Student Loan Advice

Make payments now while they are at zero percent.

Planning to get it going very soon, trying to make sure I have some small cushion in the savings

well I have no plans on consolidating my loans with a future wife, but it sounds like you're speaking from experience, my condolences.

I think I heard the same thing, my plan is to start paying as much as i can during the next few months

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Right, but I wouldn't tap into your savings to pay for the loan. Emergency fund is almost always #1 for money management.

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This. With the unknown work situation on your fathers end pay as little as possible until the money situation becomes normalized. The last thing you want to do is stretch your finances tighter than they have to be when you don't know what the short term holds.

Try not to live beyond your means in the future!

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I think I heard the same thing, my plan is to start paying as much as i can during the next few months

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This right here tells me you're a good kid. Do what you can with what you have. You will be OK.

Start out now where you stand.

Use What you have.

Do the best you can.

this may be long, trying to keep it to minimum

My assumption - you have a job where you make significantly more than when were a student. This works even better if you are not working as student.

With what you owe - wouldn't expect you to pursue the forgiveness programs. But, consider using the income based repayment plans to keep required payment low. If you do, use your tax return from 2019 to make payment estimate. Youre required payment would be $0 if you didn't work in 2019. If you use income based and you show them your check stub to estimate - payment will be much higher.

I am not advocating you pay $0 - b/c the interest is still growing. Calculate what you need to pay to get rid of them in whatever period (5 years) and pay that. But $0 payment could give you some flexibility if emergency comes up.

Also - consider refinancing portion to variable private loan. The variable loan I have dropped to 0.68%. Certainly riskier but worked out for me. Not sure how much your rate would drop if you moved all to private

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I believe going that route has the rest of the loan forgiven after 20 years.

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I can't think of a scenario where 20 years of meager payments on a $40K sum + the tax bomb at the end of it (whatever is forgiven is counted as income that year) puts you ahead of paying it off early.

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I wouldn't consolidate and NEVER consolidate your loans with your future wife's.

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I would definitely consider consolidating at least your own loans.
I'm one of the losers who consolidated in November of last year, so I'm missing out on some sweet 0 interest right now. But in essentially any other period, I would have come out ahead. And I haven't done the math, but I won't be very far behind when the rates go back to normal. My interest from consolidating is much lower (everything was up near 6-7% and is now down near 3.5).
As far as consolidating with the wife, I'd look at sums together but would probably keep them separate. And I would make sure that if I refi'd that there is a "the other spouse isn't responsible if I die" clause.

When talking about this sum of money, I'm generally in the "pay down debt, then invest*" crew. (*I think of retirement accounts differently and am referring to the folks suggesting to make minimum payments and put the rest in the s&p 500, presumably in a taxable account. I would at least get my employer match if it existed. Depending on the salary, I would consider either putting some money into retirement vs hammering out the loan short term. There are definitely benefits to both, and they are both solid strategies to the right financial plan and strategist).

OP, hop on a loan repayment simulator, plug in the numbers, look at the monthly payment over 3, 4, 5... years. Find the one that you can afford. Go with it, stick to it. The shorter the term, the better. I'm not entirely in the "rice and beans, beans and rice, get a second job" train, but I admittedly have always had a second job or two. I would budget around a payment you think you can make with a reasonable timeline that doesn't make you hate life, and then when the payment is gone, I would put most of that same money towards retirement and never "grow into" the new job salary.


It, again, varies a lot when talking about $15/hr, $50K/year or more. One size doesn't fit all. But OP sounds like he's on the right track and is learning the right questions to ask to set up for success.