Post # 1
Member
3375 posts
Sugar bee
Is anyone familiar with student loans? We would love to pay down some of DH’s student loans, but we need the monthly payments to stay the same and not decrease (we get money from his work that depends on the monthly payments not changing, therefore we can’t consolidate them at all. If the monthly payments go down, we’d get less in repayment from his work).
If you pay down the balance of student loans do the monthly payments change? I know my mortgage monthly payment wouldn’t change, but I wasn’t sure about student loans.
Post # 3
Member
382 posts
Helper bee
With both my student loan and car loan, I usually ended up paying far more than the minimum payment every month and it never changed my monthly payment. Idon’t know much about this kind of thing, but I don’t think they can change your monthly payment just because you want to pay down a loan quicker. Unless it’s stated somewhere, I think your monthly payment is basically locked in and for them to change it, they’d have to renegotiate the terms of the loan with you.
I think. I might be wrong.
Post # 4
Member
540 posts
Busy bee
My monthly payments have always stayed the same regardless of whether I paid more than the minimum.
Post # 5
Member
11325 posts
Sugar Beekeeper
You should be able to call the customer care line for the holder of the loan to ask these questions, because it might depend on who the loans are through. For my loans, if I paid extra my payment would not change. My loans are on a set amortized schedule so the payments would just stay the same and I would simply be done paying them off earlier. But I think it would be best to talk to someone who could look at the details of your specific loan.
Post # 6
Member
949 posts
Busy bee
I’m only familiar with student loans in that I have them, I don’t have any professional interaction, but here’s what I can say about it. To the best of my knowledge, the structure of student loan payments is that it’s an evenly distributed schedule, so the payments shouldn’t change over time unless you… I don’t know, intentionally change the payment plan or something. That’s great that his work gets involved in that at all! If the payments going down would result in proportionately less repayment from his job, is that a problem? I’m not sure I understand the situation correctly.
I would also check in with whoever owns his student loans, they are usually pretty good about explaining the basics.
Post # 7
Member
4511 posts
Honey bee
For me (my loans are through Sallie Mae), when I pay more than the amount due, I have to choose whether to advance my next due date or pay down the principal. Advancing the next due date means that the amount I’d owe next month would be less than normal. You don’t want to do this.
If you pay down the principal, your monthly payments stay the same, but you’ll just be done payng the loan sooner. This is the option you should choose.
He should call his lender to be sure, though.
Post # 8
Member
3375 posts
Sugar bee
ehh it’s hard to call because they’re his loans. Maybe now that we’re married they MIGHT listen to me, but probably not. It’s irritating because I’m the one who pays on them monthly and I do all the finances.
Thanks for the info! Now that the wedding is over, we can save/pay off other things. We just want to make sure that we aren’t losing out on any of the free repayment money from his work.
Post # 9
Member
1240 posts
Bumble bee
I pay mine via check in the mail (I like a paper trail). And in the memo I put “extra toward principal”. And that’s how it goes. The intrest racking up goes down.
Post # 10
Member
375 posts
Helper bee
What I’m used to seeing is a set schedule (x number of payments at y amount to pay off the loan in 10 years). If you pay them down further you’ll likely have fewer payments, but I doubt they minimum amount would change unless you asked them to revise your payment structure.
Of course, this is reffering to a DOE loan, if you have other loans they may be handled differently.
