as a dependent. I do wonder how long she would like to stay home and in college. lol.

The first part of the process was fairly easy. Go here to get started. Take a deep breath and read all the information. Go over your options and move forward.

What sucks also about all of this is that they will collect more interest. So by no means is this going to mean that the loans will ever be paid off.  But it may just be that little something to keep them from calling all the time and time to build up the extra to pay on the principal of the loans.

I think that in a way we have to out smart the Dreaded Loan people.  I can only hope to find a little loop hole though the tangle mess that I"m in right now. This will take time. One day at a time.

Finding ways to meet those goals.

On this long get out of debt journey toward those student loans I have figured out a way to take care of our Mortgage and other bills. As crazy as it sounded at the time this worked for me. It took a little time to get to where I needed to be. That being I had to get my payments paid up and paid on time. But when you are living paycheck to paycheck this is not easy to come up with an extra months mortgage. Here is what I did and it took a little time but we are now paying on time. I send out weekly payments to my mortgage company. Keep in mind they do not like this they would like it all in one sum each month at the beginning of the month. But keeping that payment even in another account monthly did not work well for us. So I figure I'll take it out asap each pay and we eventually will not miss it. And we do not miss it at all. It took a few months to get the payments caught up. See every once in awhile you get an extra week in the month so that is an extra payment. Soon the calls stopped. And I just checked my bill today and lo and behold the payment was made for this month on time!!!! Relief!!! One small victory in our battle here. Now I"ll keep this the same and I'll have extra little payments every once in awhile going toward my house. :) Hopefully we can take off a little time and have our home paid off early! I'm not sure how early yet but one day I'll figure it out. Even a few months would be wonderful. lol.

My next goal is to catch up on a few bills that got behind because I lost a bit of work days due to the bad weather we had. Its small things that are do able up you sure do miss it when the money is not there.

I also will be listing my bills from the smallest to the largest. Time has come to wittle down the debt. Now that our house payment is good I can move onto the next one. And a few should be paid up in a matter of a month. Cant wait!

Dave Ramsey Total money make over.

Who does not love You tube when looking for free entertainment and resources and information and help for anything.

I found Dave Ramsey Total money make over.  I would suggest listening this audio book with a nice hot cup of something and sit back and relax. Its long. I have been listening to it in pieces. Its free and it has some common sense advise in it. Things that we should know but have over looked and do instead and that is why we are in the state we are in as adults.

This is a good read for any young people who are just beginning their financial life. It could save them a lot of grief down the road.

I am learning again how to budget, taking a good look at my bills and facing the reality of what is going on with our finances. I have to say that just taking these first small steps toward the bigger goal has been a blessing. Just knowing where your money is going is less stressful in a way. And watching numbers go down is also a good thing. Although not a whole lot of that going on here. But I just got started.

On my student loans. I did figure out a little thing with my privet loans or non government loans. I can pay them off individually if I get a lump sum in order to do so. My smallest loan is a little over 200.00. So if I save up or get 200.00 somehow I can request a pay off for just that loan. So that is a good thing for future reference. I did find something else out to. I had to do a small deferment to catch up 2 months worth a payments and the interest was added onto my loan making me owe a little more now. :(  This is how these loan companies make money off of us. We keep paying on the interest and not the principal and we are forever sending money into the loan company and never see the end of the loan or paying so much more than we should. We are stuck in a financial nightmare.

I"m not about to let my hard earned money go to the government forever on end and never see the principal of my loans be decreased. So in any way possible I'm determined to find a way to get this done and out of my life so I can move on to better things. Like a retirement, vacations, a newer car, fix up my house and so on.

I'm started with looking up any free information Dave Ramsey has available. I might venture into buying a book or two or attend a class if one pops up local. Why I chose him is because he is popular in his methods and people say they work. There are other people who I will most likely look up as well and review some old favorites from the past.

Since I"m getting another education on how to pay for my education I think I should make myself a bachelors degree from you-tube and internet university. I wonder if an employer would accept it on a resume??

Research.

Its been awhile since I posted anything. Things have been calm here for now. So that is good. But I"m gearing up to the next big thing I have to deal with. Sally Mae and the income based application. :( I'm not really looking forward to that but it has to be done and than some. I need to start paying on those loans and a payment I can afford. I feel that this is going to take some time get get somewhere where we can all agree one for now.

This morning I"m doing a little research on other ways to pay off these loans. After all just because you make an arrangement with the dreaded loan people does not mean you can not pay more if you can.

Here is a good article I found. http://www.clearpointcreditcounselingsolutions.org/best-way-to-pay-off-student-loans/. 

For example I started to pay my house payment weekly. Much the upset of PHFA.  :) But at the time when I started to do this I had to figure out how to get my loan payments into them with out end up spending them on something else we had to do. So I broke down my payments into weekly amounts and just have them sent off to the mortgage company. They keep the payments until it adds up to a monthly payment and then post it to my account. For awhile I was a week or two behind. But I knew sooner or later I would catch that time up. I just had to put up with the calls and let them know when to expect the next full payment in a week or two. They would document it and then we was good for another month. But what happen is that the calls suddenly quit. And it seems I have finally caught up on my payments! Oh joy its nice not getting that call finally and not seeing the past payments on my bills each month. :) So now as with a biweekly payment I hope to have a few extra payments and pay my house off sooner. In time we will see this result. I have not yet sat down and figured out the how long it will end up taking. Another time for that. I'm just happen to have things caught up again.

So on to this student loan. I want to put the same kind of thing into practice. But with a twist and this is what I"m on the hunt to find out. Can I pay off one loan at a time when I have several that are clumped together?? The thought keeps going though my head. And I want to find out if this is something that can be done.

This is what I'm talking about! Read it here. But there is still more research to do on this. According to the article this will not be easy. I'll have to stick to my guns about this and work hard. First get the initial payment plan in place then move on to the other.

I have been paying on my small loans first on time with monthly payments. So I'm going to start with those then move on to the government loans. Its a challenge. I kind of like it. lol.

Income based repayment and other Student Loan help.

I have been researching Income Based Repayment, Rate Reducing Repayment, Forbearance, Deferments ect.  And No matter how you look at it having a student loan is a rip off. Unless you get your degree and find a great paying job and pay it all back with as little interest as possible.

So if you look at these programs to ease the pain of paying on the loans it really does not ease the pain at all. Yes the payments will be lower, and yes in 20 years its done or something like that. But your interest may be higher and you never do pay off the principal of the loan. So no matter the program you will never be free of the debt. But what is a person to do?? Right now we have no choice but to pay the huge monthly payment and struggle each month for 25 years. Or sign up for one of the programs and make the payments that go for the interest and live with it. For 20 years.

Well for some reason this does not seem right to me. I think there has to be a better way. It may take 25 years to figure this out but I feel that this is not the end. And yes we got our selves into this. Let it be suckered in by a school, looking for that dream, life situations, not getting all the information, what ever it was here we are.

One thing I"m looking at is this. When looking at the loans they are listed separate. But when we are billed the loans are added together. This makes for a bigger payment in the end. But with a little hard work, looking to make some extra money here and there or find another job. Which by the way has its disadvantages also. You make more money outside the house your income goes up so does your payment if you qualify for IBR. Anyways find ways to make extra money beyond your normal income. I said this before and I"m still thinking on it. But what if we could pay off the smaller loans. The ones that are under 1000.00 and get them off the list? Off our credit reports as well. Then work our way up to the larger loans? Say your smallest loan is 200.00. Save up the money, pay it off in one lump sum, then move on to the next one of 300, and then 400 and so on. I'm not sure if this work but its a thought. I realize its takes longer to save 300 than 200 and so on. But if you made a goal of making X amount extra somehow each month I"m sure there has to be a way to make this work.

I"m not giving up on myself with this. This this mess is an education all in itself. If I have to make myself a degree when this is said and done with and hang it on my wall I will. Because it will be worth more than what I went to school for in the first place.