Hi everyone, my mom is on the verge of a mental breakdown concerning her finances and asked me for help. I am not very financially savvy, so I am turning here for help. I will try to keep things short and to the point.
She is about to turn 60 and works as a nurse. She takes home, after taxes, about $4,000 a month, $48,000 a year. My father passed away in 2017 and she is single. There are two large debts she owes that are making her struggle - she owes $120k to the bank for a refinance on the house, and $270k on Parent Plus school loans. The refinance costs her ~$1,380 per month, and the loans are now going to cost her ~$1,450 a month. In August of 2017, she qualified for the Public Loan Forgiveness and Income Driven payment plans and was paying ~$845 to the loans monthly. Shortly after is when my father died. The Income Driven plan needs to be recertified every year, and in October of 2018 she was given the new amount of ~$1,500 monthly. She reapplied twice, and each amount given was only a few dollars lower. There was a .75 cent increase in her hourly pay, and the death of my father, but no changes other than that. Is this enough to make the increase over $600? The people at FedLoan are no help when she calls.
Her other monthly expenses, not including food, (insurance, utilities, house taxes etc.) are costing her about ~$1,400 a month. So now, with the student loan payment increase, she will be left with little to no money for food or anything else depending on when she pays the bills. Is there anything we can do to make things work?
Edit: the 270k student loan is combined debt for two siblings. I don’t know of, or count on, any arrangements made between my mother and siblings for them to make payments. This was the information I was given from her and as much as I know.
Submitted January 08, 2019 at 11:42PM by debtthrowawayyy http://bit.ly/2RErEpd
