On my list of things that annoy me

[tsaiko]

I hate the Federal Student Aid's loan service for one very important reason. Their "electronic debit account" program. On the surface, it sounds like a good idea. set it up so that every month the FSA gets to withdraw money from your account and get a discount on the interest rate you have to pay. They get a guarantee that they'll get paid on time

Comments

[charisstoma]

Can you set up with your bank to deduct that money from your account and put it in a savings account at hopefully higher interest than the loan. Then once a year you could make a large one-time payment from that savings account. You'd have to look into if there were fees involved from the bank to have an account like that.

And yeah, that's inconvenient to make so many hoops to get through to try and pay off a loan early.

[tsaiko]

Alas, there is not an account out there with higher interest than what I'm paying on the loan (which honestly, isn't great, but isn't bad either). The best thing to do is just pay it down over time, since I'd pay less interest that way. I just find the whole thing ridiculously complicated and annoying.

[m_steelgrave]

Man, I didn't know about the automatic withdrawal thing only making minimum payments. Boo.

I thought about that, but I am super-paranoid when it comes to automatic withdrawals from my accounts. I'd rather mark my calendar and take the time to do it each month.

[tsaiko]

I check, double check, and triple check the first two to make sure that it's working and that the right amount is coming out. After that, I'm good. Yet they seem determined to make it impossible to just set it up and forget it for awhile.

[graymary]

I AM GLAD TO KNOW THIS IN ADVANCE X(

[tsaiko]

IF YOU NEED ANY SUGGESTIONS OR WANT INFORMATION, LET ME KNOW. I am willing to share. Just email me!