We already talked about different ways to combat your student loans and the decision we made in our first student loan post. We decided consolidating and refinancing student loans at the same time was the best choice.

For us, this route made the most sense. The whole process to refinance our student loans was a little complicated at times but was worth the process.

When it comes to refinancing your student loans, you need to know why and how. That's where we come in.

We are glad we put in the work to refinance and we learned a lot along the way. We are no experts but we can at least go over our process of refinancing our student loans and things we have learned through our own experience.

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Why Refinance

Makes It Simple

We came out with four separate loans, all with the same company. We had a minimum payment for each, all of which had different interest rates.

Now, no more having to figure out which loans to pay off first or which ones to put more payments into, just one monthly payment on one loan. It turned our loan into a simple, one-stop-shop.

Reduces Interest Rate

When we refinanced our loans we went from an average interest rate of 6.8% for our loans to a 4.74% rate. In our case, that means 2% savings on a $170,000 loan which translates to a lot of savings.

Quick and Easy

The whole process is pretty easy. Most of the time you do the application and once that’s all said and done, you can begin making payments.

From what we have seen, all refinance companies allow you to do online payments. They also allow you to schedule payments with a bonus for automatic payments.

Save Money

This is the big one. Unless you are doing the loan forgiveness plan, refinancing your loans is the biggest time and money saver you can make when it comes to your loans. It can save you years of repayment and thousands of dollars.

Pay More Now but Less Later

Typically we pay about $4,000-$6,000 a month on our loans but our minimum payment when we refinanced is only $3,100. We intentionally chose a high minimum payment because we knew it would make us pay even more.

From the beginning, we would always try to pay more than the minimum payment, no matter what it may be.

If we have a minimum payment of $1000 and we pay $4,000 a month, we are paying 400% of what we have to pay! Great Job! But we still are paying $2,000 less than what we can pay because we would think “Well we are already paying 4X what we have to pay, we don’t need to go crazy.”

Well yes, you do need to go crazy! But it is easier to go crazy when your minimum payment is already higher.

Note: we are not saying force yourself to pay more than you can afford, just boost yourself a little bit. Never accept a minimum payment that you cannot afford.

Finding a Refinancing Company

The best way to find a company to refinance with is to do an internet search. You could also go by word of mouth. We did not know anyone who had refinanced so we had to go to Google to find a company.

BEWARE OF SCAMS. We have talked to people who said they found companies that would consolidate loans or refinance loans but charged a fee to do so. This means it is not a reputable company. There should never be any type of fee for the refinancing or consolidating process.

Sofi

The first company that popped up during our search was SoFi and that was the company we went with. It had great reviews and a very user-friendly website.

They also had a cool story of how they got started. SoFi also stood out to us because they have never had a default on their loans, they offer very good rates and they were easy to work with.

They also came highly recommended from many sites and blogs.

We have worked with them a couple of times and we have to say their customer service is amazing, we have never dealt with one bad apple. And that’s saying something because Phil has probably talked to about 20 different people there.

If you are interested in refinancing with SoFi, this link will take you to their site with our referral link. No pressure, just check them out and see if they are right for you.

Other Options

Earnest is another company that uses more unique information to determine if you’re appropriate. This can come in handy if you have a bad credit score, low income or very brief credit history.

Credible also gets an honorable mention. It's a “middle man” for finding loan refinancing companies. You fill out their information and they search through several companies for you. It may be a great way to find the best fit for you.

How to Refinance

So now onto the how. The whole process was extremely simple going through SoFi.

You sign up on their website, put in your information and you get pre-approved within minutes. After that, you submit the following paperwork.

• Documents proving your identity (SS card, Drivers license, etc.)
• Your loan balance (which you can pull off the loan provider website very easily)
• Proof of income (paycheck)

All of these can be submitted electronically via scanning or picture so you can have this whole process done in 10 minutes.

After that, you wait for them to run the numbers and contact you with your final offer. When they do, you can accept the offer or deny it and you can sign the documents electronically.

The whole process took us about a month because they got a little delayed but we think it could take as little as 1-2 weeks. It really is that easy. We have found that the process for other student loan refinancing companies is very similar.

Refinancing as a Traveling Therapist

We did find out that because we are traveling physical therapists, it can make loan refinancing a bit more difficult. Our pay situation is a bit fluid since we get a taxed salary and then non-taxed per diem.

It turns out that often the companies cannot count the non-taxed money as part of salary which may make your offer not as good. Also, some companies have a policy that you have to be full time and not a contract worker.

SoFi worked well with us but we think it helped we did the refinancing as soon as we got out of school and got our very first job.

Refinance and Save Money

Overall, we would highly recommend refinancing. Even if you choose to go with a different company, the reputable companies out there want to help because they make some money off your loan while you get a better interest rate.

In the end, loan refinancing means one simple loan and better peace of mind. Don't forget budgeting also helps to manage student loans!