Question

What would you do: (Student loans are deferred until September, payments were deferred prior to virus as well so I was not making payments. yet) (We’re doing the avalanche method because it saves us a ton in the long run) **Do I throw extra debt payments towards the home equity loan (6. 5%), my outstanding student loan balance, or both (50/50 split)? OR **Do I stay in line with our avalanche order even thought the student loans are at 0% for a few more months? Looking ahead to when life returns to “normal” since my husband is back to working full time and I’m a teacher.  

Answer 1

What’s the interest on you SL normally? If it’s higher than your HELOC then pay the loans now.  

Comments

@zapata student loan 7 & 3 are higher normally.  

---

Alisa, try and pay 7 & 3 off!  

---

Also, see if you can refi your HELOC.  

---

@zapata we just tried to refi it into our mortgage refi but got a bad appraiser (he didn’t research the area enough) and valued our house too low to include the heloc. I’ll look at rates but don’t want more closing fees after the mortgage refi we did in February  

Answer 2

I have student loans as well and we have decided to lit everything we have towards paying them down so that when they do start to accrue interest again, they will accrue less, due to the lower balance

Answer 3

What's your car interest rate?  

Comments

@braunstein0 3. 29

---

Sounds like you should just stick to the plan you setup.  

Answer 4

If you are doing avalanche method, I'd skip the loans for now UNLESS they are crazy high interest or considerably higher than the next debt

Answer 5

Also, do you update these sheets every payment or are those the original amounts?  

Comments

@tentacle47 I update every 6 months. Then have a “summary” sticky note showing progress over the 6 months prior.  

---

@cacoepy5 i love it. My husband is on board but loses sight of the goal sometimes so this would be great to have as a visual. Though I'm not sure if want guests to see. Lol

---

@tentacle47 haha I get that! Our only guest is my mom usually and she often gives me advice on our financial options. Although she did just see it and said “why do you have so many credit cards” (referring to my student loans)  

Answer 6

I love this!  

Comments

@doolittle thank you! It’s one of my many tracking system  I tend to have 12 trackers for all the same things. they just depend on my mood ‍♀️

---

@cacoepy5 I’m the saaaaame way, and I look at my stuff everyday. all day. Send help  

---

@doolittle exactly! My husband is like “didn’t you just revolve stuff yesterday? l

---

@cacoepy5 it’s like i almost think if I keep looking at it, something will magically change in the 5 mins I just looked at it  or I think money is going to appear somewhere out of nowhere to make me on step closer to my budget goal

---

@doolittle yes! Like maybe if I rework the budget (with different colors) more money will appear to pay stuff down  

---

@cacoepy5 yesss! You get me  

Answer 7

Love your post it’s! Keep going in order! 7&3 will be paid off faster because your payments will be going directly to the principal!  

Comments

@maddening it makes me sick to think that I have $3k in interest I have to lay down first before I even touch the loans  

---

@cacoepy5 oh dang, well at least that number won’t be growing  

Answer 8

We are doing avalanche too! federal loans are deferred so paying AS MUCH AS WE CAN on private for now! gonna save us so much money!