The 2 Main Reasons You May Not Have Paid Off Your Student loans Yet

May 23, 2013 by / Leave a Comment

There are likely lots of reasons why you have not yet been able to get rid of that student loan debt. It can seem like a daunting task even if you are like Jeff and tracking loan repayments each month. Even if you’re making payments on time every month, you may not be making as much progress in paying off your student loan as you would like.

You’re Not Alone

Of the students that go to college and graduate, two thirds have debt. The average student graduates with $27,000 in student loan debt. This average comes from students who graduate from not-for-profit schools. For-profit schools often don’t release their data to the public, but it is generally known that their tuition (and, therefore, student debt) is higher.

You’re also not alone if you are struggling to make your payments on a regular basis. More than five million people with student loans have at least one past due, according to the New York Federal Reserve.

Collectively, the student loan debt has passed $1,000,000,000,000. If you don’t feel like following all of those zeros, that number reads one trillion dollars. The student loan debt has passed auto loan debt and credit card debt.

 

Are you on the right payment plan?

There are many options for repaying federal student loans. Make sure you are making the most of your monthly payments by being on the best plan for your situation. Here is a list of payment plan options from the Department of Education.

  • Standard Repayment Plan – This ten-year plan has a fixed payment of at least $50 every month. This plan has the least amount of interest compared to all of the other plans.
  • Graduated Repayment Plan – This ten-year plan has payments that start low and gradually increase.
  • Extended Repayment Plan – Payments can be either fixed or graduated. Plan is increased to 25 years. You will pay much more interest on this plan.
  • Income-Based Repayment Plan – Payments will be 15% of income and will change as your income changes. Plan can go up to 25 years. You must have a financial hardship to be applicable.
  • Pay As You Earn Repayment Plan – Payments will be 10% of income and will change as your income changes. You must have a financial hardship to be applicable. Outstanding balance can be forgiven after 20 years of qualified payments if not paid in full.
  • Income-Contingent Repayment Plan – Payments are calculated based on income. Any outstanding balance after 25 years of qualified monthly payments can be forgiven.
  • Income-Sensitive Repayment Plan – This is a ten-year plan that is based on annual income. The lender will determine the monthly payment.

If your loan is private, you will have to discuss options with your lender. There will most likely be less flexibility with payment options on a private loan than with federal loans.

 

Are you paying as much as you could be?

If you are only paying the minimum amount every month and still have some cash left over at the end of the month, that money should be put towards your student loan.

Are you spending too much on socializing? Can you get rid of that gym membership? If you do not have extra cash at the end of the month and would like to dedicate yourself to paying off your student loans, consider making adjustments to your budget.

This is a guest post from Jon who blogs at www.PayMyStudentLoans.com where he talks about paying off student loans as fast as possible by being frugal but not sacrificing the finer things in life.        

 

Filed Under: Finance  / Tagged: ,

Mind Over Matter

May 19, 2013 by / Leave a Comment

Hunger is one of our strongest, most primal and most useful urges. It lets us know when our body needs food and keeps us alive. The downside of the hunger urge is that it’s not always an indication of a physical need. Sometimes we get hungry when we are physically just fine. Because this hunger urge most often comes up during times of emotional upheaval, it’s known as emotional hunger. This often leads to emotional eating, which can lead to packing on some extra pounds.

Imagine you’ve had a rough day at the office, and traffic on the way home was horrible. You just had a big fight with your significant other and now you’ve got a sudden and overwhelming craving for that ice cream in your freezer. While it might make you feel better to unwind a bit and relax with that pint of ice cream, is it really the best choice?

Emotional hunger isn’t true hunger. It’s a way of coping with stress, negative feelings and boredom. When we’re emotionally hungry, we crave comfort foods. Most of the time, these foods are calorie-rich and delicious. The satisfaction of emotional eating doesn’t come from the caloric properties, but are rather tied to the taste buds. When the desired food is consumed, the taste buds cause the brain to release feel-good chemicals, which in turn reduce the stressful situation.

How can you tell the difference between physical hunger and emotional hunger?

It can be difficult, but here are a few ways you can tell.

  • Physical hunger is an urge that builds slowly and, so long as you’re not physically starving, can wait. Emotional hunger on the other hand comes on quickly and often so strongly that it feels like it needs to be satisfied instantly.
  • Physical hunger doesn’t care what you eat. Emotional hunger most often instils a craving for specific foods, often those with high caloric or carbohydrate content.
  • Eating to fulfil physical hunger often doesn’t make you feel bad about yourself while emotional eating can trigger negative feelings such as guilt, shame and a feeling of powerlessness.
  • Physical hunger comes from the need to fill your belly with food. Emotional hunger comes as a response to stress, a way to silence negative emotions such as fear, depression, peer pressure or as a way to stop bop boredom or an emotionally “empty” feeling.

Is Emotional Eating Bad?

Emotional eating is not always bad 100 percent of the time. Sometimes, it can be positive thing to reward yourself with a favourite treat even when you don’t need it. The main problem with emotional eating is that it can easily lead to poor eating habits. If you turn to food every time you feel stressed or feel like you need to reward yourself, before you know it you’re eating a significant amount of food when you aren’t really hungry.

Another issue with emotional eating lies in the cravings that most people get when they are emotionally hungry. Very few people get cravings for a carrot stick or other healthy snack. Instead, emotional hunger most often leads to cravings for foods laden with sugar, carbohydrates and calories. It’s easy to see how this craving for high-fat foods can lead to an easy packing-on of the pounds.

While the health effects of emotional eating are bad, the unhealthier lifestyle this can lead to can also be more expensive. When making a you may notice that many policies will be less expensive for those with a healthier lifestyle.

Jeffs Note: Occasionally I feel like I am eating too much and doing it for the wrong reasons.  I eat when I’m not at all hungry, just looking for something to do or whatever.  Sometimes I catch myself before it’s too late, but not always.  It can happen to everyone, so watch out.

Filed Under: spgp  / Tagged: ,

What secure payment methods are there for online casino accounts

April 28, 2013 by / Leave a Comment

Even though I’m not much of a gambler, I do remember recently when one of the larger poker games online got their accounts froze because they were breaking the law by continuing to operate online.  The LA times has a post here about them getting shut down in 2011.

In order for online gaming to work (Note: online gaming is NOT legal in the US), it has brought about the need for some different services and forms of technology. One need is a manner through which players can use their money to play online casino games. One type of funding source is through what is known as an e-wallet service. E-wallets are encrypted storage mediums that can hold credit card and other financial information. This information is stored to permit users continued use of it without having to reenter the data. With this e-wallet, financial transactions can be conducted online such as at an online casino.

There are many different e-wallet services. All of which are secure payment methods. Click and Buy is a popular e-wallet service that is supported by many online casino sites. The oldest of these services would be Neteller. Also well known for its reliability, Neteller does also offer customers the option of prepaid credit cards. A German service, Click2Pay also has wide support among the top online casinos like Lucky Nugget online casino.  However, many users report some dissatisfaction with customer support. Skrill, once known by the name Moneybookers, is another secure e-wallet service. Like Neteller, it also offers a prepaid credit card option.

PayPal is one of the most popular and well recognized online wallet systems. By linking a PayPal account up with your online casino account, funding can be easily managed in a secure way. Another added benefit of using PayPal to fund an online casino account besides security is the ease and speed of transferring money. When using other payment methods such as credit cards, the transfer may take a few days. However, with PayPal, money can be securely transferred quickly into one’s account. Some payment methods may also charge additional fees to transfer money in and out of online casino account. This is not the case with PayPal who performs these transactions at no charge to the customer. PayPal keeps all your information secure and offers added protection.

Jeffs Note: When I’m looking to transfer a bit of money around online to pay someone like I did with my march madness pool, I use paypal.  It’s easy and really secure, and you can transfer money really fast between people, and just as quick if it’s going to a bank account.  Regular gambling isnt really my thing – last time I tried it I lost about 100 bucks in 45 minutes.  I can find WAAAAY cheaper forms of entertainment.

Promotional consideration received for post content.

Filed Under: spgp

Should I Withdraw my 457b Plan to Pay Down Credit Cards

April 9, 2013 by / 3 Comments

This is a guest post from my sister.

I came a cross a financial decision recently that I had never really put any thought into. I had been putting money into a 457b account (additional savings for retirement, pre-tax) and I got the quarterly statement in the mail last week. I do not currently work for that employer (or in that state) and do not know if I will work there again.  If I start a 457b at my new job, it would be a new account, not adding to the old one. I had only been putting in 100 per month for 12 months and the account has a little over 1300 right now, but as my quarterly statement showed it has pretty much stopped earning interest.  I earned 1.33 in the last 3 months of the year, better than some savings accounts, but not by much. I guess this is not that bad because at least I am not losing money but this is not doing much for me at this point. I don’t desperately need the money at this point for anything but my dad brought up an interesting point, I could take out this money and pay off my credit card. The money would of course be taxed, but my credit card balance is not huge and this money would be able to pretty much take care of about 80% of the balance.

This is something I had not really considered. My interest rate on the credit card is 21%, and the account is for sure not earning that as a return. The idea of paying off my credit card months earlier than expected is very appealing to me (the financial goals I set for myself call for paying the card off by the end of December 2013) and I wold possibly be able to have this gone by the summer. The thing that is nagging at me however, is that I cannot get used to pulling money out a retirement account and use it to pay off debt; retirement savings is meant for retirement. But, at this point in my life and having many, many years of working ahead of me it makes sense to pay off the card with a much higher interest rate than the retirement account will probably ever earn. I think, in the long run, it will for sure save me money by being able to save on the interest by paying the card off earlier. And the money saved on interest will be much more than what the retirement account can make and if the market totally tanks at some point all the money could be gone and I wont be able to use it on anything at all. If I pull the cash out now and though I will have to take a hit from taxes, I will still be able to get use out of it.

In the end, I decided to pull the money out and use it to pay off my high interest credit card in full. I think that this was the right choice for me at this point mostly because I was able to get rid of all but my car debt with this money and my federal tax refund, and let me tell you, that feels really good. Though I do not have this money in retirement anymore, I feel like paying off the card with the high interest rate was the smartest thing I could have done at this point. There are however, some circumstances that I would not have pulled this money out: if it was still earning like it had been about a year ago, I had less than 1000.00 on my credit card, or if the balance was so high that even this amount of money getting thrown at it would not have enabled me to pay off the balance within the next few months.

Jeff’s note: though this isnt always recommended because it’s not addressing the underlying spending problem this is probably a good move.  Typically those “orphaned” retirement accounts dont do much but get forgotten about, and even though it’s more than a grand, are difficult to muster up the motivation to deal with them in some form.

 

Filed Under: Finance

How Fast Do You Accumulate Debt

February 16, 2013 by / Leave a Comment

Surprised at the state of UK consumer loans? View how quickly UK consumers accumulate debt with this live debt ticker.

Breaking down UK loans infographic

This infographic is brought to you by QuickQuid

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What Counts as Professional Negligence?

January 26, 2013 by / 3 Comments

Professional negligence is a form of compensation that is typically undertaken by a solicitor on behalf of one of their clients. There are many professionals that may be sued for the provision of inaccurate or damaging information. If you and your solicitor can prove that you were provided information, that information proved damaging, and that you suffered some form of loss then you should stand to successfully file a claim against the professional that was responsible for providing that information.

Professional Negligence

If you’re looking for answers to the question of what is professional negligence then it is likely that you have been subjected to something that you believe to be a form of negligence. Consulting with a professional solicitor will usually prove your best bet because they will be able to discuss the specifics of your case to determine whether or not you have been provided information that has led to injury, damage, or another form of loss.

Forms of Loss

One of the factors that is taken into consideration by your solicitor and by the court is whether you have suffered any loss. This loss may come in a range of different forms. If you suffer injury or illness, or your property or other items become damaged and are in need of repair then this will be considered loss and you may be required to show proof of the extent of loss to help prove your case.

Financial Advice

Financial advisers are among some of the professionals that may find themselves the subject of a professional negligence case. If you are provided professional advice that not only causes loss but indicates a negligence of duty of care then you could stand to sue the adviser that provided the information. You can, for example, sue for mis-sold interest rate swap investment.

Why Would I Sue my Solicitor?

Of course, your solicitor is also a professional and they are also prone to the same professional regulations and laws. If you have employed the services of a solicitor and believe that they have provided you with information that has led to loss of money or to other forms of loss then you should consult a professional medical negligence solicitor to progress with your case.

Filed Under: spgp

Hysterical Frugality

January 4, 2013 by / 6 Comments

This is a Guest Post from my dad.  Previously, he’s wrote about business relationships, plastic bags and paying off your mortgage.

In the last several years since the great recession started one of the things that has been in vogue is frugality.  As this site and many others can attest to, the popular notion that frugality is brand new!  People have discovered that you really can have a good life without the expensive luxuries that were considered must have only a few short years ago.  As the recession drags on and people are getting into a frugal mode that hopefully will serve them well if they do not fall back into conspicuous consumption habits again.  As a member of the so called “tweener” generation we have the good fortune of having been raised by parents who survived the real “great depression” and developed thrifty habits that at times were extremely funny to us as we grew up.  Several of the things I can remember being just hilarious were things my mother did without thinking twice about the frugality aspect of it, she just did them as a course of habit.

One of my favorites was the washing and drying of used “tin foil” as she called it.  This apparently was a hold over from the WWII years when the thought of throwing out any metal, particularly aluminum, was unpatriotic and wasteful.  Tin foil can be used over & over she said, until it was in too small of a piece to wrap your old chewing gum in, then maybe you could throw it away.

Old clothes were never just thrown away they were either passed on to younger relatives or torn into pieces to go into the “rag bag” for use later.  I think I once had a pair of jeans that had pieces of 3 different pairs of pants sewn into them.  Having been born into the least fashion conscious state in the union, clothes were just something you wear not something that you should look good in.

Shoes were bought at least one size to big for your feet, if not two.  That way you did not wear the fronts out and you could wear them at least 2 years even when growing up.

Food was something that also was “just to eat” and not something that was great tasting or presented in a fashionable way.  “Liver night” was nobody’s favorite, except the dog, who got all you could sneak him.  Fried “minced ham” which is no call bologna was fried up and eaten between bread slices.  Burned toast was never thrown away, just scrap off the char and eat it anyway!  Beans were a great source of protein and were eaten when real meat was on in the budget (this could explain some gastronomic issues that seem to run in the family).

My wife also related a funny story about her mother, she used to wear nylons as a young lady and when they got a “run” in them, she would cut one leg off and put another pair on that also had a run in the opposite leg, so she would have 2 pairs of nylons that each had a run in one leg but looked good on the outside.

Frugality it seems is not something that has just been invented, it has been with us in some form or another for many years.  It serves as a way to stretch tight budgets but also as a source of family fun in later years.  That frugality served our parents well and hopefully this current generation will learn that spending money is not the source of happiness in life.

Jeff’s Note: I cant help but laugh at some of these things and how much things have changed!  There are times when I think the way my grandparents did things is easier than what we have now, but there are somethings that Im just not willing to try.  For instance, my brother in law used to love eating liver, and would always take it when he went hunting.  I was happy to see him waste less than me, but I just couldnt bring myself to try it.  Eventually, he had to stop eating it for health issues though.

As for the shoes, I’m just now, at age 27, starting to buy shoes that actually fit my feet instead of 1 size too big.  My feet are done growing, it’s time to stop looking like a clown when I walk around.

I do keep most of my old t-shirts and tear them up (after I dye them to increase wear time) and put them in our rag bin.  This has helped us get rid of paper towels in the house!

Do you have any frugal tips from aging parents or grand parents?

Filed Under: Finance

Why You Should Lie to Yourself and Achieve Your Financial Goals

December 30, 2012 by / 2 Comments

This is a guest post.

Telling lies to ourselves is one of the most common things we do. Whether they are about our health, our diet or our finances, we are always telling some small lies to ourselves to keep ourselves satisfied with our efforts, however meek they seem to be. While we realize that lying regularly is bad, we just cannot give the habit up successfully. So, here is a new approach for you to try; don’t stop lying altogether, just turn around your bad lies into good lies.

Yes, there are some lies that can actually be good and can help us getting closer to our goals without feeling too bad about them. When it comes to your financial goals, some ways of fibbing with yourself can actually help you in getting closer to your goals and make a difference to your money management.

How to Separate Good Lies From Bad Ones

Before you start, it is important for you to know how to differentiate between a good and a bad lie. The first indication to that is your gut feeling or intuition. All of us are smart enough to realize what is good for us and what isn’t. If your lies are making you avoid the truth altogether or justifying your actions with more lies, it is definitely not a good one.

Good lies are the ones that actually make you acknowledge that a stumble was made and that you will make your best effort in the future to rectify it, giving you a confidence to do a better job of achieving your goals the next time. Once you know that you are not going on the right track, you will actually look for ways to do better next time.

For example, if you have debt issues you can try the debt to income ratio calculator at Consolidated Credit to know how much debt you can actually afford on your income rather than lying to yourself that it doesn’t matter.

How to Spot Good Lies and Bad Lies

The simplest way to know whether a lie is good or bad is to ask if it can help you move towards your goal or it takes you towards a path of denial. The most common lies we tell ourselves when it comes to our finances are regarding something we wanted to achieve but a slip was made, making it difficult to do that now. The idea of failure in getting to our goals makes us lie, telling us that it does not matter. This denial is one of the worst ways of lying to ourselves since if it didn’t mattered, it wouldn’t have been our goal in the first place.

Good lies on the other hand let you focus on the positive side of the situation, telling you that it did matter and you will work harder to keep on track the next time. Rather than telling yourself that saving can leave you with less to spend, you can lie to yourself that you are getting paid less from now on and you should adjust your spending accordingly.

Another most common situation where we lie to ourselves is when we are confronted with our debts. Before you keep up mounting your debt every month, check your own spending to see if you’re getting into trouble with credit cards or other types of debt.  Telling yourself that how much you earn is not related with your amount of debt is not a good thing to do. Rather tell yourself that from now on will make a budget and keep on it and try to pay off your debt.  Sometimes, its easy to get frustrated when thinking solely in terms of goals, but you have to keep to what you want to get there!

Bad lies make you avoid the consequences of your actions by rendering you in a state of denial about your real financial situation at the current time. These lies can not only hurt you, but others too. Rather than giving you a renewed confidence of moving towards your goals, they actually take you further away from them.

So, while it is alright to buy your lies sometimes, it should only be done when these lies are not harmful for your future and will not lead you to more lies. Also, even the good lies should be kept to a minimum. If you keep lying repeatedly, you’ll eventually start believing them a bit too much. Though some lies can help you move towards your financial goals, don’t make a habit of lying, no matter whether good or bad.

Author’s Bio:

CJ is a financial advisor who specializes in providing personal finance and debt management advice. She believes that, If you want to keep your debt under control, try the debt to income ratio calculator at Consolidated Credit to know how much debt you can handle right now

Filed Under: spgp

Two ways to keep debt sustainable during the holidays

December 16, 2012 by / 1 Comment

With thanksgiving not long gone, and Christmas less than three weeks away, it would be really easy to let our debts get out of control, or even to think that it’s ok to decrease repayments. It can be tempting to even skip a payment in order to splurge on a holiday, on presents or even just expensive food and wine to celebrate. The problem with doing this if you do have debt, is that you will be compromising all the hard work you’ve put in to cutting back what you owe and saving.  For this reason it is important to plan your Christmas spending to make sure that the added expenses stay within your budget.

As anyone can see from this previous post, when you’re renovating a house, paying off a car, student loans and a mortgage, there isn’t necessarily a lot left over for extra turkey and huge expensive presents. You may be planning to put some of your holiday spending on your credit card, but you don’t need to rely on it for more than the bare minimum if you’re sensible. That goes double if you don’t have a savings fund you can dip into, which you won’t if you’re prioritising repaying your debts (as pretty much everyone should be). It’s important not to stress or panic though. There are ways to get through the crazy holiday season with your finances intact, and here we cover just two which will take you a long way to a financially healthy New Year.

DIY – it means more and costs less

For a sustainable holiday season, take the DIY approach wherever possible. This is your chance to commit to making at least some of your Christmas gifts and possibly decorations yourself. Do what you can this year and think about doing even more yourself for next year.

It makes sense to use your own talents, skills and abilities to create something for friends and family, or even co-workers. It honestly shouldn’t take much more time than you would spend shopping for gifts anyway, plus buying materials in bulk can work out really cheap. Supplies such as beautiful gift bags, wrapping paper, ribbons etc can also be kept and reused. Personalised homemade gifts and treats are always meaningful, and by creating something for someone else you can get to know them better.

Re-use what you can, it’s getting more and more popular!

Even if you don’t make individual presents, or you’re really not a crafty person who wants to attempt something like handmade jewellery or clothes, something as simple as Christmas cards made yourself or baking days where the whole family gets involved in making sweet treats for friends and co-workers will entertain everyone for a day. At the end you’ll also have a perfectly acceptable surprise gift for those you can’t afford to spend lots on.

Something else, which can be considered even MORE sustainable, is re-gifting where appropriate. In fact, the Wall Street Journal has just published a great piece about the psychology of re-gifting, and it turns out that more and more people believe it’s ok – and especially over the holiday giving period. 79% of people who participated in a range of experiments and surveys said it was ok at this time of year in fact! So if you were given a second crock pot, a sweater that didn’t fit you but would fit someone else, or something you really won’t use don’t be shy and don’t let it sit there and gather dust. Find someone who can make some use out of it and package it up and hand it off.

Apart from that, keep in mind these old chestnuts and you’ll be extra prepared and maybe even come out ahead this holiday season. If you don’t have time to implement all these ideas this year, start thinking about how you can do them for next year.

1)      Make a list of who you MUST buy for and stick to it. For everyone else there’s ecards!

2)      Set a budget for each present. If you must, explain that you’re sticking to a strict plan and that nobody is being held up above anyone else in the gift giving stakes.

3)      See what you can do to bring in extra cash. House-sitting, renting out a room, selling your own treats or gifts could all bring in a few dollars for the month or so.

This post was supplied by credit card comparison website creditcard.com.au

Filed Under: spgp

Priority Purchases

December 10, 2012 by / 1 Comment

This is a guest post from Q.  To see Q’s other post, head here

There are few large purchases I have made in my life, a nice laptop when I started college (lasted 5.5 good years have since gotten a new one) and a new car. At this point in life there is another large purchase I have been wanting to make for awhile-a triathlon bike. This type of bike can really be pretty pricey and I want a carbon one so that means even more cost. This bike is most likely going to cost me somewhere between 1700 and 2500. I wish it would be more but I cannot justify spending even more than one of those numbers on a bike.

This brings me to my point of having to prioritize my spending; I cannot run out and buy something this expensive any day I want. Of course, I could go out and get some pay day loans, but instead I choose to save and prioritize my money in order to save and make this purchase without charging it on a credit card. I find myself asking myself questions along the lines of “Do I really need that Starbucks?” “Should I spend 75 dollars on a new dress?” “Should I go out to eat  or eat what I have at home?” These may not seem like large expenses on their own but when added up those little buys could really make a difference in my bike saving account. I have to think about these in the larger picture; usually in the moment, I do want to buy a new dress and can justify it by saying I can wear it to work, or saying I am going to pass all these restaurants and I am starving, so why wait until I get home? But when I step back and look at the bigger picture I think about the time I spend swimming, biking, or running so I can improve my triathlon times, I think about how much I enjoy  this and how much I enjoy racing in triathlons, and having a nice racing bike would really make a difference in my times.

I have also had to prioritize when it comes to bills and my bike fund, I created a separate ‘fun fund’ account for purchases such as this so I could save easily for large purchases. I have had to make choices between sending a bit more to a credit card or my regular savings account. Sometimes I think that it might be a better choice to send more to a credit card but I really want a bike, and I have made it a priority purchase. Saving for the bike and not tapping into that money on Black Friday, to buy a few furniture items, or pay off my credit card has been tough at times but then I think about the bike that I really want and I keep the money where it is.

Jeff’s note: I’ve been doing this for a while, and it mostly started after I got all my credit cards paid off.  Lately, I’ve been saving money to purchase a new rifle.

Filed Under: Finance
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