When you are in college, there are a lot of expenses. You will have food, rent, books, and other necessary expenses. These are not small amounts of money, and you should not be giving them away to your creditors. Instead of giving the money to your lender’s, why not use it to pay off your student loan debt.
One of the smartest things you can do when in college is to negotiate with your lender. Find out what the average interest rate is for your loan. This will give you a starting point from which you can negotiate. Make your interest rate as low as possible for the life of your loan. This will save you money when you are finished paying it off.
Another way to lower your interest rate while in school is to only take the minimum payment on your loan. The lender may penalize you for missing a payment if you choose to take extra payments. However, taking only the minimum payment will actually help you keep more of your money. This is because the minimum payment is usually only two to three percent of your loan balance. That is a huge savings when compared to paying ten or twenty percent in interest.
If you are already in school and think that your student loan debts will be less once you are out, contact your lender immediately. You may be able to defer your payments until after graduation. You can also request an extension to pay your loan or roll it over into a new loan. Both of these actions will keep you more financially disciplined and therefore reduce the amount of interest you pay on your student loan debt.
There is another option for you if you are already out of school and have some student loan debt. You may want to consider consolidating those loans. This will allow you to put all your loans into one easy to manage monthly payment. The nice thing about a consolidation is that the interest rate will be lower than it was when you were paying several different loans. You may even be able to get a better interest rate that you were previously getting on your previous loan.
If you are looking for a consolidation loan to get out of financial difficulties, contact various companies to ask what their interest rates and repayment terms are. Look at the amount of money you owe on your loans and the amount of money you would like to consolidate into one loan. Find out what the terms of payment are so that you are not tempted to extend the terms. You do not want to extend payment terms that are not going to benefit you.
Finally, there are a number of strategies that you can use to pay off your student loan debt quickly. Consider writing a few articles to inform others of your situation. Offer to write an article every month for a set amount of time. Offer to write an article to submit to a number of different article directories for free. Put together a small portfolio of photos that show you taking studentships or other activities. These are just a few of the intelligent ways to start paying student loan debt.
