A Personal finance blog for saving money and earning more and thus having a better life
The dream of every student who is haunted by a student loan is to pay it off as fast as possible. How exactly can you achieve that? How to Pay off a Student Loan as Fast as Possible?
What do 25-, 35-, and 45-year-olds have in common? They all are still paying off their student loans. Apparently, you can never be too old to be in debt to your alma mater in terms of your precious knowledge and financial pit.
If you’ve decided your best course of action is to pursue debt settlement, you’re going to need to know how to pick a debt relief partner. Given this is a company with which you’ll be dealing for at least two years—possibly longer—you’ll want to choose carefully.
After all, your financial future is on the line here, so you must make sure things are handled properly and as expeditiously as possible.
It seems as if there is a dizzying array of offers popping up all over the Internet promoting various debt consolidation companies. How do you choose the right one? You want to get out from under your mountain of debt and start spending money on the things you want instead of throwing it away on interest payments, but finding the right company seems overwhelming.
Here are 10 tips to help you pick the perfect debt consolidation company for your needs. But, first, refer to our Do it Yourself Debt Consolidation Guide. Only if you are not able to do it yourself, go for picking up the right company.
Welcome to One Cent at a Time. Let’s start with a true story I read in an online forum recently.
Steve recently lost his job at a sporting goods manufacturing company, he has 3 credit cards each with high balances. He now lives on emergency fund (What exactly is an emergency fund)and a little help from his wife’s income as a play school teacher. They have two children of age 10 and 6.
Because of a combined debt of $25K he has to pay $500 per month to keep his credit card active and credit score in-tact. But, he obviously can’t afford to make that payment every month. He has the below options in front of him
A Harvard Business School Graduate recently made headlines for paying off a $90,000 debt load in just 7 months. It’s an amazing accomplishment and shows that it can be done. Maybe you can’t pay off that much debt in that little time, but if you’re willing to make tremendous sacrifices you can also abolish your debt in a fraction of the time as if you’d made regular monthly payments.
This list is to inspire you and make you realize there are avenues towards a debt-free life. Whatever you choose from below all will lead to freedom. A freedom from worries and stress.
To continue from where we left on Monday when debt becomes too much to handle there’s one relief we can think of, debt consolidation to reduce the interest rate. That may affect your credit but getting rid of debt burden at a cheaper cost makes it favorable. Previously I posted about self-consolidating debt to avoid high fees of debt consolidating companies.
Debt consolidation has few aspects that you should know. It has a very bad impression on your credit, it requires hefty fees and you’re faced with the increased tax burden. Please note, I’ll never recommend my friends and family to go for debt consolidation. I’d rather advice them to go to a credit counselor instead.
Getting your debt paid off is perhaps the most important suggestion a finance blogger can give you. I have written many posts on this subject. Still when a guest blogger offers to extend advice on reducing debt burden, we can’t simply say ‘No’. I’d love to present you thousands of articles to reduce your debt. Enjoy this very encouraging post from Bill. This is Bills 4th guest post on my blog.
Just like it is normal to have addictions and habits, having debt is slowly becoming a tradition amongst a number of people.
If you have insurmountable debt, you’re not alone – the level of household debt is increasing in America, rising at an average rate of nearly $3200 a year between 2001 and 2011. Even more worryingly, high interest debt – such as credit cards and unsecured loans – rose by more than 30% over the same period. When you consider how much extra it costs to pay just the interest on this extra debt, it’s no wonder that many American families are experiencing financial difficulties – and the stress that goes along with it.
In September I published a guest post containing a real life story on getting out of debt. Slightly more than a year I listed as much as 51 ways to get out of debt. I sometimes feel that finding 51 ways to get out of debt is little overwhelming. Here’s a simple approach to discuss debt problem. Just consider a simple solution which has only three steps.
Many people get into serious problems with the level of debt that they have to live with, and the bad news is that there is no easy way out of debt. The ways out involve hard work, saving and having a plan to get to the point where you can consider yourself debt-free. Refer to 51 Ways to Get Out of Debt for objective to-do list.
For some people this will mean clearing all debts except for the mortgage, for others they’ll want to clear that too before they feel they can breathe easy. However, as with most things in life, every person’s own perception of their financial situation is different. Some people might be quite happy paying off the minimum each month and accepting the constantly rising interest that is adding to their existing debts, others like to pay their credit cards in full every month and not incur even the smallest amount of interest.
“When people start buying things they don’t need, they soon need to start selling things they need.” – Warren Buffet
Borrowing had a charm before the recession, banks had money to lend you and you saw everything going up in prices. But, consumers have gotten a lot more frugal-minded now. It’s not enough anymore to find where to borrow money from when you need it, but people now realize it is also important to not spend money unnecessarily to avoid future debt.