i don’t think most private loans are eligible for gov’t refinance…at least they weren’t a couple years ago when i was looking to do the same with mine. it was a variable rate loan private student that for a while was hitting 9%+ then dropped off to about 3.5% by the time i payed it off. at some point i just said screw it and concentrated on paying it off fast (2-3 years) which pretty much meant it didn’t matter if the rate was 4% or 9% because i wasn’t going to be spending that much more money over such a short term.
sometimes having a bad rate is a good incentive to get rid of it quick instead of refinance it out at a fixed rate for another or longer period of time in which you might actually end up spending the exact same amount of money.
Personally, I would refinance one of my paid off cars through penfed for 1.5% and use the cash to pay down a big chunk of the expensive loan.
this is a little unorthdox and requires a higher monthly payment.
another way of looking at this is to say that 20k at 9% really is not so much money that it’s the end of the world like it would be on a 200k house at 9%.
Wells fargo would not let me refinance the student loan, because it was already consolidated once about 5 years ago.
The credit union would not refinance my loan because my school was not on their list of approved schools.
My main option is to refinance my house and use equity to do that, but I don’t think that I will be keeping the house for long enough to make it worth all the fees, etc.
Anyone ever use a personal (or other) type of loan to pay off a big chunk of higher interest debt? I’m wondering if taking a personal loan or another method if it’s better, would be a better option to pay off my student loans. Something obviously with lower interest rate? Also I’d be paying one vender instead of 2 (technically 3)
I guess one benefit of transferring the debt to another service would be that bankruptcy would get you out of the new loans… Which it might not with the student loans. Of course I’m sure you aren’t really worried about that potential benefit.
Also you can usually write off student loan interest…not so with a personal loan
If you can get approved for the new loan and it’s a lower interest rate with fixed payments, I don’t see ANY down side to it other than the minor tax write-off on student loans. But the interest payment savings maybe enough to offset it.
i dont think most people look at what refinancing really does, in most circumstances you might have a lower payment but you are extending the term and paying more in the long run
the easiest way to figure it out is to take current payment x remaining payments - expected payments x term of new loan
I borrowed more money than I needed on my last car purchase to help get rid of PMI on my house.
If you have any paid off cars you can borrow against their value at 1.9% with penfed if they have enough NADA value in them. They just put a lean on your car just like if you were buying it again. You can also refi your car loan somewhere else with them and do the same.
The money I was then able to save by not having PMI was enough to pay the whole interest on the car note and then some.