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Posted
Jun 09 2008, 05:15 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Just about everyone who's been to college has a story about money mismanagement. "Moneydummy" at One Money Dummy Getting Smarter is particularly candid about hers. "I've spent the last 18 months repaying student loans that I didn't need to incur in order to go to college," she writes. Ouch. That hurts us just to read it. She provides five excellent tips for managing money to take care of college and living expenses, and for setting long-term goals to minimize student-loan debt. Here are a couple:
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Posted
May 07 2008, 10:58 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
The husband of reader "Deezy92" graduated in 2000 with an Ivy League law degree and a whopping $140,000 in student loan debt. It's now 2008, folks, and those student loans have been paid off for a couple of years. How did they do it? Deezy92 writes:
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Posted
Apr 11 2008, 06:31 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar. When I was in college, I used my student loans to finance my lifestyle. I worked at a decent-paying job ($9 an hour for a job related to my major), but that wasn't enough. I needed more. So I took out student loans, even though scholarships covered most of my tuition and housing expenses. Even worse, I didn't really understand the value of the college education I was getting. I completed a major, decided it wasn't for me, completed a different major, and took enough classes for some minors along the way. When I finally graduated after six years, I had accumulated about $35,000 in student loan debt. Including interest, I've paid about $32,000 so far, and I've got about $16,000 left to go. What did I learn from this disaster, and how can college students use what I learned? A lot of students entering college take out student loans to pay for it. The money they're spending, in the form of loans, far exceeds the money they're taking in. I know all about it. I was doing this very thing just a handful of years ago. I made some incredibly stupid mistakes along the way, and it takes a lot of hindsight to see the things I could have and should have done. If I had it to do all over again -- if I were a college student today with a big pile of student loans building up and not much income -- here's what I would do.
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Posted
Feb 13 2008, 03:53 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
On the plus side, college sophomore Bill Box earns $200 a month delivering pizza, and his grandmother gives him $100 a semester if he's not flunking out. On the minus side, he owes $1,200 on credit cards, mostly for cigarettes and alcohol, and $12,000 so far in student loans. He lives in a dorm, has a meal plan and buys books at the college bookstore. Bill doesn't know it, but he's already on the highway to debt hell. Fortunately, he's about to get some tough love from fellow student Patrick at SchoolisHard.com. "College students are notorious for living outside of their means," writes Patrick in a post called "Make a debt-free college budget." "I know you are broke, but go cry to that shiny new Nintendo instead of me."
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Posted
Feb 04 2008, 05:32 AM
by
Karen Datko
This post comes from J.D. Roth at partner blog Get Rich Slowly. I've been thinking lately about the value of a college education. I ear ned a B.A. in psychology from Willamette University in 1991 (with a minor in English literature, and almost another minor in speech communications). What have I done with this degree? Almost nothing. Yet I do not regret the money and years I spent working to earn it. Does earning a college degree make a difference in your future? Absolutely. The facts are striking. On average, those who have a college degree earn almost twice as much as those who do not. According to the U.S. Census Bureau: Adults with advanced degrees earn four times more than those with less than a high school diploma. Workers 18 and older with a master's, professional or doctoral degree earned an average of $82,320 in 2006, while those with less than a high school diploma earned $20,873.
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Posted
Nov 27 2007, 06:50 PM
by
Karen Datko
Clever Dude is conducting an exercise under the heading " What could you give up when you're in financial trouble? " We think it's an excellent question -- one that more people might have to ask themselves if the economy is heading toward recession . CD acknowledges that "different people have different ideas of what defines necessary ," and we think some of his choices will surprise you. Part One of his post identifies "luxuries," a laundry list including the gym, cable TV, home phone and eating out, for a total monthly savings of $297. Part Two lists "semi-luxuries," with $917 to $1,167 in potential monthly savings. On the chopping block are the Honda Ridgeline ($500 a month for the truck payment and insurance), Internet service, and use of the family pool -- "Well, it certainly is a luxury, but you can’t just not open the pool one year and expect it to be fine," he explains. He'd also reduce the utility and cell-phone bills and defer a student-loan payment. We're looking forward to the
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Posted
Nov 05 2007, 08:20 AM
by
Karen Datko
Pardon us while we get a broom. Our hair literally fell out when we read Stacking Pennies ' post about co-signing a family member's loans . She agreed to co-sign student loans for her sister (whose own credit had been damaged by past financial choices) and unwisely allowed the sister to sign Pennies' name on the loan documents. Thus, it was a total surprise when Pennies learned she is obligated to pay off $23,000 in loans if her sister does not make good on the debt. This is a touching story about a sister's desire to help and a wake-up call for anyone considering the same decision . You can go only so far to save other people from their own mistakes. Pennies says she regrets co-signing the loans. "But it is family, and it is money for education, and it is hard for me to turn my back on that," she writes. We can only hope this works out for the best.
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Posted
Nov 05 2007, 06:40 AM
by
Karen Datko
This likely is a dicey question right now in a lot of households. Do parents get to pick which colleges their child applies to, particularly if Mom and Dad will be paying the way? Grad Money Matters examines this question in a thought-provoking post that focuses on a co-worker's dilemma . Her daughter wants a fine-arts degree from a big party school. Mom is worried that her daughter won't end up with a lucrative career . They've reached a compromise: The daughter will study computer animation at the college of her choice, as long as it covers half the tab with financial aid. GMM agrees with this solution: "I believe that if the parents are paying for the education, they have every right to set some ground rules."
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Posted
Oct 17 2007, 08:29 AM
by
Karen Datko
Chief Family Officer recently paid off her private student loans and is now knocking off her lower-interest Stafford loans. Her secrets are simple and effective . Among them: Pay on time, use automatic withdrawal, and pay more than the minimum due. Make additional payments when you have extra cash, and follow up to make sure the lender is using them to reduce the principal. One of her lenders routinely ignored its own policy and applied the extra money to her next scheduled payment unless she got on the phone or sent e-mail.
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Posted
Sep 27 2007, 11:27 AM
by
Karen Datko
This post comes from partner blog Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. My first credit card was an AT&T Universal card that I received after filling out an application outside of Doherty Hall on the campus of the esteemed Carnegie Mellon University. I applied because the guy was giving away T-shirts with funny slogans, and I thought it was a great way to get a funny T-shirt, right? Luckily for me, the whole setup was 100 percent legitimate, since it’s now been eight years and my identity wasn’t stolen. But how many of those similarly set up operations aren’t legitimate? It’s a fantastic way to capture a ton of information in a short period of time from unsuspecting victims who likely aren’t even aware that identity theft happens. Let’s say that the person accepting applications is entirely legitimate and he personally won’t run off with your information. What’s to say someone doesn’t mug him on his way home or break into his car and steal all that information? If you think of all the recent data breaches involving theft of credit card numbers, the thieves didn’t break into the store or credit card company databases, they broke into the processors’ databases.
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