I made a phone call last week to Navient, formerly Sallie Mae. I was calling about changing the bank account used for my automatic debit (spoiler alert: they couldn't do that, I had to cancel and sign up again with the new account), but while I was on the phone, I mentioned that I routinely overpay my balance. And as simple as that, the customer service representative asked if I'd like to change my payment.
Now, maybe I'm just crazy, but I truly didn't think this was an option. I sort of assumed that Navient wanted to make it harder for me to pay more than my minimum each month, in order to keep collecting interest from me. I guess I was wrong, because when I said, "Sure," the woman on the other end of the line asked what I'd like my higher payment to be and put in a request, just like that.
Wow.
It will take a month to activate, and about the same amount of time for my automatic debit to start working, but when it does, I'll only have one payment to Navient each month, and it will happen automatically!
This is a little scary, because it means that the payment I set is the payment I'm stuck with, but that's exactly why I went for it. Although I've been good so far about not letting my loans be an area where I pull from when I spend too much in a given month, my willpower has been slipping this month. Now? It's not an option, so I'll just have to find other ways to make things work.
All it took was a simple phone call, and suddenly I'm not the only one holding myself accountable for my extra monthly payment. It's out of my hands!
This is so great! You're right that automation is really helpful for boosting willpower. I wish I'd known about this option when I was paying off loans myself.
ReplyDeleteI wish I'd known about this sooner! From everything I've read about Sallie Mae, it really seemed like they wouldn't be willing to raise a payment to help borrowers pay off faster, so I never bothered to ask. Lesson learned.
Delete