How long before scores go up again?!

[Anonymous]

Can I join the club? As of yesterday, I have a total of $53,472.63 in private loans at a ridiculous 8.97% and I'm paying $12.75 in interest per day....and I just found out that in 2010 (two years....eek!) my payments are going to jump to principal + interest = probably over $1000 a month.

So I'm desperately searching for a way to pay those off fast (I've paid average of $10- $50 more per month for 2 years) so I can just have my lovely Stafford loan for $10K.

I just consider myself lucky that I got off that easy going to school year-round 4 years at a $35K a year school!

[Anonymous]

yep- 53K at 8.97% 8 years is 776 a month.

Any idea on options to reduce the APR?

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MsTara wrote:

Can I join the club? As of yesterday, I have a total of $53,472.63 in private loans at a ridiculous 8.97% and I'm paying $12.75 in interest per day....and I just found out that in 2010 (two years....eek!) my payments are going to jump to principal + interest = probably over $1000 a month.

So I'm desperately searching for a way to pay those off fast (I've paid average of $10- $50 more per month for 2 years) so I can just have my lovely Stafford loan for $10K.

I just consider myself lucky that I got off that easy going to school year-round 4 years at a $35K a year school!

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[Anonymous]

Your debt is high, but I guess not relatively high for 4 years @ 35K a year. i would pay that down ASAP. It's just going to be a steady hemorrhage on your life. That's exactly what mine are, and I'm sick of it. I had around 40K and I thought I could get away with just paying the minimum plus a little extra each month. No sir. I refuse to live another year of my life under the burden of private student loans I was tricked into getting.

I am counting on my rage against the loans to get me out of student debt this year for good.

[Anonymous]

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MsTara wrote:

Can I join the club? As of yesterday, I have a total of $53,472.63 in private loans at a ridiculous 8.97% and I'm paying $12.75 in interest per day....and I just found out that in 2010 (two years....eek!) my payments are going to jump to principal + interest = probably over $1000 a month.

So I'm desperately searching for a way to pay those off fast (I've paid average of $10- $50 more per month for 2 years) so I can just have my lovely Stafford loan for $10K.

I just consider myself lucky that I got off that easy going to school year-round 4 years at a $35K a year school!

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Welcome MsTara!  I don't have any tricks up my sleeve, but I wish you the best!  In some ways I wish I had stayed on the 10 year plan instead of going to 25, but at the time I needed the option to have a low payment and pay extra at will.  Only 22 years and 3 months to go!  Yippee!  Oddly enough, this is right around the time I plan to retire.

[Anonymous]

Thanks guys!

Timothy.... Well, funny story....those loans came into repayment unbeknowst to me because I was still in school full time and I was moving around so the mail never reached me. So, they defaulted right before I realized what was happening and got granted a defferment. Haha!! Its been the bane of my existence ever since, and I've been sending GW's the last 2 years since I have a perfect and above-min payment record with them to get those late payments deleted, but they aren't budging. And I suspect that has affected the interest rate as well, which I didn't realize was so high until I did some digging a few days ago and almost had a heart attack. Maybe I just need to call them up and have another talk with them...

My anticipated payoff date is Sep 2018, which is the 10-ish year mark I was shooting for, but my master plan at the moment is buying real estate (its still strong in the NW) and rolling it over either into a equity LOC in 3 years (especially now that I knwo how high the IR is!)or just selling the house and downsizing just to have them paid off and out of my hair!

PS:

"I am counting on my rage against the loans to get me out of student debt this year for good."

I love it! And I totally feel you!