I am in quite the dilemma…although after reading through some of these posts, it looks like I am not alone.

My husband and I were married in June 2013. We both have a substantial amount of student loan debt from law school, and since we are both only a few years into our careers, our income levels can’t compete yet. Currently, my husband’s federal student loans are in deferment, set to expire at the end of March, at which point he will apply for IBR. My student loans currently are (and have been for 3 years) in an IBR plan.

We met with our accountant last night, who prepared our taxes based on MFJ. After getting home, I did some research into how this may affect our student loan payments under the IBR plan and was quite upset with what I read. I called our lenders who told me that each of our IBR payments would be about $1115/month (so $2230 total per month). This is more than our mortgage payment. We absolutely cannot afford that.

So now we have to make the tough call… file MFS and lost the tax savings for being married and owning a home, or file MSJ and save money on our student loans.

Does anyone have any insight they may be able to shed?