Amberly B.
I am eligible to apply for Public Service Loan Forgiveness this year (120 qualifying payments). I have made sure to submit my documents with 121 months certified just incase. My question is, I while I am waiting for my paperwork to process do I put the loans in forbearance or keep paying. my loan servicer says it will take at least 90 days for the paperwork to process through the federal level, and another 60 days after that for it to process with them.
Do I:
1) put the loan in forbearance, which stops my payments while the paperwork process, but would require me to restart payments if there are any issues having lost whatever months I didn't pay or
2) Keep paying while the paperwork is processed (up to 6 months, which is NUTS) and then be refunded any over payment. This would mean that if I was off in my eligible payments counts, I could just get a new certification from my employer and the months would count.
As confident as I am that I've done everything right over the last 10 years, I lean towards #2. Yes, it's a giving the government "free" money until they pay me back, but it protects my investment of the last 10 years, so if there are any errors in the payments, I can "easily" add in more months. (I'm on the SAVER plan, and pay less than $300/month, which i can afford to keep paying while this processes)
What would you do, and why?