Another Extension Of The Student Loan Pause Gives Borrowers An Opportunity To Tackle Their Debt

In some ways, life has gone back to normal two years after Florida reported its first cases of the illness now known as COVID-19.  The mask mandates are a thing of the past, classrooms are full of students, and tourists have returned to Florida’s beaches.  No one knows when the next new variant is coming or how severe it will be, but this uncertainty is the new normal.  Just as many of the restrictions of the early phases of the pandemic have ended, so have many of the protections.  The eviction moratoriums and rent payment pauses have ended, and no one is sure whether more stimulus checks are coming.  One way in which Americans are still in limbo regards student loan payments.  Installment payments on federal student loans have not been due since the spring of 2020, and unpaid balances have not accrued interest since then.  Although the current pause is set to expire on May 1, the federal government seems intent on extending the pause again.  A Plantation debt lawyer can help you use the extended pause on student loan payments to improve your financial situation.

How to Improve Your Financial Situation During the Student Loan Debt Pause

If you owe federal student loans, you have probably been nervously pinching pennies in anticipation of student loan payments resuming.  The White House has announced that it plans to extend the pause on student loan payments through the summer, which means that it will likely be August before you have to make any more payments on your federal student loans.  This could come as a relief, but it could also lead to more anxiety, because you now have to rethink your budget again.  Assuming that you have set aside enough money for next month’s student loan payment, but now will not have to pay it, these are some of the best things you can do with those few hundred dollars that would otherwise have gone to the May student loan payment:

• Keep it in the bank, preferably in a savings account, so that you will not have to use part of your August budget for it
• Pay it toward a student loan that is not paused, if you owe money on federal student loans as well as loans from private lender
• Pay it toward credit card debt, your car loan, or whichever debt has the highest interest rate
• Consolidate your consumer debt and use what would have been your student loan payment to make a debt in your debt consolidation loan

Student loan forgiveness is coming, but no one knows when or in what amount.  Until then, the best thing you can do is take advantage of the student loan pause to pay down other debts.

Contact a South Florida Debt Lawyer About Getting Out of Debt

A South Florida debt lawyer can help you pay down as many of your debts as you can in preparation for federal student loan payments coming due again.  Contact Nowack & Olson, PLLC in Plantation, Florida to discuss your case.

Source:

finance.yahoo.com/news/student-loans-white-house-reportedly-mulls-extending-payment-pause-175330230.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAG8MnPWLgBW8AuloOLg_Y8x1Gk6-hVcXHROzDCAEHJggdSEYPIrPolk4ir_4fIJKGst1HSCI9ypiKJqxVbB4c8M2SNh02GGuL_kW6_h_spJFdEcYVosDEynnA2qwZ3LlagUm-M_yfeNbEj7uE9zmXPhrS2jmFSeT4cE_3eD6PFQm