Originally Posted by kalyx522

My loans are from an aviation university, so there was 6 month grace period after graduation. I didn't find a flying job (aerial survey) until 10 months after graduation so during this time my parents helped me a lot with living expenses and the rest I was living off credit cards and the scant income from various non-flying menial jobs. I was on forebearance from the time the 6 month grace period ended and the repayment period kicked in. I was still on forebearance after I got the survey job because my pay was low. The regionals were hiring in full force then so I got picked up by Colgan after barely finishing a season of surveying. Regional pay as you know is terrible, but I busted my butt to pick up a ton of extra flying (open time) and was making enough money to comfortably pay all my bills (was no longer in forebearance) and still have some left over for about a year and a half. Then the combination of recession (no more open time) and my regional hiring this scheduling manager who got fired by Mesa whose idea of running a cheap efficient airline is to build every line below 75 hours and making sure no one ever makes over guarantee was essentially a huge paycut for me. (I was regularly crediting 120+ hrs a month and after this my pay never went over the 75 guarantee. That's a difference of at least $1000 every month.) I got a second part-time job as a waitress for a couple of months but in all honesty it sucked (pay-wise and also if you work 4 days for an airline and 3 days for the part-time job, that leaves you with no days off.. ever.) I guess what I'm basically saying is depending on how much your monthly loan payments are and what the rest of your living expenses are, you may not be able to get by on 75 guarantee alone, but that's what you have to budget for because that's the only thing the airline actually guarantees you - 75 hrs of pay. Depending on where you go (different airlines build lines more or less efficiently and obviously mine is far from efficient, plus airlines with good contracts offer a lot more "soft" pay credit) and when, you may be able to credit more then than that, but consider that just an extra. This past year has been brutal for me financially for the reasons I described, and I did get help from my parents once and my significant other helps me out too. You mentioned you were married - it will obviously help if she has a job. That is really the only way to survive - either you get a second job or your wife helps pay the chunk of bills. Also, I don't know whether your loans are federal or private, but fed loans will be a lot more accomodating with your income level. If you are struggling they will work with you. Private loans, not at all.
To tell you the truth I am single and struggling - I really have no idea how the guys who are married with kids do it, and there are plenty of them at the regionals. With the exception of those few who are independently wealthy, I would have to guess that they live extremely frugally and/or get help from family. But, the living frugally part only goes so far when you're still only making $1300/month and you have a mortgage and a student loans to cover.