Sunday, March 25th, 2007...8:13 pm
Make Micropayments to Sallie Mae: Get Out of Debt
I stumbled across the 3 Things About Money blog today and I found the author’s post about how she sends micropayments each Friday to Sallie Mae. These payments are made based on whatever she can pull together.
Pulling together one dollar a month extra (204 dollars total over the life of the loan) and paying it to principal saves me 2 months of payoff, netting a $710.13 savings. Just for squeezing out four quarters a month. Noodling up an extra 50 bucks a month makes a huge difference. I intend to pay this off by September 1, 2008 and the journey so far has been intense. But even if I don’t make it, I will be leaps ahead, and will save thousands of dollars for the effort. Makes doing without take out coffee, selling off old textbooks, and scrounging change worth it.
Check out her site for information on calculators and the decreased life of her loan based on even 1 dollar more per month.
19 Comments
March 25th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
Hey, thanks for the shoutout! When I get back from my little trip, I will add your blog to my links. I’ll tell you how to do the meters then too. Love the title of your blog.
March 29th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
Hey,
I used to work at Sallie Mae in a customer service call center. Whenever I had a call with a person who expressed despair and doubting ever seeing the loans paid off, I would suggest this strategy to them - except I suggested once every two weeks, but the principal is the same.
Basically, your interest builds up daily based on your principle balance (the actual money you originally borrowed). If you make these small payments more frequently than once a month like you are required, you are getting rid of that interest and a chunk of principle - reducing the amount of interest that builds up before your next payment. Ergo, your next payment goes more towards what you actually borrowed and less towards what they charge you. Keep it up and you’ll pay off debt like this 75% times faster.
This strategy works with credit cards too!
March 29th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Vic, Thanks for the info!
May 16th, 2007 at 6:55 pm
Thanks for this info! I’m eager to ditch this albatross called Sallie Mae ASAP.
September 7th, 2007 at 11:50 pm
Okay, I’m a little freak out. I just got a letter from AES claiming that Sallie Mae consolidated my student loans. I’ve never talked to a Sallie Mae representative, I usually hang up on them when they call. I’ve never signed any documents that would suggest I would consolidate with them. I don’t understand how they can do that to me. Does Sallie Mae do this often?
November 28th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
Thanks for creating this site. My husband now owes more to Sallie Mae than he did originally, thanks to his 16.25% interest rate and their incompetence and greed. We’re drowning. You’ve given me a little hope though.
December 13th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
That is awesome advice, Vic. Thank you!
I’ve been doing that with my credit cards automatically through my bank’s online bill-payment system. I started doing that just because it was easier to budget those bills per check rather than per month. I should start doing that with the rest of my bills.
Chris
December 13th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Thanks for the link, but it leads to a private blog. How do I go about getting an invitation?
Thanks,
Cayenne
December 18th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
The interest rate is insane. And the late fees are silly.
Sallie Mae wants people to default. That is where they make more money.
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:43 am
…what if i cnt even send them the min,? should i just send my $5 a month and hope it adds up? i have good intentions to try to pay this loan back but seriously it will take me till im about 89 years old p.s. im 26 now HELP
January 23rd, 2008 at 8:27 am
You should call and see if you can get a forbearance or work out a smaller minimum. Simply sending less will not absolve you from late fees and credit damage.
March 3rd, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Those bastards from Sallie f***** Mae had the gall to send me a letter in regards to a complaint I made on the BBB.org website
Those turkeys were the ones to keep me upset by sending me delinquent notices everytime I paid through their stupid website, but they don’t seem to do that when I mail them a freakin check. I don’t know what their problem is. Anyway, I didn’t even read the letter they sent as I opened the letter just a bit to see that their stupid letter was regarding the BBB complaint. How dare them!!! Who do they freakin think they are!!? They better NOT ever harass me again
April 27th, 2008 at 11:21 am
help my mother sign a loan for my daughter about 10 year ago. she just did not understand the ramifications of her doing. my daughter hide all the notice and took off. now my mother whos 63 years old shi live on a fix income is being sued. they even froze her 300.00 from her checking account for this mothers rent. sallie mae really believe she has money. how can they destory peoples lives like this.
September 16th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
I have had the worst experience with salli mae. I have been inturupted during phone calls with their customerservice reps., by the reps them selves, talked down to, and treated like dirt. I have asked to speak with managers, and have been told no that they will not let me speak with the manager, and they have continuously hung the phone up on me when I finally got through to a customer service rep. I would never suggest to anyone to waste their time with the sorry sallie mae company. If anyone would have filled me in on the gossip going around about them I would have never taken out a loan with them. If your a day late on a payment they call you 10 times a day literally, even after they have spoken with you. Can you say harassment? They refused to take my payment because I wanted to speak with the disrespectful customer service reps manager. HORRIBLE SERVICE!!! SALLIE MAE IS THE WORT LOAN COMPANY!!! STAY AWAY FROM SALLIE MAE!!!!!
September 29th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
Please review the Sallie Mae contacts below and to start an email campaign explaining your situation and the poor practices of Sallie Mae. Make sure you include a media source of any kind and if you have a lawyer or congress person to add that would be outstanding as well.
Lord Albert L
Chief Executive Officer
email: [email protected]
Mike Walter
COO & Senior Director, Private Credit Collections
email: [email protected]
Roy Mellinger
Vice President and Chief Security Officer
email: [email protected]
Carol Rakatansky
Vice President and Assoc. Gen. Counsel
email: [email protected]
Eric Reicin
Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel
email: [email protected]
Tom Joyce
Senior VP, Corporate Communications
email: [email protected]
Deborah N. Fahle
Senior Vice President
email: [email protected]
Christy Marble
Vice President, Brand and Consumer Marketing
email: [email protected]
Frank C. Hollister, IV
Senior Sales and Marketing Executive
email: [email protected]
Amy Brashear Miranda
Director / SVP Mid - Atlantic Sales
email: [email protected]
Laura Daly
Vice President, Credit
email: [email protected]
Nancy Deck
Senior Vice President, Corporate Marketing
email: [email protected]
Jan DeFalco
Managing Director, Brand and Consumer Marketing
email: [email protected]
Chris Dwyer
Vice President of Sales
email: [email protected]
Asim Walia
VP of Sales
email: [email protected]
Jim Eickhoff
President & VP Sallie Mae National Sales
email: [email protected]
Suvendu Pal
Vice President, Financial Planning and Analysis
email: [email protected]
Marcos Bronfman
Vice President at Sallie Mae
email: [email protected]
Michael Hynes
Vice President, Leadership and Employee Communications
email: [email protected]
Brian Burgess
Vice President of Finance and Information Research
email: [email protected]
Lori Urias-Gehris
Leadership Development
email: [email protected]
Rick Robey
Vice President, Marketing
email: [email protected]
Ramiro Fonseca
Senior Vice President
email: [email protected]
David Leonard
Title unknown works with Roy Mellinger
email: [email protected]
317-578-6704.
October 11th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
So I’m trying to help my girlfriend do basically this, and pay off as much of her principle as possible. The problem is that SallieMae doesn’t seem to want to let her.
We’ve figured out how to pay the standard amount online. But to pay off the principle, you have to send them a check and a letter.
If you pay more on a monthly basis, they just put it into the next months payment on your interest.
Why can’t we just increase our monthly payment and have it go toward Principle? I want to be able to automatically pay the minimum and then go online and pay whatever I can at the end of the month.
SallieMae doesn’t seem to want me to do this.
-sh
November 4th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Sallie Mae “misplaced” my payment. They ruined my credit, and harassed me for something I had already paid. After dealing with them over a few days, they found their error. Now, they just own me, harass me, and demand more money than justified. Professional, aggressive street bums.
March 14th, 2009 at 12:43 am
Good find, I also just found that you have to tell them to apply extra payments to intrest and principal. The default is not to do the right thing as everyone should know that they can collect intrest on that money since that are so kind to “hold it” for you.
October 20th, 2009 at 8:12 am
Great advice given here. Thanks for the help! Debt is such a burden.
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