The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: SpendyMcSpend on October 22, 2012, 06:17:52 PM
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I consolidated my undergraduate loans in 2005 at a 2.75% rate. I took a loan for graduate school for about $12,000 (now $14k with fees) at 6.8% in 2008. I am wondering if I can refinance to a lower rate through a credit union or something like it. I have very good income and credit. Has anyone tried this?
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No, but I myself would be interested in the results. I have quite a bit more meat left on the bone but my nebulous plan is once I get down to an amount in the neighborhood of 10-15k, I was planning on researching/trying the same thing. A cc with a high limit and no interest for x amount of months is something I would consider as well but obviously the amount can't be too high or it becomes more risky.
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I think you can also refinance with the fed as well... If you do public service work you may be eligible for loan forgiveness programs also.
The 0% interest cards are a great tool to "stop the bleeding"-Just need to make a huge effort to throw a bunch of money at them each month. Since your debt isn't too great it's probably a decent idea. My student loans (over $50k!) are another story altogether...
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Let us know what you find.
Last time I looked Wells Fargo was the only game in town. They were doing something like a variable rate loan 4% above prime. So about 4%. With risk of a variable interest rate, it didn't seem like that good of a deal. I guess I don't really see the prime rate going above 2.5% in the next couple years, so it could make sense. But it's something you should only do if you have a belief on long term interest rates, which is sort of a funny thing for a non professional individual to be extremely certain of.
I looked at unsecured loans from credit unions. Everything I found was around 12%.
I think the 0% credit card offer with a 1% transaction fee (from Chase) was the best thing I found.