We have a grand total of about $55,000 in student loan debt that we are working off. However, both of us are also in school now (for free this time, don't worry) and therefore we have deferment on a collection of our loans. We intent to continue making payments, but my question is:
If we have deferment on all but one, should we be making the minimum payment on all of them and extra payments on the one that is not deferred; or should we make interest only payments on the deferred loans and lump the rest of what we would pay into the one that is active to pay it off faster?
Here's the breakdown:
$14,034.43 - Active - Min. payment:$150 - Interest Rate: 5%
$11,981.01 - Deferred - Min. payment: $103 - Interest Rate 6%
$15,129.8 - Deferred - Min. payment: $202 - Interest Rate 3%
$8,055.95 - Deferred - Min. payment: $212 - Interest Rate 4%
The ones that are deferred are subsidized, which means they will not capitalize interest while in deferment. The deferment is scheduled to go until Fall of 2013 at this point. So we have ~$500 that we use to make payments every month, plus we throw anything we can spare at it each month too (recently that has been about $800-$1000 extra). I'm just wondering what our strategy should be to pay off these ASAP.