Is paying more than the monthly IBR minimum the same thing as “paying ahead”?

How does it affect my loans if I make a higher payment than the IBR payment?

For instance, if my IBR payment is $40 a month, and I pay $120, does the the extra $80 above the minimum amount go towards remaining interest, or does it get applied to principal instead? Or does it just get me paid up for the next two months? If I do this several times, will the lender assume I can pay more and recalculate my IBR for the year? Can I tell them how to apply my payment if I have multiple loans with the same lender if I want to pay more than the minimum IBR payment?

What other sorts of things should I know if I am going to be paying over my calculated IBR payment?

Thanks!

To answer your question you have to determine if your monthly payment even contains any amount applied to principal or it all goes to interest.  Take your loan balance and multiple it by your interest rate and then divide it by 12 to get an approximation of how much interest you are accruing each month.

For a quick update to my original question from last year, what I found was that I did not get recalculated for IBR eligibility mid-year regardless of how much I paid per month over my minimum payment.

Also, I read on each of my lenders’ websites what their policy was for paying over my minimum payment. One lender put me in Paid Ahead status and did not apply any extra to principal, but applied extra money to my next payments, which I had to call and have them correct several times, as I wanted extra to go to principal. Another lender did in fact, pay extra to principal balance portion with the highest interest rate but ALSO put me in Paid Ahead status, I assume to make me think I could skip a payment if I wanted without getting a late fee, in which case they would still get that extra month’s interest accrual on my balance.

Another note: For one lender, if I’d skipped a payment because I was in Paid Ahead status, it meant I would forfeit any interest rate deductions I’d earned for making consecutive payments without being late on any, so I chose not to skip any payments even if I were paid ahead.