Our experts answer readers’ student loan questions and write unbiased product reviews (here’s how we assess student loans). In some cases, we receive a commission from our partners; however, our opinions are our own.
- With the student loan forgiveness plan struck down, my husband and I are revising our budget.
- We have two versions of our budget so we’re ready once it’s time to start repaying.
- We looked at the subscriptions we were paying for and cancelled several that weren’t worth it.
Like millions of Americans with federal student loans, I was following President Joe Biden’s now-defunct student loan forgiveness plan pretty closely. After all, $20,000 in student loan forgiveness could have a significant impact on my bottom line.
When it was struck down, my husband and I were left retooling our entire 2023 to 2024 budget, and I have to tell you, it wasn’t a fun Friday night.
While I’m not holding out hope that all of our student loans will be forgiven, (that’s just a pipe dream), I do think we’ll see student loan forgiveness in some other form in the near future.
If you’re looking at your expected student loan payments and the number seems daunting, don’t give up just yet. Check into income-based repayment plans, graduated repayment plans, or even student loan forgiveness, which still applies to some professions, like teachers or those in public service.
For now, here’s how we rearranged things and what we cut to make the new (bigger) payment work.
See Insider’s picks for the best student loan refinance companies »
1. We figured out our weekly spending
Any good money expert will tell you that making a workable budget isn’t just about cutting your expenses down to the bare bones. It’s about making a plan for how you allocate your income in a sustainable way. In other words, it’s about making a plan that you can stick to long-term.
My husband and I sat down and went through our expenses line-by-line, doing the math on how they lined up with our income, then dividing that number by four, coming up with a weekly discretionary spend that we could go through every week, guilt-free. Next up was figuring out how our student loans played into the equation.
2. We made two versions of our budget
As a freelancer, my income isn’t always the most reliable. Some months can be really good, while others can be more of a dry spell. That’s why we’ve learned to be flexible when it comes to our budget.
Now, we had another variable to factor in — the cost of our respective student loan payments. We both have a fair amount of student loan debt, so allocating a big chunk of our budget to pay those eventual student loan payments was necessary. That being said, we aren’t sure when or how much we’ll have to start paying student loans, so we wanted an interim budget, too.
That’s why we made two budgets, in the same line-by-line fashion, with the same strategy for dividing our leftover funds into weekly discretionary spending limits. The first factored in student loans and the second did not. That way, we knew the numbers would add up either way.
See Insider’s picks for the best budgeting apps »
3. We cut the cord — and some subscriptions
Have you ever used one of those apps that tells you all the unused subscriptions you pay for each month? It’s sobering, to say the least.
We found out that we were wasting hundreds of dollars a year on things we didn’t even use — a never-used subscription to Hulu, a long-abandoned foray into Audible books I subscribed to for six months before I realized I’m really more of a book person. But perhaps the biggest expense we cut was traditional cable television. I may be late to the cord-cutting phenomenon, but it bears repeating. It has literally saved us hundreds each month, funds that are now freed up to put towards our student loans.
But these cuts didn’t just apply for our student loan payment budget. Cutting out non-essential things from your budget is so satisfying, because you can put those funds elsewhere, whether that means paying off debt, investing, or saving for your kids’ college.
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Our experts answer readers’ student loan questions and write unbiased product reviews (here’s how we assess student loans). In some cases, we receive a commission from our partners; however, our opinions are our own.
- With the student loan forgiveness plan struck down, my husband and I are revising our budget.
- We have two versions of our budget so we’re ready once it’s time to start repaying.
- We looked at the subscriptions we were paying for and cancelled several that weren’t worth it.
Like millions of Americans with federal student loans, I was following President Joe Biden’s now-defunct student loan forgiveness plan pretty closely. After all, $20,000 in student loan forgiveness could have a significant impact on my bottom line.
When it was struck down, my husband and I were left retooling our entire 2023 to 2024 budget, and I have to tell you, it wasn’t a fun Friday night.
While I’m not holding out hope that all of our student loans will be forgiven, (that’s just a pipe dream), I do think we’ll see student loan forgiveness in some other form in the near future.
If you’re looking at your expected student loan payments and the number seems daunting, don’t give up just yet. Check into income-based repayment plans, graduated repayment plans, or even student loan forgiveness, which still applies to some professions, like teachers or those in public service.
For now, here’s how we rearranged things and what we cut to make the new (bigger) payment work.
See Insider’s picks for the best student loan refinance companies »
1. We figured out our weekly spending
Any good money expert will tell you that making a workable budget isn’t just about cutting your expenses down to the bare bones. It’s about making a plan for how you allocate your income in a sustainable way. In other words, it’s about making a plan that you can stick to long-term.
My husband and I sat down and went through our expenses line-by-line, doing the math on how they lined up with our income, then dividing that number by four, coming up with a weekly discretionary spend that we could go through every week, guilt-free. Next up was figuring out how our student loans played into the equation.
2. We made two versions of our budget
As a freelancer, my income isn’t always the most reliable. Some months can be really good, while others can be more of a dry spell. That’s why we’ve learned to be flexible when it comes to our budget.
Now, we had another variable to factor in — the cost of our respective student loan payments. We both have a fair amount of student loan debt, so allocating a big chunk of our budget to pay those eventual student loan payments was necessary. That being said, we aren’t sure when or how much we’ll have to start paying student loans, so we wanted an interim budget, too.
That’s why we made two budgets, in the same line-by-line fashion, with the same strategy for dividing our leftover funds into weekly discretionary spending limits. The first factored in student loans and the second did not. That way, we knew the numbers would add up either way.
See Insider’s picks for the best budgeting apps »
3. We cut the cord — and some subscriptions
Have you ever used one of those apps that tells you all the unused subscriptions you pay for each month? It’s sobering, to say the least.
We found out that we were wasting hundreds of dollars a year on things we didn’t even use — a never-used subscription to Hulu, a long-abandoned foray into Audible books I subscribed to for six months before I realized I’m really more of a book person. But perhaps the biggest expense we cut was traditional cable television. I may be late to the cord-cutting phenomenon, but it bears repeating. It has literally saved us hundreds each month, funds that are now freed up to put towards our student loans.
But these cuts didn’t just apply for our student loan payment budget. Cutting out non-essential things from your budget is so satisfying, because you can put those funds elsewhere, whether that means paying off debt, investing, or saving for your kids’ college.
