Life is crazy.
How Refinancing Your Student Loans Can Save You Thousands
Students who graduated college in 2015 were said to have graduated with an estimated $35,000 in student loan debt. Of course, some students will have less and some more depending on what you did throughout your time in college. Either way, it is a lot of money and money that must be paid back whether you want to or not.
Student loan refinancing is an available option for many students and it will provide them with some of the relief they need financially. Did you know that refinancing your student loans can save you thousands of dollars? It’s okay if you didn’t – I will show you just how it can save you money and ease the strain on your budget.
Student Loan Refinancing: What the Heck Is It?
Before you can apply for refinancing, you need to understand what it is. When you refinance your student loan, your new lender will pay off your old loans and gives you a new loan with updated terms and rates.
Most student loan refinancing is done through a private lender, which means that there may be eligibility requirements that need to be met before you can actually go through with the refinancing.
How Can Refinancing Save Me Thousands?
There are a couple of different ways that refinancing can help save you thousands. First and foremost, you will receive a new interest rate. The rate itself will often vary depending on your situation, but usually falls somewhere between 2-5% for most students. The jump from a 6-8% interest rate to a 2-5% interest rate it immense. Let’s take a look.
For example, if you have a student loan balance of $25,000 at a 6.5% interest rate and your term is 10 years, you will pay a total of $9,065 in interest over the course of the term. Now, if we change the interest rate down to 3.5%, you will only pay $4,665 in interest payments over the course of the 10 years. That is a savings of $4,400!
The second way that you can save thousands is by adjusting the length of your payback period. Often times, the default is set at 10 years, but students often extend it out to 20 or 25 years. This will increase the amount you pay in the long run because you now need to pay interest over that extended period.
When you refinance your student loans, you are able to shorten the term of your loan, which means you pay thousands less because you do not have to continue to pay interest over the extended length of the loan.
Final Thoughts on Student Loan Refinancing
Student loan refinancing is a great option for students looking to destroy their debt, but it is not always an option for everyone. You do need to qualify, which means you need a good credit score or a cosigner with a good credit score. Refinancing your student loans can help save you thousands of dollars over time, so if you do have the option to do it, you should.
Financial Spread Betting
Spread betting is a method of trading that has a high potential for both loss and gain. The nature of spread betting is highly speculative. Through it, traders can potentially make money when the market is going up or down, depending on the bet that they place.
Traders only make money when they correctly predict the direction the market is going in. If a trader feels that the market will be going down, then he or she would bet against the market. If the trader feels that the market will be going up, then he or she would bet with the direction of the market. Gains in income come from the spreads – the difference in price between the bet and the direction the market takes.
Traders place their bets in terms of points. Each point has a set monetary value assigned to it. The money that the trader makes depends on how many points that the trader loses or gains. Traders can place stop orders to protect themselves. A stop order is a simple computer command that tells the trading system to cancel the transaction when there is a certain gain or loss in the market. This is how traders protect themselves from potentially wild market swings – executing a stop order saves the trader.
Gains from spread betting are tax-free in the UK and can be done through many online sites. It can be an especially lucrative form of investment for UK traders.
The risks of spread betting are often too large for many who don’t have much of an appetite for risk. The most frustrating part of this business is being unable to predict the market. You can potentially stay in a position where you are losing a lot of money if you aren’t careful. This is tempting when you are convinced that there are gains to be realized from the position you are trading in. If you find that this is the case, then you should evaluate why you bought the position in the first place. A penny saved is a penny earned, and this is certainly true in the investment world.
The best way to begin is by visiting website operated by Cantor Index and setting up a
spread betting demo account until you get better at timing the market. You won’t be tempted to make silly mistakes that many other traders make and having a demo account will give you the confidence to trade with real money.
While risky, with time and practice you will get better at spread betting. Once you learn how to time the market, and you gain practice, your luck with trading will be better. This is one of the best ways to mitigate the risks involved – getting better at the game. You will lose money in the market, but the objective of being a trader is to make more than you lose.
This is a sponsored guest post provided by Chris, working in partnership with Cantor Index.
What’s In Your Wallet?
Seeing Crystal play copycat made me want to play, too.
This won’t take long. I quit carrying a wallet a few months ago in favor of a Slim-Clip. That helps eliminate wallet clutter.
Here goes nothing:
- $0. I usually carry a $150 or so all the time. I haven’t made it to the bank in a few days, and I spent my last $7 on parking.
- USBank Flex Perks VISA check card. 0.5% back on all purchases and, theoretically, up to 25% back on some.
- Penfed Platinum Cash Rewards VISA card. 1% on everything, 2% on groceries, 5% on gas. We don’t use this much, since we are primarily a cash family.
- Driver’s license.
- My health insurance card.
- Wells Fargo VISA debit card for my business account.
- Expired health insurance card.
- Car insurance cards. Car, truck, and motorcycle. 1 expired and 1 valid for each.
- AAA card.
- Carry permit.
- Business cards for 2 attorneys.
- Dental insurance card.
If I go through the rest of my pockets, I have a pocket knife, 16 cents, a Gerber Artifact, and my library card.
Including my jacket pockets will add a Cold Steel Sharkie, business cards, a lighter, another pocket knife, a fingernail clipper, a small moleskin notebook, a ticket to Evil Dead: The Musical and matching brochure, a pad of checks, hand-sanitizing wipes, and a diaper to the list.
Now that I’ve gone through my stuff, I threw out the expired cards. My jacket will certainly accumulate more stuff over the winter, but it’s spent the last 6 months in the closet.
What’s in your wallet?
Letterboxing
This week, I’ve been taking my kids letterboxing.
We go to a letterboxing site(either LBNA or Atlas Quest), choose a letterbox, then follow the clues. When we find the letterbox, we stamp our letterbox journal with the stamp we find there and stamp the book we find with our stamp.
It’s similar to geocaching, but without a gps.
Even as a grown-up, I get a bit of a tingle when we uncover the prize.
One of the clues we followed yesterday was this one:
To find this place, travel north with Hiawatha’s grandmother. She will bring you close to the spot. For the first part of the trip, the grandmother will become one with the number equal to the age of the oldest person Jerry Rubin trusted. On the north side of town, she will decide not to head toward the east, and she will become the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Make the change with her, and right away you will find yourself to the west of a Holiday. On the right side of the road will be a brown sign pointing you to your destination. Leave the Grandmother to travel north without you, and follow the directions on this sign. You want to find the place where the City lets you Park (at least from 8 am to 9:30 pm). If you avoid the Dead Ends, you will find a parking lot. Leave your vehicle, and walk toward the water. If you turn toward the place where Henry meets Agnes, you will walk past the swimming area, and come to the numbers in triangles. Just past the 7s, 8s, and 10s, you will reach your destination, and find the place where Close only Counts. In the middle of this place, there will be a two-trunked tree. Standing with your back to this tree, and facing the lake, you will see three trees at the shoreline. Walk to these trees, and look under the leaves, under one of the roots sticking out of the ground near the right-hand tree. That is where you will find the letterbox.
Unfortunately, the letterbox had been stolen, and a wasp nest left in its place. I’d never actually been attacked by wasps before.
Until yesterday.
Not recommended.
We found a different letterbox hidden behind a loose stone surrounding a fire pit in a public park. Another was buried at the base of a tree a mile around a lake at a nature center near my house. A third was hidden in a hollow tree stump near a major intersection near my house.
Each one has been a different adventure, and each one has made my kids smile. Even the “I hate everything” 12 year old gets into it. The 4 and 5 year olds are asking if we can plant a letterbox.
To get started, you need a notebook to record your adventures, a $2 ink pad, and a slightly unique rubber stamp. That way, you can record your findings both in the letterbox and in the notebook you bring home.
For less than $10, you can get started, make some memories, and get some exercise.
Have you ever tried letterboxing or geocaching?
4 Ways to Change Your Finances for the Better
Finance is made out to be difficult, but it’s really not. All financial advice really boils down to 2 sentences: “Spend less than you earn. Save or invest the rest.” Everything else is an unnecessary complication, unless you need to be told that commemorative plates aren’t actually an investment. Unfortunately, we’re all people. (Except for you in the back. I see you, and you are not people.) People make mistakes. People sometimes need things spelled out, or at least explained in a way that makes it seem less intimidating to get started.
With that in mind, here are four steps that will get you out of debt and, over a long enough timeline, make you rich:
1. Lower your interest rates. If you’ve got debt, particularly credit card debt, you’re paying too much interest. It doesn’t matter what the interest rate is, it could be better. It’s time to pick up the phone and politely ask your credit card company to lower your interest rate. If they refuse, mention that their competitor is offering you 3% interest on a balance transfer with no transfer fee. Mention a competitor by name, but don’t worry about a specific offer. There are always offers being tossed about.
If they won’t lower your rate, find a company who will. 5% on a 10,000 balance is $500 per year. That’s 3 months of payments for free.
2. Lower your monthly payments. Do you have a cable bill? A phone bill? Any other bills? Put them in a stack and call them. Every. Single. One. Ask if there is any way you can lower your bill. Can you get put on a new customer promotion? My electric company offers a saver switch for my air conditioner that will lower my bill by 15% just for giving them the ability to toggle my AC on and off. When we had that installed, I never noticed it in use.
3. Save $1000. When you’ve got no money, every unexpected expense is an emergency. When you’ve got a little bit socked away, you can ride out the problems without much worry. $1000 may not be enough to ride out an extended bout of unemployment, but it does a pretty good job of taking the sting out of car repairs. Do whatever you have to do, but get some money in an emergency fund. Then, don’t touch it!
4. Categorize wants and needs. I want a vacation. My kid needs braces. I want a big screen TV. My gas bill needs to get paid. I want a new car. My family needs food. Are you sensing a theme? Pay attention to what you spend. Ask yourself if it’s something you need, or just something you really, really want. Just the act of categorizing it can make it easier to avoid buying whatever it is.
5. Use the savings from 1-4 to pay off whatever you owe. Don’t blow your new-found savings on spinner rims or soap made from rich-people tallow. Use it to finally get ahead of the game.