Most of us go to universities presuming that student loan repayments will be easily paid by greater income a university tile promises us. Reports say that the average student debts presently is around $21,899. What is worse, the student loan default rates are rising, so the number of people who went into trouble is increasing. In 2008, Citigroup wrote off 2.3% of student debt. So did SLM Corp (Sallie Mae) that wrote off 3.4% of troubled loans.

All university graduates got themselves a six month repayment holiday on the federal student loan. Sadly this also means that loan forbearance and loan deferment have become a necessity.

Loan forbearance allows a graduate to put off his or her repayment for up to three years. It really helps tackling short-term financial trickiness, but in the long run you will start dragging it like a tail that just gets bigger and bigger. For instance, not making repayments for 12 months on a $30,000 student loan at 7% will add $2,100 to the amount you owed. Loan forbearance lasts for a maximum of 12 months.

Loan Deferment is likely found better, by those with federal loans, than loan forbearance. This is because the government pays the interest on subsidized federal loans. Nevertheless, this is not the case for those who are struggling with unsubsidized and PLUS loans.

How to lower your loan repayments? Extending the term can trim down your student loan repayments significantly. It can be a great choice for those who graduated and enter career that will likely grow especially in the income. However, this option can also increase your debt as more interest will mount up.

Student Debt Alternate Repayment Plan. Most of us with low income job will find this a help. You can make repayment based on your income. The payment is limited to 15% of your income and the remaining amount is written off after 25 years of repayments. How cool is that?

Although graduates with federal loans are offered more helpful alternatives, those who took out private loans may have the flexibility of negotiating with the lender.

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Before reading the article, it is recommended that you read the Part 1 about the benefits of spending less than you earn and Part 2 about How to spend less than you earn

So here is a guide on how to increase your income:

• Stop wasting your time. Especially at work. The terms “time is money” is true; but you can get more than that. There are many things you can do rather than just wasting your time. Just checkout the list under, and you’ll see why you really shouldn’t waste your time.
• Improve the transferable skills (skills that can be used in almost any career path). One of the popular transferable skills is public speaking. If there’s any opportunities to do so, then do it and speak your mind in front of public. Another example is the time management; and you can learn to build an effective time management scheme such as organizing and filing your paperwork, Brainstorming ideas, etc. Other examples of transferable skills are setting the standard procedures of your work, take charge of a work project etc. All of these things push you towards developing skills that are genuinely useful no matter where you’re heading in life.
• build a strong network and relationship with many people as you can, and try to give a bigger portion to the relationships in your field. This can be done by simply sending emails to people you’ve interacted and keep up with what they’re doing. If you have an opportunity to connect people that can help each other, do it immediately, without hesitation. Share what you know and be valuable to others.
• Start a side business. Turn a passion you have into money. Don’t know what that could possibly be? Think about it carefully and I might post interesting ideas to start a side business for you
• Finally, stand out at work. Speak up at meetings. Show empathy for the problems that others have. Take on only projects you can handle, but do them well. Get to know the support staff – and treat them well. Don’t burn bridges when you move on – make an extra effort to maintain good relationships when you leave. These little things add up to a huge difference.

Keep that rule in mind: spend less than you earn. Each move you make to maximize the gap between what you earn and what you spend will put you in a better place in your life.

Like this article? State your ideas or questions below. Any ideas much appreciated.

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Before reading this part, please do visit my previous post that talked about the benefits of spending less than you earn

So now we are going to talk about how to actually spend less than you earn. And here are some tips/guides on how to do it:

• Check your monthly required bill. Do you really need this stuff? Can you replace this service by doing something that will bring you more health? Ask yourself these kind of questions for things related to your cell phone, premium cable, or unlimited text message.
• Diligently, keep tracking your spending. The simple process of writing this down every expense will make you think twice about the unnecessary ones. At the end of the month, take a careful look at them and ask the same question: do I really need these? Do these really contribute to the value of my life?
• Carefully look at your routines. Are there things in your routines that cost money? Trimming $1 from your daily spending saves you $365 a year.
  Switch to a bank that respects you. No interest at all on their checking accounts. Tons of fees for ATM use. Draconian overdraft policies. A tiny interest rate on savings accounts. Monthly usage fees of all kinds. All of these things are a waste of money.
• Go green! Going green can be a solution to cut your spending and increase your money!

So now we move on to the next level: how to increase your income

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If you’ve read many rules about finance, then you should come to the same basic rule as this one:

Spend less than you earn.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is that simple. But why are there so many people who are buried in debt or simply living from paycheck to paycheck?
There are several benefits you gain by spending less than you earn.

• You start treading on the path to omitting your debts. By spending less than you earn, you have enough money to pay your debts. The debts decease to exist, cutting down your monthly bills and frees you from worries!
• You begin to save. Now you have enough money to save. It will save (literally) you in times of emergencies (like job loss), and give you room to enjoy having the control to your future and old age.
• You are happier. With fewer debts, emergencies covered, retirement planned, there’s much less to worry about. Like old saying: no worries, no disease. Okay I made that up. It’s true though. It will make you happier for sure.
• Now you have opened wider possibilities that were closed to you. Now you can choose to move on to other things you like to do for living, or maybe chase your dreams! You have more freedom. Doesn’t that sound good?

So our next stop is: How do you actually can spend less than you earned

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Have you heard about FICO scores ? that is the score to make the lenders make decision, however this formula was not implemented for sometime because those who made this FICO scores, Fair Isaac and the 3 credit reporting agent were disagreed with the new formula that was issued in 2009. However there is another company called TransUnion tried to use this formula in the beginning of the year 2009 and the other one called Equifax follow after. Some of other companies such as Experian also follow in the next few months afterwards.

However many people were still asking the question on how effective this formula is and how useful it is for you ?

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Many people believe that once you get a better job you can make everything better or at least they will be able to get better salary however unfortunately not many people as lucky as that. Sometimes they forget that what they need to have is not only certificate but also appearance, confidence and the good impression that they can give during the interview.

How to send an impressive application ? First of all the cover of your application should have a short explanation about yourself and what you have achieved. So that before they go through all your cv they could already have a good picture about you. Not seldom happened that once the Human Resources see the complicated CV, they just throw it away and without reading the content since there are too many applications that are coming. Therefore your CV should be efficient, short but very informative. Second thing you need to remember is you need to put an impressive picture. Smile and looks bright !

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Mathematic, accounting and other subject related with number and calculation was not really my favorite one. I was lucky if I could just get C for those subjects when I was still in school. Unfortunately after I have grown, I still can not avoid those numbers thing from daily life, starting from I wake up in the morning, I already have to start to calculate my expenses today. When first time I got a job and first time I receive my salary, that number was following me from day to day. Even though I am working as secretary and not necessarily related with accounting but still, I need to Calculate my boss’ expenses, calculate my boss exchange rate, calculating my daily expenses, my monthly need, my family needs, my saving, my installment, my debt and now.. my mortgage loans! Oh my God, I feel like to give up with these annoying numbers.

Some people may use calculator or Excel or special formula to work with this repayment.. Comparing the costs from some mortgages and to re-consider my affordability is the one that needs to do for calculating this mortgage loans. This calculation is also useful for calculating the personal loans, second mortgages, re-mortgages, and commercial mortgages.

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Shopping is our daily activity. We often to go to grocery store more than once a day; to buy this and that stuffs. So here’s what I used to do when I went to a store, whether it’s a grocery store or mall. I went to the store to buy something that I need, but I ended up buying things that I thought I need or things that comes with special offers such as discounts.

So the interesting thing here is that those things aren’t so expensive; if I see them individually. But when I got to the cashier, I’m often surprised by the amount of money that I had to pay.

So I noticed that there is something wrong here. And here’s how to say it: we made many decisions during our time in the grocery store; and it is often about whether we can save 1 dollar or spend 1 more dollar.

Here are the typical situation:

“There is a discount on the meat, should I stock it up?”

“Which one, the big tomatoes can or the smaller one?”

But in the end, I (and maybe some of you) is forced to admit that we are not a smart buyer….

Today I will propose a step-by-step solution to this problem, so that me and you won’t excessively spend money in stores:

1. Make a shopping list before going to the grocery store. This is important to reduce the number of decisions you have to make.
2. Make a specific list of things. If you are used to buy juice (such as V8 Fusion); write the size of it on your list, to prevent you from buying the larger one.
3. Mark items that you’re not simply searching for the cheapest version of. So for other items, find the cheapest. Remember, even a dollar counts.
4. The most important thing is this part. You have to stick to the plan. Stay firm and hold tight to the shopping list. Do not purchase things outside the list.

So there, Hopefully this post can help you saving some money at the grocery store. Every single penny counts

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Bad credit. This could mean hell for those who are looking for a loan. However, even though you are having a bad credit score, it is not necessarily impossible  to get a loan. So in this post we will discuss about the alternative places where you can get a loan even if you are having a bad credit score.

First of all you need to find a right place for doing this loan application. Mainstream lenders are not an option, except for homeowners seeking a secured loan. Here’s one important thing: before you are going to far into this, you must be aware with the rate of interest since it would give you a bigger risk later on.

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Whether you consider yourself as a shopaholic or not, shopping is always one nice activity to do for every one especially for woman. Either they are teenager or housewives but shopping is always something heaven for them. They do need the product or not, is not really a matter. They could really afford it or not, that also another problem but one thing they want to know is that how to get that product to be theirs.

Sometimes when we shop we tried to be wise and tried to be as selective as we can. We would think that we are smart enough when we do that until we re-count it again what we have bought and brought to home then we will be forced to admit that we are not really that smart actually. You may be asking yourself should you buy this brand or that brand.

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