I have my student loans coming up with my first payments of 300.00 combined. The first one is due March 1st. The issue is my husbands income dropped over 20,000.00 since I first started school. We are having more than our share of financial problems and I am worried about this payment. Can someone point me in the right direction to see about getting them lowered or something? There is no work in my area without having to re-locate. I actually need my Bachelors degree in accounting to get a job around here in the immediate area. I dont want to go back to school right now to delay payments, but if I have to I will. My biggest issue with that is creating more debt. Any thought or advise would be appreciated...

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~~Sharon...wife to Bill for 17 yrs and mom to Kevin,16; Stephanie,14 and Tyler,8~~

Call the 1800 number and speak with an account manager. They should work with you.

Yeah have you tried just working with the company? Because I haven't heard of anyother way around student loans.

I will call them. I am also working on getting my house payment lowered...thanks.

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~~Sharon...wife to Bill for 17 yrs and mom to Kevin,16; Stephanie,14 and Tyler,8~~

I have Sallie Mae student loans and there have been times that I have had to defer my payments even when I wasn't a student. I was always able to defer them with no problems. I think I was even able to go online and do it, but can't remember for sure since it was many years ago. It did go through right away. Good luck!

I agree-put your loans in deferrment, I think they call it forbearance sometimes. I have done this as well for up to a year at a time for financial hardship. Very easy and they gave me know problems-federal loans. Keep in mind the interest does continue to accrue which does enlarge your total owed debt, but if you can get your self back "up to speed" in the next year, you could add extra payments to help get this back-HTW!

There are several wasy that they will work with you. The LAST thing you want is to default on a student loan. If you do, you won't be able to get credit for so much as a cup of coffee. It hits your credit worse than foreclosure. And it's not forgiven by filing bankruptcy.

My student loans on on an income-sensitive repayment plan. I had to submit documentation of my husband's and my income, and have to update it every year. Months when we have a particularly rough time (like the month when half our income went into car repairs), I call them and ask for a hardship forebearance. They allow me to skip that month's payment without classifying it as delinquent or adding late charges to it. Of course, the interest still accrues.

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If you get a deferment even though you are not required to make a payment if you can send some sort of payment it will help in the end.

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If you have a upromise account you can tie it to student loans. Go to upromise.com. It is a secure website and I have never had any problems. I have been a member since 2004.

Good Luck!

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"If you think you have it bad, I guarantee there is always someone else worse off."

Just an update...I have been working on this for a while now. At first, I did the income sensitive method and they lowered my payments by about 70.00 on one loan and I never got to the send set. Then Friday of last week, I saw that everything went back up to the full amount and I called them this morning. They explained that right after I did mine, they adjusted everyones payments to their full amount and mine was included. Odd I thought but anyway, I also found out that since I never had a job that I couldnt use that way anyway. So he set me up on the interest only for up to 24 months. I dropped my 2 payments over half. I hope to pay more with time but this will help in the mean time anyway...

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~~Sharon...wife to Bill for 17 yrs and mom to Kevin,16; Stephanie,14 and Tyler,8~~