Obvious throwaway here since I'm embarrassed as all hell.
The reps I have spoken with at Sallie Mae over the past few months had led me to believe that I would be paying roughly $350 a month for my graduated repayment program. I graduated in 2017 with a bachelor's degree in biology (yeah, i know, not the best field for $$) and have burned through my forbearance period minus except for 1 month. My mom cosigned on the loans but she is near 65 and is only able to work just enough to keep her apartment in a different city so she cannot help me.
I call today to set up my graduated repayment program and was told that all of my interest only payments would be roughly $1200. Yeah, I can't do that. Or at least not without a lot of retooling in my life, so I was hoping I could get some ideas from you folks!
Total private loan amount ~$97000
Of this:
$33,000 at 12.25%
$20,600 at 10.125%
Rest at 11.25%
Full monthly payment $1297.99
Income: I work as a Pharmacy Technician with no real ability for advancement since it's retail. I take home about $535 a week after taxes currently in a 40 hour week, but I usually get overtime most weeks, so I can take home anywhere between that and about $700 a week. I do float a lot, so I have to be able to drive my car places, which this time of year, includes over the passes of the Cascades. The hours and days vary, so we'll say...
$2500/mo after taxes since I've been working an average of 45 hours a week for the past few months and should continue
Other monthly obligations:
$470 Rent (Girlfriend currently paying other portion)
$281 Car payment ($5387 left)
$101 Car insurance
$31 Renters Insurance
$50 Navient government student loan
$40 CC1 minimum payment ($1930 balance, 11%)
$25 CC2 minimum payment ($600 balance, 24.65%)
$65 CC3 minimum payment ($1860 balance, 24.75%)
$55 CC4 minimum payment ($640 balance, deferred interest until 3/19, 26.99%)
$53 internet bill
$71 phone bill (I got suckered into the sprint s9 for $9/month promotion)
$0 Power bill (Girlfriend pays this and I pay internet)
$200 HSA (pretax so probably more like $170 post-tax, employer matches up to $800/yr)
$40 Health insurance
$30 Pharmacy medications
$300 Gas (most of this is reimbursed by my company)
$400 Food (this number is probably low, I'm forced to eat out quite a bit when I'm floating. Company pays for dinner and breakfast, I'm forced to pay for lunch. Going to try to get better about getting large meals for leftovers)
$10 Retirement (basically just throwing pocket change in there)
Total:
$2222
+ $1298
$3520/mo needed according to my records.
$3220/mo if i remove the gas that gets reimbursed
$3020/mo if I eat ramen :)
I have $1k in savings and 600 in checking at the moment.
I'm not in great health, and have racked up a bit of CC debt due to paying medical bills, I also have a couple thousand dollars in collection for medical bills that have been unpaid since I cannot afford to pay said bills.
So my question for all of you helpful people is, what the heck do I do? I don't know a ton of resources to get my loan amount stretched out over a longer period and Sallie Mae has been absolutely worthless on helping me other than saying, "let it go to collections then they might be able to help you." Yeah, that's not what I want to do if at all possible.
I'm looking at different career paths than pharmacy obviously, as pharmacy school is just too expensive and I'm not going to borrow another $100k into a field that isn't doing too hot right now. I was thinking about collecting CompTIA certs (A+, N+, Sec+). Does anyone that have that sort of background think that a job with those certs will pay enough money? I can't really find enough info and I don't want to pay for the certs if I'm not going to make more than I am now although it might be more fun. Those certs run about $200 each if I'm correct.
What can I cut here? I don't know if I can cut the car since some days I have to drive 250 miles round trip, with a third of that being in the snow, but any other ideas would be super helpful!!
Cheers
Submitted December 21, 2018 at 12:39AM by ayyyathrowaway http://bit.ly/2LvPa27
