D-E-F-A-U-L-T

Smart thing to do? Too many consequences? Giving in? Totally ruining my credit? The only way?

All of these questions and many more float around in my head when thinking about the word default. So many say it is the only way to let the lenders really know you can't pay them. Others say it is merely giving in and ultimately hurting yourself. Which is it? I DO NOT know.

Thinking about it from a rational standpoint, surely defaulting on my loans will ruin my credit and plunge me into a 'financially unstable' branded person to all that inquire. However, thinking about it from a desperate standpoint, what if defaulting just means I lose 100+ points on my credit score and possibly have a wage that gets garnished? If Sallie Mae started to garnish my wages, surely they will not be able to get $600 a month in garnishments like they are getting from my on-time payments now. Will my absence of payment get it through their heads that I cannot pay them this amount any longer? Will I eventually have to go to court over this? Will the judge order that I continue my $600 per month interest only payments or else? I feel as if I am well educated about what is going on with my loans, but I am SO uneducated about the repercussions of what happens if I don't continue my current payments. Who in the world would have thought that it would come to this just a mere 2 years after graduating college? I can only imagine what I will be going through in 2 more years after my interest only pay option is up.

All of these default thoughts are deriving from the fact that I was denied, yet again, for consolidation last week. Wells Fargo denied me for the 3rd time. I added a co-signer and even that did not work. After that, I called local Nashville debt counselors to try and get any kind of advice I could and nothing came out of that. No one could help or even talk about debt relief when it came to private student loans. As soon as you say the words, "private student loans" to them they act as if you have just royally offended them. They start talking fast and basically hang up on you. One place actually did hang up on me, but whatever.

Anyway, on a somewhat lighter note, I watch out for student loan twitter accounts, web sites and videos like it is my second job. Here are a couple that are pretty informative and cool to see:

Default Movie

Forgive Student Loan Debt

Sallie Mae Scam Part 1

Sallie Mae Scam Part 2

Sallie Mae Scam Part 3

Sallie Mae Scam Part 4

ABC's 20/20 - College Scam

The Lost Generation

CBN News - Dave Ramsey - Escaping College Debt

Twitter - Sallie Mae Hell

Oh yeah, on a positive note, I signed up for my 401k this week. Yay!

And, my iTunes shuffle just started playing, "We Don't Need No Education" by Pink Floyd. Just thought you should find some ironic humor in that as well ;)

*As always, opinions are always appreciated! Comment on this post and let me know your thoughts :)*