Student Loan: Fill & Download for Free

The first thing I did was to refinance my loans. The student loan servicers working with the US government have highly unethical practices. If you pay more than the minimum payment every month, rather than allocating the money to the reduction of your principal, they tell you that you are “paid ahead.”You write to complain, they regurgitate some long policy at you. Your concerns remain unaddressed. So, if you’re in this situation, do yourself a favor and find a student loan company or bank that will allow you to refinance at a lower rate and pay down principal.I had some loans at 6.8% from my first year of med school. The interest rate dropped a bit after that, but I owed about $110K at an average rate of around 6% when I finished med school.A medical resident’s salary isn’t all that high. But during the first 3 years, I managed to pay about $1K per month. That meant that the principal went down by about $500 each month. It was kind of depressing, but my grand plan of marrying rich had not come to fruition—it still hasn’t, by the way, so if you’re a rich heiress reading this, I’m still looking—so there was nothing else I could do.In my last year of residency, I knew I was about to have a well-paying job, so I decided I could afford to give myself a bit of financial breathing room. I started paying only about $750 per month.By that time, the variable interest rate I had chosen for my first refinance loan had increased to over 5%. So I refinanced again. This rate has also been creeping up. But I intend to pay off everything before it rises much higher. When I finished residency, I owed about $100K.The good thing about having just finished residency is that I’m used to living on an after-tax income of about $4K. Now, my expenditures have increased, but I’m still living well below my means.This means that I can be rather aggressive about those pesky student loans.This is what you’ll see if you look at my balance over the past 90 days:I’ve only gotten aggressive in the past month. I’ve got enough money saved to enable me to live for several months if push came to shove. So, I’m not saving anymore for the time being. Everything I can spare is going towards paying down debt.At this rate, I hope to be done by October at the latest. We’ll see.

Elisabeth Warren is a moron. The whole idea just adds to the national debt and is a major slap in the face to those of us who paid off our student loans. It shouldn’t even be considered.

I owe less than most people in my field, but it’s still a considerable sum:A bit over $90K.Currently, my interest rate is a variable 4.91%.It’s manageable. My only problem is that I’m having a hard time deciding whether to rapidly pay it off or to use the money to invest instead.Instead, I’m doing a hybrid strategy that is probably getting me the worst of both worlds.