by Repayable | Jan 2, 2018 | Ask Jeni, Loan Forgiveness
Ask Jeni is brought to you in partnership with tuition.io, a company dedicated to helping the best companies free their employees from student loan debt.
As someone who has graduate school loans, I have been told that – based on my current salary and opting to pay back the loan via income based repayment – I will not be able to pay back student loan debt in my lifetime. What are my best options?
The answer to this questions depends on a couple of things. Do you have federal or private student loans? Are you looking to pay as little as possible each month?
If you only have federal student loans, including a Direct Consolidation Loan, an income-driven repayment plan (a plan where your monthly payment is generally 10-20% of discretionary income) can be a good strategy if your goal is to pay as little as possible each month. An income-based repayment plan will afford you loan forgiveness after 20-25 years depending on when you originally took out those loans.
The answer is a little less clear if you have a mix of federal and private student loans. Your private student loans aren’t going to be forgiven so you should target any extra payments to those first. Your remaining federal loans are suited to an income-driven repayment plan.
If you’re unable to afford your loans and don’t want to make seemingly endless payments the fastest way to get out is through an income-driven repayment plan. It will still be a long haul, 20-25 years, but it won’t be a lifetime.
Currently, any loans forgiven under the income-driven repayment plans are taxable as income. Loans forgiven under Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) are not taxable.
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by Repayable | Jan 1, 2018 | #Millenniallife, Mindset
Happy New Year! Today’s post is all about taking down your student loan debt in 2018 by setting a realistic goal.
Estimated read time ~ 2 min.
2017 is over and the closing of the year often drives us to reflect. Most of us make a final check in with the goals we set in 2017 to see how we measured up.
There are the goals we didn’t meet and we’ll say “Meh, oh well.” because the goal didn’t mean much to us in the first place. Then there are the goals that we crushed because they connected with the very fabric of who we want to become.
How does a person go about setting the kind of goal you crush? The kind that is realistic enough you’ll follow through but challenging enough to bring you one step closer to your envisioned self.
My strategy involves setting specific goals across five categories that matter to me and create a life I want to live. My categories are: Philanthropy, Health, Relationships, Career, and Finance.
Interestingly, this year I nailed my philanthropy and relationship goals 100% and completed 75% of my health and career goals. But you know what I struck out on completely? My financial goals!
Yep, the girl who spends her free time tackling student loan debt struck out on her student loan repayment goal to have less than $50,000 (I currently have $64,744), I missed my savings goal by about $420, and I didn’t even come close to my additional monthly income goal.
Why did I strike out on these goals? The savings goal was a failure of planning. The other two goals were really massive and required me to have major income growth to achieve, and while I did experience growth I didn’t experience massive growth.
So am I a total failure? Nah, I had an amazing 2017. Unmet goals give me fodder for 2018 goals and ideas for making them more attainable.
I want to help you set a realistic student loan repayment goal for 2018 and take you all the way to actually getting started on that goal. That’s what the Repayable New Year’s Resolution Student Loan Challenge is all about.
At the end of the five day challenge you’ll have a unique student loan repayment goal that you’ve actually made progress on. I’ll be going through the challenge with you every day so you’ll have a real life example of goal setting. Each day you’ll get an email from me listing the day’s challenge.
Do you want to be one step closer to your debt free dream? Sign up here or follow me on Instagram @therepayable. Challenge starts today!
Cheer’s to an awesome 2018!
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