Financially illiterate homeowner postdoc, need help with loan decisions

[pirwrrrr]

Hello
I'm a financially irresponsible postdoc (phd) who is in need of help.
I was a part of this community before when I was a pre-med, but I ended up going to a phd program.

Currently, I have student loans from Dept of Ed/Navient, Navient and my school for a total of about $90000.
Last year, I had 0 taxable income although I will this year because I'm currently searching for a job.
The interest rates vary from 5.0 to 6.8 and average out to be 6.5%.
It seems that I'm given the options to consolidate and perhaps enroll in some type of income based repayment plans, but I'm confused about how to find out which ones I'd be eligible for and how to select which is most beneficial.
Is there a good website where I can find out how to decide and how ti find out whether my loans are eligible for the most favorable one?
Also, how does different level of income and/or net worth change the decision?

Thank you for any help!

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[Redtwogreen]

Late to respond here, so there's a good chance you've already figured this out. Also I'm basing my response on a lot of unknowns (whether your married, have kids, current income if your employed now, whether you only temporarily wanted to sign up for income based repayment while you were unemployed or whether you wanted loan forgiveness, etc)

I'm not aware of any private lenders who offer income based repayment. Some will let you defer payments due to unemployment. Some will give you a higher interest rate with lower monthly payments. If you still have federal loans and want an income based repayment plan, don't refinance/consolidate all of your loans. You could refinance the ones that are already private.
If you have a job now, I usually recommend against income based repayment. It's still a wild territory since no one has actually had their loans forgiven yet (first people who enrolled are supposed to have theirs paid off in 2017). It also can end up costing you a lot more in the long run, and it can screw you over in taxes the year that your loans would be forgiven. (Your taxed on the amount that is forgiven as if you had earned that much that year)

(Credible.com) is a good resource for figuring out what company is best for you to refinance with in terms of either lowering monthly payments or finding the best interest rate. And this is my referral link which will give you a discount http://credible.refr.cc/55HHXBH

For federal loans, studentloanhero.com and studentaid.gov have good resources. We also blog about all the details of how we are paying off $600k in loans at www.redtwogreen.com

Hope that helps!

 

[Student Loan Planner]

It depends on your situation, but you might consider REPAYE to get an interest subsidy while your income is low. Consolidation is not a one size fits all solution, and will eliminate any progress you've made to for profit loan forgiveness.

I run StudentLoanPlanner.com, and I think you'll find many of the free resources I write on my blog there very useful to answer some of your questions. You need to be paying something to maintain progress towards PSLF as you mentioned you're a postdoc