How to pay down student loans on a low income
Low-paying full-time jobs do not leave enough money to reduce the debt, and popular delivery side hustles do not work in small towns. The most reliable strategy is paying a set amount plus all accrued interest so the principal actually goes down.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Taking any available job while searchingDid this help you?
- 2Looking for local work at hardware storesDid this help you?
- 3Using personal finance wiki resources and debt relief megathreadsDid this help you?
- 4Paying the minimum monthly amount plus the exact amount of daily accrued interest.Did this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I recently graduated and I’m currently looking for a job within my field. However, during that time I was wondering if anyone knew of side hustles that would actually work? I’d like to at least tackle some of my student loan debt while I’m searching.”source ↗
“Ive tried Door-dashing, Instacart and all that stuff but since I live in a pretty small town, I’m down on my luck there.”source ↗
“I do currently have a Full Time Job already working at a Grocery Store but I’m not currently making enough to make a dent into my debt”source ↗
“I'm trying to come up with an optimal way to pay them down to minimize interest.”source ↗
“My strategy has been to pay 132 plus accrued interest (so like 20-30 dollars, so that the principal is going down).”source ↗
“Is there like an optimal strategy for how to pay off a loan like this (in terms of minimizing interest payments) while on a single parent, nonprofit employee budget?”source ↗
Where this came up
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