Graduating college and getting that degree is exciting, but then shortly after you find yourself in the workforce with a mountain of debt to your name. THANK YOU STUDENT LOANS.
If you haven’t dealt with them you’re lucky, but if you have you understand the annoyance of seeing the amount taken out of your account for what could be years. So how do you pay student loans off sooner and save yourself the headache?
Contribute Lump Sums
There’s certain times where people come into a chunk of money, whether that be an inheritance, from selling high ticket items, bonuses from work or in some cases tax returns. These chunks of money can be useful for high student loan balances as they can eliminate not only some of the balance, but the interest you’d also pay on that balance. If you have the money to spare, consider using that chunk of cash and applying it to a student loan balance.
Pay Twice a Month
In some cases this isn’t always an option, however if it is, why not? You’re going to owe the money either way so paying twice a month if you have the means to do it can only help you get out of debt quicker. The other thing this helps is your debt to income ratio (DTI), which is super helpful if you’re planning on getting a loan for a house or car.
Apps Like ChangEd
SharkTank is a great place for entrepreneurs to show off their products and that’s what the founders of ChangEd decided to do. Essentially the app rounds up spare change on purchases you make and transfers it over to your student loans. For example if you spend $1.50, the other $.50 cents would be transferred to the app. Once the app hits $100, that money is used to make a payment on your student loan. Pretty cool if you’re trying to pay off loans without having to make a significant change to your daily budget.
Refinancing
This is a very common option people look into when wanting to lower their student loan payments or get rid of their high interest. How will you save money by refinancing? If you receive a lower interest rate you’ll end up paying less money overall. Refinancing might not be an immediate “out of the pocket” solution, however it does benefit borrowers in the long run.
We can agree having student loan balances are not fun, neither is paying them. Hopefully these tips can at least help you to pay off your student loans sooner and shave off a few years of headache!