What's Your Number, Baby?

Relax. I am not referring to the clichéd pickup line. What’s your number = What’s your total student loan debt? If you happen to know it, picture it now. How does it make you feel? Scared? Stressed? Trapped?

When I visualize mine, I feel as if I’m back on my (one and only) very bad blind date where the fellow showed up wearing a hoop skirt, white cake makeup, and fangs. We were NOT attending a vampiric Civil War reenactment.

I didn’t want to be on that date, just as I don’t want to have student loan debt. The first one was an easy fix. The second one, I'm still working on.

How does one get out of these situations?

Understanding and empowerment.

In the case of the bad date, I was able to politely extricate myself after ordering a soda, making polite conversation, and then getting the heck out of there. Student loan debt is a bit more serious than a bad date since it is inadvisable to simply walk away. However, it is possible to overcome the psychological and emotional barriers it presents.

The first thing you should do, if you haven't done so already, is learn your number. To find out how much you owe in Federal loans, go to:

https://www.nslds.ed.gov/nslds

If you have private loans in addition to (or instead of) federal loans, you will most likely find them listed on your credit report. Go to: https://www.annualcreditreport.com/index.action and pull your three credit reports (Experian, Equifax, and Transunion). This site will allow you to access all three reports once a year, for free. Beware of other sites that charge monthly fees or demand immediate payment.

To find out your total number, add up your federal and private loans. Got it? Keep that number handy because we will be referring to it in future posts.

Finally, please note: we will be treating federal loans and private loans separately, since they are governed by different regulations and often require different plans of attack.

If you are unsure about the difference between federal and private loans, go here for a breakdown:

https://studentaid.ed.gov/types/loans/federal-vs-private

Future blog posts will discuss these issues in more detail.

Knowing your number is the first step. However, you are not defined by your number. You are NOT 24601 (Jean Valjean from Les Miserables). You are you, and your number is a part of your financial reality. Nothing more.