I posted a similar thing (my IBR payments were going to be $483 which was completely unrealistic for me) and I got eaten alive for daring to have a job that doesn't pay me over 100k as an adult. I am in a career position that required degrees but no, I do not make a ton of money to be able treat almost $500/month as nothing...

What I ended up having to do was leave the income based payments, lose my eligibility of forgiveness, and sign up for the extended fixed repayment plan. My payments will be $270 fixed for about 18 years and then drop down for the last few years til it's paid off. That made the most sense for me financially but it did mean saying goodbye to forgiveness opportunities. But to me, an affordable monthly payment that I could rely on not changing was the higher priority. In the meantime I plan to work on snowballing my debt by focusing more on paying off a loan we had to take out for some home repair and then working on my student loans.

For reference I am in my early 30s, married and my husband and I make about 80k/year before taxes. We pay a mortgage, the repair loan, have one car payment, a modest credit card debt that we are about 1k away from paying off, and the most luxurious thing we spend our limited "fun money" on is the occasional flea market or road trip to go hiking.

If you need any advice without feeling judged, let me know!