Category: Wealth / The Quiet Season
If you have ever wondered how to build wealth with student loans still sitting on your balance sheet, this is the story of how we did it — imperfectly, intentionally, and through some of the most uncertain financial years in recent memory. And at the center of all of it was something deceptively simple: a student loan fund.
April 2020. We were supposed to be buying a house.
We had found the one, made the offer, and were moving through the process the way you do when you finally feel like your life is clicking into place. Then the appraisal came back. The appraiser, in the middle of a global pandemic, declined to appraise at the price the home was selling for. Just like that, we were $20,000 short with no way to cover it. The deal fell through. COVID was at its height. And in the stillness that followed, we looked at each other and had one of those quiet, clarifying realizations. We were largely doing this alone. No family nearby. Most of the friends we’d made through internships had scattered. It was just us.
So we did what people do when a plan falls apart. We built a new one.
A Reset That Changed Everything
We pivoted hard. In the summer of 2021 we moved to Arizona — a new city, a genuine fresh start — and got engaged. And somewhere inside that season of rebuilding, we started saving with real intention. Not just for the life we were currently living, but for the ones we were planning toward at the same time: a wedding we intended to pay for ourselves, and a student loan balance that had been sitting quietly in the background, waiting.
By the time summer 2022 arrived, something had shifted in a meaningful way. My husband landed a new role in July. I stepped into my first Director position through a shift from government to the corporate sector in August. We were both earning more than we ever had, and we felt it — not in a reckless way, but in the way that makes you finally feel like the plans you have been building might actually have room to breathe. The wedding fund grew. The student loan fund grew alongside it. Building wealth with student loans in the picture meant working toward multiple goals at once, which is its own kind of discipline that does not get talked about enough.
We planned our wedding and paid for it ourselves. In January 2023, we got married and walked into that next chapter with the quiet pride of people who built something without asking anyone else to carry it.
Why We Started a Student Loan Fund in the First Place
Here is the part of this story that I think is actually useful — not just for us, but for anyone sitting in student loan uncertainty right now wondering what the right move is.
The SAVE Plan Changed the Math
When the Biden administration launched the SAVE plan, something important happened for borrowers like me: interest stopped adding up. And that changed the math on how we thought about payments entirely.
Here is what that means in plain terms: normally, when you make a student loan payment, part of it goes to interest (the cost of borrowing the money) and part goes to the actual balance you owe — called the principal. When interest pauses, every dollar you pay goes straight to principal. That sounds great. But if forgiveness was potentially coming anyway, sending extra money to a loan that might disappear felt like a gamble.
Redirecting Instead of Paying
So my husband and I made a deliberate decision. Instead of continuing to make our regular monthly payment toward the loan, we redirected that same amount every month into a high-yield savings account — a savings account that earns more interest than a regular one, so your money grows while it sits there.
The logic was straightforward: if forgiveness came through, we would have a real savings cushion we had built in the meantime. If it did not — which is exactly where we are now — we would have a pool of money ready to either restart payments from or put directly toward the principal balance once interest kicked back in. Either outcome worked in our favor. The savings account earned while we waited. The loan sat still. And we stayed in control of the money rather than sending it somewhere uncertain.
That strategy — redirecting your payment into savings instead of toward a loan that is not accruing interest — is one of the most underrated moves for anyone learning how to build wealth with student loans during a federal freeze.
When Everything Landed at Once
What happened next is the part of the story that still makes me exhale slowly when I think about it.
We signed the contract on our current home in May 2023, while it was still under construction. We moved in August 10th, 2023. Then on November 29, 2023, I was laid off. And two days after that — I found out I was pregnant.
New home. No income. A baby on the way.
The What-If That Held Us Together
Here is what I want you to understand about that moment: we did not panic the way we could have, because my husband had already built the what if into our home purchase. He had been deliberate — even insistent — about buying smaller than what we qualified for, leaving margin for exactly this kind of disruption. The what if was: what if one of us loses a job? What if she wants to stay home, or life moves faster than the plan? That intentional restraint became the thing that held us together when everything hit at once. It is also what made it possible for me to eventually choose this season — the one I wrote about honestly in Letting Go of the Mom I Thought I’d Be.
We also made another deliberate call: we paused contributions to the student loan fund. One income, a new home, a baby coming — that was not the season to be aggressive about a debt that still was not accruing interest. The student loan fund had done its job building up. Now its job was to hold.
Our son Julius was born August 11th, 2024 — exactly one year after we moved into that house. I tell people that detail and they laugh, because of course he was.
The Student Loan Fund That Survived
Through nearly two years of one income — the layoff, the pregnancy, the newborn, the costs that come with settling into a new home and a new life — the student loan fund has fluctuated. Some of it went toward home costs during a season when our budget had to stretch in ways we had not originally planned. Life required pragmatic decisions, and we made them without guilt.
But the strategy is still intact. The account still exists. It is still separate, still labeled, still doing its job of being the designated place where student loan money lives — not the emergency fund, not the general checking account, not a category that quietly disappears into everyday spending.
We also have a separate emergency fund that we have kept deliberately apart from the student loan bucket, even when the lines could have easily blurred.
That discipline — keeping categories clean even when everything feels like it is bleeding together — is something I am genuinely proud of. It is not glamorous. It did not make headlines in our household. But it is the quiet evidence of the values we keep coming back to, even in the hard seasons — the same values I have been sitting with as I navigate what it means to hold a career identity while building something new at home.
Then the Rules Changed. Again.
For the better part of four years, nobody really knew what to do with their student loans. The SAVE plan offered relief. Then the courts intervened. Then more uncertainty. Then SAVE was eliminated entirely in early 2026, and borrowers like us received a 90-day notice to move to a new repayment plan by a federal deadline.
Millions of people are sitting with that letter right now. I know because I am one of them.
But because we built the student loan fund the way we did — redirecting instead of ignoring, holding instead of spending — we are not starting from zero. The money we redirected did not disappear. It waited with us. That is not luck. That is what building wealth with student loans actually looks like when the plan is designed to survive the unknown.
How to Build Wealth With Student Loans: The 5 Steps We Used
We are a couple who refuses to let debt be the reason we do not build. These are the five moves that have made the biggest difference for us — written plainly, because personal finance does not need to be complicated to be effective.
✦ Step 1: Know What Your Loan Is Actually Doing
Before you make any moves, understand the basics of your loan right now. Is interest accruing — meaning growing — or is it paused? What repayment plan are you on, and what is your monthly payment? You cannot make a smart decision about a number you have not looked at clearly. Pull up your servicer account, write down the balance, and know what you are working with. That clarity alone puts you ahead of most people.
✦ Step 2: Redirect, Do Not Ignore
If your loan is in a period where interest is paused or very low — like SAVE was — consider redirecting your usual payment amount into a high-yield savings account instead of sending it to the loan. Your money earns interest in the savings account while you wait for more clarity. If things change and you need to pay, the money is there. If an opportunity comes up to pay a lump sum toward principal, you are ready. Redirecting is not avoidance. It is strategy.
✦ Step 3: Buy (and Live) Smaller Than You Qualify For
This one applies to more than just a home purchase. Whatever your income is right now — do not let it be the ceiling of your spending. Lenders will tell you what you qualify for. That number is almost always more than you should spend. Leaving margin in your budget is what gives you options when life shifts, and life will shift. Our decision to buy smaller than we qualified for is the single reason a job loss did not become a financial emergency.
✦ Step 4: Keep Your Buckets Separate
Emergency fund. Student loan fund. General savings. These are three different accounts with three different jobs, and they work best when they are not mixed together. When money is all in one place, it is easy to spend loan money on a vacation or dip into emergency savings for something that is not an emergency. Separation creates accountability. Label your accounts by purpose and treat each one as its own committed category.
✦ Step 5: Use Windfalls for Principal, Not Lifestyle
Tax refunds. Bonuses. Seasonal business income. Any money that arrives outside of your regular paycheck is an opportunity to make a dent in your loan balance without disrupting your monthly budget. Send it directly to principal — meaning the actual amount you owe, not the interest — so it reduces your balance immediately. This approach is slower than aggressive paydown, but it is sustainable. And sustainable is how to build wealth with student loans across a long timeline when you have a life to build at the same time.
What We’re Doing Now
The uncertainty is largely over. The options are clearer. And for the first time in a long time, we have an actual path forward.
We are enrolling in the lowest-payment income-driven repayment option available to us based on our current household size and income — weighing both IBR (Income-Based Repayment) and the new RAP plan to find whichever produces the lower monthly payment for our situation. Income-driven repayment means your payment is calculated based on what you earn, not what you owe, which makes it manageable for single-income households or anyone in a career transition.
That minimum payment is now a fixed line in our budget. Not a number we stress about monthly, not a category we negotiate with ourselves — just a committed obligation that lives in its column.
Paying it off aggressively is not the goal right now, and that is an intentional choice. There are other financial priorities — home equity, a growing emergency fund, a family we are actively expanding — and the student loan at a manageable monthly payment does not need to be the loudest item on that list right now.
Windfalls go to principal. The student loan fund that has been sitting through all of it finally has a clear job: it becomes the first meaningful payment toward moving that balance in the right direction, deployed at the right moment rather than reactively.
That was always the plan. We just had to wait for the plan to be possible.
What I Want You to Take From This
You do not have to be perfect with money to be intentional with it.
We started this decade trying to buy a house that did not work out, moved across the country, built a wedding from scratch, made a quiet financial strategy decision during a federal loan freeze, bought a home, lost an income, welcomed a baby, and kept our categories as intact as life allowed.
None of that was perfect. All of it was intentional.
That is the only financial wisdom I feel qualified to share: hold on to what you can, redirect with intention when you cannot pay directly, and do not let the gap between your plan and your reality become a reason to abandon the plan entirely. And on the days when the weight of it all feels like too much — come back to the small things. The plan keeps better when you do.
The intentional woman is not debt-free. She is debt-aware, moving accordingly, and building wealth with student loans still on the books.
If this resonated with you, save it for the next time you need a reminder that financial intention does not require financial perfection. For more on navigating identity, career pauses, and building a life with purpose, find me on Pinterest — and explore more at chocolategirlbliss.com.
