Student Loan Consolidation Advice
De BISAWiki
The difference between your dream job’s gross salary and take-home pay can be disappointing. Deductions taken from your pay check, such as taxes, health benefits and your retirement contributions, take a bite out of the money you have to pay your bills. Understand how much money you really have for new work clothes and dinners out with friends by listing your monthly expenses and payments due and subtracting them from your net pay. This is your discretionary income — the amount left over for fun after rent, utilities, groceries, loan payments and your other essentials have been paid.
Back on October 1, 2007, legislation was passed which contained provisions aimed to shrink the profit margin lenders were getting on federal consolidation loans. The smaller margin allowed for much less profit with zero room for lenders to offer discounts and borrower benefits. It’s important to understand, prior to the October 1st legislation, lenders were taking portions of their own profits and returning it to their borrowers in the form of rebates, interest rate discounts and cash back. Granted, the borrower benefits were a great marketing tool and attracted droves of borrowers to specific programs - but they still helped the borrower save money.
If you are having trouble paying a student loan, work with your loan servicer or lender before you default. Two other options include deferment and forbearance. Deferment is a legal right you have to postpone payment if you meet the criteria for deferment. Examples might include going back to school, or the birth of a child. Forbearance is when you ask the lender for a temporary break in payments, or a reduction in payments. The lender may grant your request for a forbearance, but the lender is not obligated to do so. Either of these options may buy you a little time to get back on your feet financially.
Aside from simplifying your payment responsibilities, another benefit of student loan consolidation is that you are able to decide on the structure of your loan Typically, consolidated student loans require smaller monthly payments than the original loans If you're having trouble making your monthly payments, then this option may just be for you. You can also convert your variable interest rate to a lower fixed rate, which can save you a lot of money. You can also extend your repayment term from the standard 10 years for federal loans to reach up to 30 years.
Nowadays it is possible to get reliable recommendations and one good plan is simply to watch a number of the bigger and more active forums. At first you will not know what is good and not quite so good advice but if you simply follow the forum postings for a while you Direct Student Aid will soon begin to spot the threads to follow for sound and high quality information and advice. Before too long you will find that you have a short list of professionals who you can then approach for the specific information and advice which you are looking for.
