"Principal Only" Payments to Your Sallie Mae Student Loan

Most of your monthly payment actually goes to interest. Let's say your payment is $900 per month. Chances are, $500 of that payment is just going to pay down interest. Only $400 will be applied to the principal.

Same each month. Your principal barely goes down, so you end up paying just as much in interest as you took out, effectively doubling the amount you had to pay back!

It's outrageous.

So you can try the "principal only" payment. The trick is to pay your monthly payment, and then send in another payment that month, which should be applied 100% to the principal balance.

Great in theory, but not always easy.

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Sallie Mae has certain policies where they don't allow you to simply send in a check marked "principal only" and actually do what you want.

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Here's the trick.

You log-in to your online control panel and schedule an online payment. Then set the amount as more than double your required payment.

So if you owe $900, then make a payment of $1801.

(If you pay something like $1750, they automatically apply the extra money to your next month's bill, meaning you're not saving any money on interest.)

Doing this gives you another confirmation page.

You can then apply the extra money to principal, or pay your next month's payment in advance. Apply it to principal!

Too bad you have to pay so much extra, but that's the way it is.

At least the process is easy once you know what to do!