Top 6 Ultimate Tips for Paying Student Loan Faster

Posted on January 11, 2017

The student loan is a big help when you are pursing your studies. It helps you realize the dream of making a career in your desired field, but the same student loan can become a headache if you don’t repay it on time. Here, we are going to tell you some smart strategies to pay back student loan faster.

1    Add Extra Money to your Monthly Installment

It is the simplest method to reduce your debt. Whenever possible add extra money to your monthly installment. Generally, you are going to keep aside a separate amount for the repayment, so adding a little extra to it won’t be that difficult. The extra amount will directly go towards your principal. It is not necessary that you should put a fix amount, pay whatever additional you can manage. Believe us it is going to make big difference in long run.

2    Find your Payoff Date:

Most students forget about their payoff date.  It is important that students should know when they get free from student loan debt because if you know the date then you can work out things accordingly. The easiest way to find out about your student loan is to check student loan dashboard. It will help you to adjust payments, check due dates and add loans.

3    Refinancing:

It is one the best ways to quickly pay off your student loan. The aim of refinancing is to decrease rate of interest by making more payment towards your loan. When you go for refinancing you get a consolidated loan amount to be paid on monthly basis.

4. Use cash windfall:

The cash windfall can be in various forms- winning lottery, insurance claim, inheritance, settlement from lawsuit, etc. A study shows that people getting a big chunk of money go on a reckless spending sphere buying luxurious cars, houses and going on exotic holidays.

Instead of spending money on things that can a wait, use it for clearing your student loan debt. Even you can use tax refund to make loan repayment.

5    Take up job that offers student loan forgiveness:

There are certain public service jobs like teaching, nursing, defense etc that offers student loan forgiveness. These are also covered under Obama Loan forgiveness program. To be eligible for the forgiveness you need to fulfill the criteria. It is an effort by the government to attract more people into public sector jobs. The most popular loan forgiveness programs falling in the category are Teachers Student Loan Forgiveness Program and Nurses student loan forgiveness program.

6. Smartly use your Salary Hikes

Salary hikes are part of compensation. It would be intelligent move if you use the amount towards your student loan payment. In fact, you can add up the percentage you are getting as a hike to your monthly student loan installment. Suppose you got a hike of 500 dollars then you can completely or partial direct that amount towards paying the loan. Remember, the amount is going to be apart from the monthly installment, so if you add $ 300 every month to student loan, it comes to $ 3600 in a year. Similarly, you can use your bonus for loan repayment.