Hi everyone, first post here.
I have created a real mess for myself and I’m looking for a way to climb out of it in a less painful way than I have been this last year and a half.
I currently owe about $50k to $60k in student loans to 3 or 4 different companies, I’m currently working on getting all the details in that area.
I had to leave school without graduating for personal reasons. For a number of years I had to simply ignore my loans as I was barely making enough to cover my day to day expense and some of them defaulted.
Last year I started at a job that significantly increased my income and I now make about $47k per year ($35k per year net after taxes) and started trying to untangle the mess I made out of my finances. Right now I’m paying $500 a month to my primary lender through Michigan guaranty and another $400 to the others that I know of, but I think there is still one more out that around 10k, but I haven’t found it yet.
Those payments are not a problem right now because my expenses are very low, but they (my expenses) are set to jump up significantly in the next few months and I need to get those payments down to a total of about $500 a month or I’m probably going to have to stop making payments on some of them again.
I have not spoken to my lenders about this yet as I want to know what my options are first. I’m not looking to avoid my responsibilities or get out of paying anything that I owe ( I’m a big boy and I got myself into this mess, I’ll get myself out), I’m just looking for some advice and would like to know what my rights and options are in my current situation.