Student loan debt can be a big burden. There are many ideas about how to pay off student loans. Not every idea will work for everyone. It all depends on your individual financial situation. Here are some options to consider. 

Automate Your Payments

State Farm suggests that you automate your student loan payments. Start making payments right away, so you can whittle down the student loan debt as quickly as possible. 

The biggest benefit from doing this is that you cannot accidentally forget to make an automated payment. The risk is that your current financial situation might not enable you to have enough money in your bank account for that automated payment.

Use “Found” Money

Nerd Wallet recommends you use “found money” on your student loan debt. When you get a raise, or a bonus, put that “found” money into your student loan debt. The advantage of doing this is that you can chip away your student loan debt without taking the money out of your budget.

The disadvantage of this idea is that you probably won’t get a raise or bonus as often as you would need to in order to rely on it to pay your student loan debt. In that case, Nerd Wallet recommends you put away any $5 or $10 bills you receive toward your student loan debt.

Consolidate Your Student Loans

Forbes points out that it may be possible to consolidate your student loans. Some people are able to consolidate their existing federal student loans into a single Direct Consolidation Loan.

The benefit of doing this is that it takes multiple monthly student loan payments and turns it into a single monthly payment. The down side is that one monthly payment might be higher than the average amount of your multiple student loan payments.

Posted in: How to Save | Comments (0) | Join Discussion