Federal student loan payments were put on pause during the COVID-19 pandemic, but that break from educational debt is coming to an end as payments resume on October 1.
It's important to be ready to work student loan payments into your budget, especially if you haven't been making them for a while or if you never really started making them because of the timeline of your graduation.
These four tips can help you to ensure that you're able to afford to pay back what you borrowed to go to school without too much financial stress.
Image source: Getty Images.
1. Keep your fixed costs reasonable
If you want to make sure your student loan payments are affordable, it's helpful to keep your other fixed expenses to a reasonable level. This includes costs for things like housing and your car payment.
If you can keep these big, steady expenses down, you should have plenty of money to make your student loan payments without having to scrimp and save on all of the other things that you need to buy. It's OK to keep living like a college student for a while in a cheap apartment and with an old car while you get your debt taken care of. After you've repaid your loans, you can increase your standard of living.
If you've already committed to high fixed expenses, see if you can find ways to make a temporary or permanent cut -- perhaps by getting a roommate for your expensive apartment to help reduce the rent.
2. Track your spending and cut discretionary expenses
You can also look to cut your discretionary expenses, although this can be harder to maintain for the long periods of time needed to repay your student loans in full.
Discretionary expenses are the things you buy each month that fluctuate in cost. You can identify where you're overspending by tracking where your money is going for a period of time (like two weeks or 30 days). By looking for patterns in your spending, you can find cuts to make in order to redirect the money to your student loan payments.
3. Increase your income
Increasing your income can be another great way to work student loan payments into your budget. You can try to earn more money and use the extra you bring in to make the required payments due on your debt.
There are a lot of different ways to increase how much you earn. Taking on more work, such as overtime or a side hustle, is an option, but it can be harder to sustain this over the long haul since you could get burned out. You can also make sure you're negotiating your salary during performance reviews or when looking for a new job, or you can discuss promotional opportunities and make sure you're on the management track at work.
4. Switch to a cheaper student loan repayment plan
Finally, your last option is to try to lower the monthly cost you'll have to pay for your student loans if you're struggling to work them into your budget.
You may be able to do that by switching repayment plans on federal student debt. There are a number of different payment plans available, including income-driven plans that limit how much of your income goes to your loan payment. These plans all provide forgiveness after a period of time if you make payments for long enough and still owe.
Each of these techniques can help you to make room for student loan payments in your budget, so consider which of them is right for you if you're concerned about where the money will come from now that the student loan repayment pause has come to an end.
