HOW TO MANAGE HOLIDAY SPENDING WHEN YOU'RE DEALING WITH STUDENT LOAN DEBT

For Nicole Plauché and her family, Christmas is the time of the year where they can use their preferred love language: gift giving.

This year, however, Plauché is worried about how much she can afford to spend on gifts. Her main struggle? Student loan payments.

“It just doesn’t leave much room for anything outside of just basic necessities,” said Plauché, a 23-year old tech sales manager from Dallas, Texas.

Marisa Johnson, 26, has approximately $145,000 in student loan debt from both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Since the COVID-era payment pause ended in October, she’s been paying back $300 a month while she waits to see if she’ll be enrolled in a new income-driven repayment plan.

Because all of her money is going to necessities and paying back her student loans, Johnson hasn’t been able to spend as much on gifts as in previous years.

“I’ve mostly been trying to think of affordable gifts or combining gifts with my older sister,” said Johnson, a non-profit worker in Citrus Heights, California.

Plauché and Johnson are just two of the millions of people who had to start paying back student loans after the Biden administration ended the three-year payment pause.

“We know that the holidays are often a very joyful time of the year and an expensive one every year,” said Courtney Alev, consumer financial advocate at Credit Karma. “With federal student loan payments just resuming, it’s going to add another often very significant line item into holiday budgets.”

If student loan payments are cutting into what used to be your holiday budget, here are some recommendations:

THE PRESSURE IS REAL

From family expectations to social media and TV ads showing lavish gifts, many people feel that the only way they can show love is to spend a lot of money.