Track your PSLF Payments

PSLF is potentially very valuable, and you want to ensure you get credit when credit is due. Many have reported that Fed Loans's information regarding qualifying payments is incorrect, and it can take many months to correct the record (if ever). You do not want to get to what you believe is 120 payments, and then be told that your first 27 payments did not count, but not be able to provide corroborating information.

We suggest you track each payment each month, along with relevant details. We've created this helpful Excel spreadsheet. Play with the demo below (no one else can see what you enter, but you can't save it). If you want to use it, you can hit the download button at the bottom right. After download, just select all the data in the cells, right-click to "clear contents" to get a clean start. 

Instructions

There are three tabs: 
Payments, Employers, Correspondence.

Payments

Each row corresponds to one payment. You can record the actual payment dates, amounts, and other relevant data. Most cells have a drop-down list for entering data. Click into a cell to see the options. You have to manually decide whether a payment was a qualifying payment, and if you select "YES" you'll get a satisfying green box! You manually increment the number of qualifying payments. 

If you wish, you can also keep track of the income/AGI used to determine the payment for that month, so that you can track/understand when changes occur.

The "Notes" column is for you to jot down whatever additional information you need to help you understand what you've done.

If you have multiple loans with multiple timelines, you'll have to use a different spreadsheet for each loan. 

Employer

This allows you to keep track of qualifying employment, and each employer certification form you submit. You can use multiple rows for the same employer to keep track of multiple verification forms sent while employed with the same employer.

Correspondence

Track all communications, for future reference.

We recommend you download and save every bank statement for each payment in case you need to prove payment and payment date in the future. And keep/scan every email or piece of mail you get. Yes, yes, what a pain. But if you do end up qualifying for forgiveness, your future "payment" in terms of dollars per hour may be the highest you'll ever earn in your lifetime.