The Student Loan Podcast Intro (00:00): Welcome to the student loan podcast. Here, you'll find practical advice on tackling student loan debt, paying down your higher education expenses and inspiring stories about paying off student loans. We're your hosts, Daphne, Vanessa and Shamil Rodriguez.

Daphné Vanessa (00:19): Welcome to the student loan podcast. On today's episode, we're going to discuss what happens when extended federal student loan relief under the cares act expires and what actions you might consider taking between now. And then before we get into today's episode, we want to thank everyone for listening to our first 25 episodes. Thank you so much. We are really looking forward to sharing more content with you. We would really appreciate if you could continue to share rate and review the student loan podcasts, it helps us grow and reach more audience members just like you.

Shamil Rodriguez (01:02): And so before we get started, last episode, we discussed how predictive analytics are used in higher education with either handed out Acosta with new America's think and action tank. Uh, it was a really great episode. What do you think, Daphne?

Daphné Vanessa (01:16): I agree. I really appreciated the deep dive into how universities leveraged data and analytics to ensure that they're better outcomes for students. If you haven't already be sure to check that one out. So with that, let's get into today's episode. When the COVID pandemic reach the United States in March, 2020, the United States economy changed significantly lives, really changed overnight jobs were lost. The markets tanked, we lost loved ones. The world was and continues to just fight this invisible enemy. And the additional burden of student loans was just too much for people at such a challenging time. When the cares act passed in March, 2021, 2020, including student loan relief payments were paused until the end of 2020 after a few extensions and a new administration. The cares act benefits will now expire on September 30th, 2021.

Shamil Rodriguez (02:23): Now, does it mean that maybe president Biden will extend it beyond September 30th, 2021? I'm just saying if you can hear me out there, why not? Uh, no, but all seriousness. Um, let's, let's talk about some actions that you can take between now and September 30th to put yourself in a good place. Uh, we think that, you know, having this be five months away, essentially from this point, uh, when this episode posts, uh, as still gives you more than enough time, uh, to position yourself in a great way so that you're not shocked by any surprises, October 1st hits, it comes around. But before we get into those tips, we do want to remind you that this is not professional financial advice, right? We are sharing our personal opinions, thoughts, and research. Uh, so, you know, take that as it may, and we will, we will be referring to episodes, uh, that do highlight this. Or if you want, as you scroll through our content, you will see that some of these thoughts or ideas do come directly from the interviews that we've conducted with other guests. Uh, so hopefully you'll enjoy that as you go through some of the content and try to take some of those, uh, those thoughts and actions and put them into place in your life. All right. So with that being said, let's get into it.

Daphné Vanessa (03:40): Awesome. So what can you do before September 30th? Right. The big line in the sand is September 30th. What actions can you take between now and your project plan and September 30th to put yourself in a better position? Well, here's some tips for actions that borrowers can take between today and that September 30th date, when student loans come due towards the end of this year, you can do things like call ahead calling ahead of time to ensure that all of the logistics related to your repayment plan are put in place is a fantastic idea. And we spoke a little bit about this in previous episodes and even gave you a glimpse and an example into what it looks like to actually call a student loan servicer. So if you haven't already, you can check out that episode as well, where we call a student loan servicer and show examples of questions that you can ask for your student loan account. So in the same way, you should be vigilant to ask questions to your student loan servicer, to make sure you are in a repayment plan. That makes sense for your profile. And if there's a better one out there, what sort of options exist for you? Shamila anything else to add?

Shamil Rodriguez (05:02): Yeah, well said I think, uh, just to give listeners a referral there, uh, episode 24 is actually when Daphne called a student loan servicer to give you a heads up of like what that conversation might actually look like. Uh, and then we actually discussed with Betsy Mayer on episode 18. What, uh, what that, what that might actually look like, like calling an advance, because the idea there is that when you're calling, you want to make sure that you're avoiding, competing with hundreds of thousands of other people that will be also calling to make sure that their ducks are in a row or just like figure out like, Hey, like, what's this going to be like on October, back in October, like what's my payment amount going to be, you know, and these are like logical questions to ask, right? Like just making sure that you're, you're in a good place when October rolls around. Uh, and so that's the that's whole intent and Betsy brought up a great point and you guys will really benefit from that episode where really going into what that might look like. And some of the, the reasons why you would want to call a few months out in advance, just to make sure that your specific Senate situation and scenario is all in place and good to go

Daphné Vanessa (06:17): That's right. And we shouldn't just assume that they have all the paperwork on hand for your repayment program. A lot of these programs require annual reverification. So put in the work now to get your documents in early and then ask questions to make sure that you have, again, like Chanel said all of your ducks in a row before the over flood of people, when the, uh, we get closer to that date.

Shamil Rodriguez (06:48): No good point. And I think this, this also really lends itself well to the previous point that we're making that when you're calling and you're sending in your paperwork, right. Um, things do expire, right? So get, get that in place, right? You may, you filed taxes again. It may require you to submit your taxes again, if you're, uh, in the military and you're active duty, uh, you may have to submit that paperwork again, just to show that you are on active duty or maybe you weren't and now you are, right. Those are the things that you may want to consider. So as time goes on, remember, even though, you know, your life has continued your loan hasn't. And so that means that it can be, um, you know, you're gonna have to like spring clean it, so to speak, right. Uh, dust off those cobwebs from those files and get them back in, uh, back into place so that you are good to go when I Tober rolls around. So you're not caught up, caught off guard with any surprises. Was that clear enough? Definitely.

Daphné Vanessa (07:47): I love that. I think not being caught off with any surprises, just the best way to summarize.

Shamil Rodriguez (07:54): Cool. So going along the same lines, and now we're, we're flipping it over to, you know, what you should you do with this time that you still have, right. Uh, it's been five months or excuse me, it will be five months until October comes. So, you know, you may want to, to consider really looking at, uh, what can you do between now and then, uh, and making sure that that has transitioned between not having to make your student loan payments for quite some time now for over a year, uh, to, uh, you know, getting back into the rhythm, uh, so to speak. So, um, but before we get to that point, what we should do is actually Daphne, if you want to have like a summary of some of the loan documents that, that people may want to make sure they've got back in order again, what do you think?

Daphné Vanessa (08:44): I agree. I think that's something that gives you a really nice high-level view of what your account status looks like. So sometimes it's difficult with the user interface to get all of your loan information on one page, a nice area that you can find that is in the loan verification letter section. And most of the federal servicers have this automatically populated where you click on a link and it shows an overview of the loans, the type when it's do outstanding balance interest rates, et cetera. And that gives you a really nice high level view that may be difficult to find, um, in the UI generally.

Shamil Rodriguez (09:31): Absolutely a great point too. There, I think, uh, you'll, you'll listen to episode 23, which is actually really another great episode with Betsy Mayer and she didn't pay us, uh, continue to mention her on this one. No, she just ended up bringing a really great content and spoke about some of the steps. Uh, and so you guys may want to check out that episode because, uh, as Daphne saying here, it's a really great resource to see all of the information related to your student loans in one place. And then Daphne's episode where she did call the student loan servicer, uh, the customer service rep that she ended up speaking to ended up giving her really great, uh, advice for that as well. So, um, you know, just take a look at those episodes and, and see how you can implement it in your life. Because I think that there might be something there that you could really take advantage of

Daphné Vanessa (10:17): That's right. So let's get on to actions. What actions are you taking between now? Right. You've done the paperwork. You have the summary of your information all in one place, what actions should you be taking? So it depends on what your end goal is. Step two is to really decide what is your goal with your debt. And it doesn't have to be decided immediately, but probably should be decided with enough time for you to implement before the September 30th date that allows for you to really bake in a strategy for what you're going to do now, and then how you're going to approach afterwards. So is the idea that you, you know, don't really care that you have a student loan balance and you hope to pay minimum payments for the rest of your life. Some people have that strategy. That's, that's, that's totally fine. Other people, um, would like to write a dear debt letter, shout out to our episode with Melanie laugher and they want to make, and they want to make sure that they say goodbye to debt as soon and quickly as possible.

Daphné Vanessa (11:30): So if that's the case for you than what is the plan for you to get there and how important is it to you and what are you willing to sacrifice? Right? Because paying off debt in theory is a very nice thing to say being debt-free, but it can take sacrifice depending on where you are in life. So the question is, what are you willing to sacrifice? Uh, what's the end goal? Does the benefit outweigh the ends? Are you okay with having debt generally? Or do you want to be completely debt free? Like, those are all questions that you should ask to figure out what that end goal is, and then make steps towards that goal. We're going to offer some tips based on the idea that your goal is to pay off your student loans as quickly as possible, but we understand that that's not everybody's goal.

Shamil Rodriguez (12:26): Absolutely. I think that's a really great point. They're definitely making sure that your, your mission aligns well with how you end up deciding how to go about achieving that goal. And so I think it might be beneficial, I guess I'm going to be that guy today on this episode. Um, but if you go listen to back to Zina [inaudible] interview, uh, episode number four, or Jordan Rothmans or Chauncey Maddix. And so episodes four, five, and six are really great episodes from people that, uh, you know, either tackled, you know, over $200,000 in student loan debt, you know, paying off the student loans in a really short amount of time. Um, and or some people that have now are in the field of giving advice for this specific topic. Um, I think it might be good for you guys to go and listen to those episodes because they all had different ideas and approaches to actually achieving their goal of paying off their student loan debt.

Shamil Rodriguez (13:21): But what we've picked up is that there was a very big similarity in how they did it. And I just want to reiterate dislike. Daphne had mentioned before it is going to take sacrifice and remember there is no sacrifice without sacrifice. Um, and I say that because it's a really great point about, you may want to say you want to be debt free, but what does that actually mean? Or what does that look like when you try to get there? Are you, are you going to be taking on two or three extra jobs to make that payment, extra payment and go directly towards the principal of your student loan debt? You know, are you going to, you know, now I think with the pandemic, a lot of people have already learned how to stay home and save money. Are you going to continue to do that as things open up again, and that like social temptation comes back, are you going to go back out to spending money socially? Or are you going to continue to stay discipline because you have this ultimate goal of paying off your student loan debt. So those are things that like, we just want to make sure that you're conscious of as these months start to take down and you get closer to actually having to make those repayments back on your student loans again in October.

Daphné Vanessa (14:25): Absolutely. And so let's assume that again, you want to pay off your student loans as quickly as possible, and you are planning to save as much as you can, both pre and post-transition of the September 30th date, then how are you going to do that? Are you going to continue, like Chanel said to not engage with as much spending as you did before, are you going to take on extra work to create extra sources of revenue to pay off all of that should kind of be documented in a plan. And to the extent that you can start on something, think about starting that before that, that data as well, if your schedule allows something to consider. And then another question that you can ask yourself is how are you going to go about paying your amounts, going back to that loan verification letter, if you have the summary of your loans, decide, are you paying using the avalanche method?

Daphné Vanessa (15:38): Are you paying using the snowball method? And in some of our previous episodes, we've covered what that means and those different approaches, and even had examples of guests that came on to share how they paid off using both of those methods. But the idea is order your student loans in the method that you want to pay off and then say, okay, I'm paying off loan AA first. How am I going to pay off that loan first? Maybe it's the highest interest, or maybe it's the smallest amount. If it's snowball, whatever your method is, you are now saying, okay, I'm going to pay this off. The minimum payment is, let's say $50. I'm going to add an additional 200 to get to my goal faster, whatever that amount is. And those are obviously arbitrary numbers, not based off of anything. Um, so those are just some of the ideas, you know, you have to order and think about how am I paying this off? How am I ordering the debt? And then once it is paid off, which loan am I moving to next?

Shamil Rodriguez (16:47): I think really very well said. And just to reiterate, if you aren't sure what plan to go for, like we said before, we're not giving you personal financial advice here, but if you want to get that type of advice, then you may want to listen episodes six and reach out to Chauncey Maddix. You may want some listen to episode four, reach out to Zina Kumar, right? Because there they are in the personal finance space and they actually help with that. And Betsy may out also helps with your student loans and runs a nonprofit that helps people with their student loans specifically for that reason. That's one of the biggest parts of our mission here with the Suitland podcast is giving you real access to people that can help you in resources. They can help you with your specific situation. So I just want to like put it out there,

Daphné Vanessa (17:33): Her, her it's free, so people should totally take advantage of it.

Shamil Rodriguez (17:39): Absolutely. And if you see her, her profile that Betsy in particular, uh, I guess for this example, you'll see that she has over 20 years of experience in space. So you're really going to be getting some really great advice, but for any of the guests that we've had on, as you go through, feel free to reach out to them, uh, because, uh, a few of them are in this space for that reason, because it was a hard struggle for them to go through and they want to make it easier for you. So take advantage of that resource, um, while it's there, you know, that's what it's there for.

Daphné Vanessa (18:10): Yep. And so let's say you have your list, you have your loan verification documents. So you have the ordered loans, you develop your strategy. You know, you want to pay things off. You're ready to go. Should you go little by little during the pandemic during this pause? Or should you make a large lump sum payment in October? Big question, right? Hm. That's a good question. Good question. Well, depending on how you do, based on our interview with Betsy, our most recent one, the process is really dependent on you. So the, the question has to be, what should you do for each decision point? So if you are going to make a lot, a large lump payment, then the strategy that you go about doing that is almost more important than the decision of whether you're going to do that or not. So the strategy, if you are making a lump sum payment should be communication, communication, communication, written communication, that the additional payment, in addition to the minimal amount and interest, however, your loan is structured.

Daphné Vanessa (19:24): Must go towards principal. You need to get that documented in writing to the servicer and confirm that they received that writing. That's the type of action that you have to take to quickly pay off your loans at time. So every time in an extra payment is made, you need to explicitly say that it's going towards principal, because the way that a lot of loans are structured is that the interest gets fed first. And so we need to be really clear about how much of the payment is going towards interest and how much of the payment is going towards principal.

Shamil Rodriguez (20:07): I think that's a very good point. Um, you know, document, document, document, you may want to just call because it's more convenient for you, but remember those calls are typically recorded. I'm generalizing here. All right. So those calls are typically recorded as you hear when you first call them out, whereas you hear in Daphne's episode, right? Those calls are being recorded, but it's being recorded on, on their side of the, of the conversation, right? So it's on their servers or their database, whatever they use to record. Um, and then you don't want to get stuck saying like, Oh, well, you know, I did speak to this representative. I think what was their name? I don't remember their number, their, their customer service rep number, uh, you know, but did say that I, you know, can do this or that, or this it's better to just say, you know, I do have an email that I sent to you.

Shamil Rodriguez (20:55): I did receive a response and a confirmation saying that, you know, this specific amount of money was going to be going towards my principal and not my interests because Indian people make mistakes. And you just don't want to just bank on the idea that your transaction will be mistake free. Why would you want to take that chance? Right. That's what we're really looking at here. And I think definitely brings it up in a really great way, because you just want to document, document document, because these are the types of, especially with, depending on the size of your loan, this type of mistake could end up costing you hundreds of dollars, if not thousands of dollars over the lifespan of your loan. So, you know, why not send an email just to make sure that you've got yourself covered in case there is a mistake and you find out later, you can just refer to that email and have yourself covered and they can make the adjustment on the backend.

Shamil Rodriguez (21:47): Does that, is that clear? Does that make sense, crystal clear. Cool. So, uh, another part there, I think, which is really great, definitely the way you've laid it out for everyone here, you know, coming up, deciding on like what your principles are and like what goal you're attempting to accomplish, then coming out with a plan after you've identified your loan verification letter, like the specific details of your specific loan. And then after that really looking at it and saying like, well, how am I going to get there? Am I going to do little by little, or I'm going to do one big lump sum as that point gets there? I think one point I want to make sure that I add to that specific step in the process is during Betsy's episode as well, she brought up a great point, which was like, what does make sure that you're making good financial decisions for yourself, right?

Shamil Rodriguez (22:31): Like if between now and October, you know, let's say like your emergency fund is low or whatever the case may be, because maybe you were out of work for some time because of COVID or whatever the case may be, you know, make sure that you're making good decisions for yourself as you're planning that. And so when I say that, I'm saying, try to reach out to these, these guests that we've had that help in that space so they can help you make that decision. Right. And so that you're, you're pushing yourself in a way that makes good financial sense for you overall. And I think that's something that you should really just keep in mind as you move forward towards eliminating your student loan debt, which is like the ultimate mega goal here. Right?

Daphné Vanessa (23:14): Definitely, definitely. So we can move onto the post debt life. Right? That's the goal is for the whole audience to move past this student loan debt.

Shamil Rodriguez (23:24): Absolutely. All right. So let's do it. Let's help them get there.

Daphné Vanessa (23:28): So a quick thing that I do want to add is that I know we're all in different spaces with the pandemic and the pandemic has affected so many people. And there are a lot of us out there who are thinking what happens if I was laid off or furloughed, or my job, you know, is no longer paying me for whatever reason, um, due to the pandemic, what should I be doing? Right? I'm PR perhaps I'm collecting some sort of, um, government benefit or I am not collecting government benefit, but whatever it is, you know, I don't have enough to just even think about my student loans, is that, am I going to be at a disadvantage? And so what this law was intended to protect was exactly that I do want to encourage the audience to also think about a little bit of, if there is extra time in your day, how you can contribute to your balance and your goals, even just if it's survival, by the way, but whatever those goals are despite being laid off or furloughed.

Daphné Vanessa (24:49): And I think in the internet age and the gig economy, if you have access to a computer and you have access to technology, a really cool opportunity is gigging on those third party websites that allow for you to have individual jobs that are on a fee basis for smaller amounts, but they all add up. And some people, you know, are able to work, you know, 20 hours a week, but make enough for their full-time lifestyle. So it's something to consider in that a lot of jobs have ended, larger opportunities have ended, but there are also a lot of opportunities on the independent side. And that's probably something to take advantage of. If you're a person who likes a steady paycheck and likes, you know, the traditional job, then of course continue applying, continue, um, engaging in those types of activities to get your work experience up. But there is an option out there also for the people who are looking for, how am I going to eat tomorrow? So I just wanted to add that quick note.

Shamil Rodriguez (26:05): No, I think that's a very good point. Um, and just to, to, I guess, add to that point, Daphne, is that you really, you really want to take advantage of the opportunity with things opening up, right? And I say things, I mean, the economy let's be more specific, right. As we see the government moving towards trying to normalize life, there are, and we've seen actually reports already of positive signs and specific sectors, you know, going back in the right direction. Again, a lot of those are the places that were really dramatically hurt, right? So the hotel and tourism industry has made a really big balance back. The travel industry is starting to see a trend in the right direction. Right. So, you know, look at that and see how you can fit in there as well. Right. And so I think the idea of gigging makes complete sense. Um, and as the summer starts to roll around, uh, you know, at least for us in this region of the country, um, you know, there are going to be some seasonal opportunities that might present themselves to, there might be a good way for you to just save that extra, you know, a bit of cash so that you are building a little bit more cushion for your lifestyle

Daphné Vanessa (27:19): And love it. I love it. Who knows? You may even be able to be philanthropic.

Shamil Rodriguez (27:24): Yeah. You, you may be to leave your nine to five. What if you find something really great and next thing, you know, you're like, wow, that was better than I expected.

Daphné Vanessa (27:32): That's for another episode. But so, so good that we touched on

Shamil Rodriguez (27:37): Good point. All right. So how about life after September 30th, 2021, unless president Biden extends it, let's not forget that I'm still holding onto that idea.

Daphné Vanessa (27:52): All the gen Xs and baby boomers are like, who's a millennial need to stop getting handouts,

Shamil Rodriguez (28:04): Haters gonna hate.

Daphné Vanessa (28:08): So after September 30th, we should really look at, you know, basics, pay, making your payments on time, right? Making your payments on time and making those extra payments with documentation of where it's going, right? This extra amount needs to go towards principle. It is annoying to write letters to servicers. It is annoying to fax email and physical mail with certification and signature every single month that you make a payment, but it is worth it over time. Because over time, what that means is that you would have tackled your balance more quickly than you would have. Otherwise, if they were allocating the entire amount to interest, if interest eats up all of your extra payments, then your principal doesn't change. So that's important to note, and then really it's continuing the strategy, right? We've discussed a strategy of what to do before September 30th, 2021, but that strategy and mindset should really be continued and automated where possible.

Daphné Vanessa (29:15): So where you can automate payments where you can automate actions. It's a pretty good idea because it helps you accomplish your goal more quickly without having to put as much effort. Some ways that you can look at automation include automating your payment, of course, directly to the servicer. And there are some benefits for that, where they deduct, I think it's 0.2, 5% or something like that from your interest, depending on the servicer. So you can save a little bit on interest when you automate payments. Another way to automate is to automate the amount that is your debt payoff bucket into a separate high yield savings account. And that high yield savings account is what is used to pay off your debt. So a lot of personal finance bloggers and personal finance experts have discussed leveraging high yield savings account for what are called sinking funds in the Dave Ramsey

Shamil Rodriguez (30:17): Sea world. So definitely would you mind sharing what it, what does it mean by automating? Like, let's just give them that technical step of like, if there's somebody we're trying to do that one step right there.

Daphné Vanessa (30:27): Yep. So if you receive automatic payments to your bank account from your employer, then automating would mean changing the account information for particular percentage or number of your pay statement of your pay paycheck for it to go automatically to the high yield savings account. So you would never see it in your standard checking account or whatever operating account you use for your general expenses. You would forget it exists. It would be like, it didn't happen in like your 401k where you just wake up and you're like, Oh my gosh, it's huge. You know, not notice because it's automatic. And so the goal is to do the same thing for your sinking funds, which are, you could make of them as little as envelopes that you're keeping in saving for any sort of future expense in this case, the example is for your, your debt payoff in this case, student loans. So if you're putting that money in a high yield savings account, it's growing not by very much, but at least it's not dying. Like if it's gotten a checking account, right. If you leave tons of money in a checking account, you're actually losing money because of inflation. Which if we need to explain that, then that's a separate episode, however, okay.

Shamil Rodriguez (31:53): For sure. No, for sure. And like, and like you said, and like, I can, I'm glad that you brought up, you know, if you just Google personal finance bloggers or advice you're going to get and see a lot of these methods, like you heard Daphne mentioned the snowball or avalanche method. I know we've had our guests described those before. So if you really wanted to take a deep dive into what those strategies were and like how other people have influenced it in their own lives, I really would recommend going back to essentially episodes three through, let's say eight and nine, about the three through eight, we had a really great period there. I want to call it a mini series of folks that came on board to share their personal stories of how they tackled their student loan debt. Uh, and you're, you're going to really see a lot of those, uh, common themes that you hear Daphne really sharing in a great way, uh, because that it works.

Shamil Rodriguez (32:48): I mean, if you automate it and you don't think about it, it almost becomes like the taxes, right? Like how many people oftentimes go and look at their pay stub? And they're like, Oh, that's exactly how much in taxes that comes out. You may do it initially when you're like, wow, this is not as much as I thought I was going to make. But after that initial shock, um, then you, you might, you're going to almost kind of, you kind of adjust and settle into that new figure that you'll be receiving now the benefit of automating it and not ever seeing it is that you'll, you'll just soon adjust to that as well. Right? Like as soon as just to, Oh, okay, there's 50, less, or a hundred less, or a hundred feet, whatever your number is going to be. And you won't even notice that because you'll just automatically adjust because it's not something that you're seeing in your readily available account that you happen to just work out of every day. Uh, so I think that's a great tip. I wanted to emphasize that because I feel like automation is such an easy way, an easy win to almost like hack your own psychology and to your benefit, right? Like tons of companies are doing that to their benefits in terms of social media. So why not automate, uh, some of your personal finance decisions? So you pay off your student loans faster because ultimately that's the, that's the mega goal here.

Daphné Vanessa (34:05): Right. Right. And entrepreneurs often ask, you know, how can I leverage a lot of the sort of benefits that W2 employees get to have such as, you know, this direct deposit? And it's a little known fact. Well, it should, I don't think it's a little known fact, but from the questions that we've received, a lot of entrepreneurs appear to not be aware of how systematize entrepreneurship has become. So there are a lot of digital tools out there that allow for you to perform the same action with the revenue that you're getting into your business as well. So if you are linking your account to the right tools, then you can do the same X percentage goes to this account. This percentage goes to that account for each source of income. That's probably a separate episode because I know just business organization, et cetera, is another topic, but to give entrepreneurs who have student loan debt and some sort of guidance, that's, that's also an option for you as well.

Shamil Rodriguez (35:20): Great. That's very well said. Um, and as you can hear, guys, we have hopefully intersected, or I guess, uh, brought in integrated, I think is a better way to say a lot of the episodes that we've done in the past to kind of help help you dive a little deeper into some of these topics that you may be interested in. We're do our best to try to incorporate that into the show notes for you as well, but just keep in mind, right? Like there's the, the government gave the opportunity to pause these payments because of the response to COVID-19 and the pandemic. Then there's this opportunity, this window that you currently have based on your specific personal financial situation, where you can take steps. If it works well for you to tackle your student loans and like reduce the amount of interest that you could pay longterm, if that's, if that works for your personal situation.

Shamil Rodriguez (36:13): And then after that, hopefully you've built the good habits that Daphne has mentioned, where you can just continue to do that when October rolls around and you start making your payments again. So now you started getting into the habit, again, of saving some money. Maybe you started automating that process, or you're not even thinking about it anymore. You know, you've updated your, your documents for your repayment programs. You've, you know, you've reintegrated that, or you've restarted that relationship with your student loan servicers. And the next thing, you know, you've saved yourself months to, if not, hopefully years off your student loan payments, because you took the moment to plan out, Hey, what are my goals? What is the strategy that I'm going to do to get to that goal? What are some of the tactics that I can use? And what are some of the other resources, AKA, a little podcast episodes that you can listen to where people go into it or just Google it and see what other tips and tricks people have out there that might work well for you to accelerate the process. But ultimately in some, that is what we were hoping that this episode would do for you as that looming deadline comes, unless president Biden for the last time wants to extend it one more time. Um, you know, we will all, you know, end up having to make that transition. Why not make it as smooth as possible for yourself? Okay,

Daphné Vanessa (37:32): That's right. And we will be in touch with Biden's press secretary, and we will keep you updated on our conversations, psych,

Shamil Rodriguez (37:43): Whatever we can do from the Cielo podcast, we will try to do for you guys. All right. Uh, I mean, for me, definitely this was a great episode. I hope everyone can take something out of it. Even one item, uh, that will move them closer to getting their student loan debts paid off sooner. I mean, what do you think?

Daphné Vanessa (38:01): Great. Thank you everyone for listening to the student loan podcast, for more information, check out the student loan podcast.com forward slash episode 26. That's the student loan podcast.com forward slash episode 26. See you soon. Take care.