Struggling to pay down a student loan can be difficult. For most people, it can take at least ten years – and sometimes up to 25 years – to successfully pay off a student loan.
This isn’t a debt that you want hanging over your head for a long time. Student loan debt can make it nearly impossible to save for anything else and it can even result in you ending up with serious financial difficulties.
How much debt is too much?
There are a number of calculations that you can do to determine if you have too much debt. However, if you often find yourself struggling and wondering about your debt load, you may have too much debt. One of the easiest ways to tell if you have too much debt is if you are using more than half of your income to pay your debts or if you find yourself unable to afford payments on your debt.
If you are in this situation, what should you do?
Is bankruptcy the only resource?
Under current laws, you can discharge yourself of your student loan debt if you declare bankruptcy. However, your student loan will only be eligible for discharge if you declare bankruptcy seven or more years after you have stopped being a full-time or part-time student. In some cases, this period can be reduced to five years if repaying the loan will result in an undue hardship.
However, there are other options for people who have large amounts of debt, including those who have student loan debt.
What other options do you have?
Other options include looking to your family for support, borrowing money against your car (car title loans) or applying for a home equity loan or bad credit loan. Each of these situations has advantages and disadvantages and there is no “one size fits all” solution that will work for all people.
In many cases, even if you take out another loan to help you reduce your student loan debt, you will need to learn to live a leaner lifestyle in order to save money.
In doing so, you’ll want to look for ways that you can reduce your expenses. Considering cutting things like smart phones, cable TV, movies, etc. If you rent your current home, consider moving to a cheaper house or apartment so that you can save more money each month.
You can also think about ways that you can make some extra income. Ask if you can work overtime at work, consider getting a second job or see if you can pick up some freelance or contract jobs that will help you make more money and manage your debt.