Student Loan Monthly Payments

Greetings!

So my initial calculations for monthly student loan payments are below. I still have to confirm this with my lenders, so we'll see. I based this off of current balance with interest accrued capitalized, interest rate, and a 10 year term.

• Type :: Interest Rate :: Balance :: Monthly Payment
• Perkins 1 :: 2.85% :: $2500 :: $26.50
• Perkins 2 :: 2.85% :: $6500 :: $68.95
• Sallie Mae 1 (Sub Stafford) :: 6.8% :: $8305 :: $95.00
• Sallie Mae 2 (Sub Stafford) :: 1.88% :: $8500 :: $80.00
• Direct Loan (Unsub Stafford) :: 2.85% :: $10987 :: $130
• Sallie Mae 3 (Consolidated Federal) :: 2.85% :: $23000 :: $225
• Citibank :: 3.5% :: $74,400 :: $775

Total Student Loans: $134,128.89

Total Monthly Payment: $1400

So at a minimum we need to pay $1400 towards loans to get these paid off. If we paid this and only this, then it would take us to November 2019 to pay off the loans (according to a fancy loan snowball spreadsheet I found). Of course that is assuming all things are equal, no major expenses, no raises, etc.

If I pay $3000 per month (a $1600 snowball) then the numbers change drastically. Payoff drops down to November of 2014. This requires though that my wife work the entire time and still assumes no raises.

If I assume 2.5% raises yearly, then the payoff date jumps again to April 2014. However this also assumes that my wife works 6 days per month from now until then (Like I said before, my wife has a flexible, high paying, part time job). But, there is a lot of stress associated with my wife's job and we are contemplating options to minimize that.

She won't be working during the 3 months of maternity leave (Dec10-Feb11) so obviously that will bump the payoff date back. We also have a deadline to bring her home from work. We plan to home-school and would prefer that Hilary be a permanent stay at home mom while she does this. So we might set a date - like 3 yrs - and say that regardless of the loan balance, she comes home. If she works 3 yrs part time the loans probably wouldn't be 100% paid off but they would be drastically reduced. I would most certainly be able to finish them off on my salary within an extra year or two.

There are OTHER considerations that could change everything. Snowflakes (Dave Ramsey's term for extra money) could come from tax returns, bonuses, selling items, gifts, and God's various means of provision, all of which could be used towards the loans. Also, expenses could come up that are unplanned such as medical emergency, illness, car failure, etc. Those would lengthen the loan payoff term.

We shall see, as I always say. Only time will tell what our future holds.

I'll have more updates in the days to come. What topics can you expect?

• What was our $12,000 stupid tax?
• The status of our mobile home selling saga
• The difficult decisions regarding my wife working
• Our updated monthly budget
• To give or not to give : Decisions about donating to charity (in addition to tithe) during this period
• Much, much, more
• PLUS - a renovated blog design is in the works!

Grace and peace to you all!

Thomas