Be Debt Free

Matthew Kelly


Should you consolidate your federal student loans? It is important to make an informed decision when considering this financial matter. Here are some things to consider when weighing your decision.

1. Your Grace Period

When you graduate you are given a 6 month grace period before you have to start making your loan payments. When you consolidate your loans, you must waive any remaining grace period. This sounds like a bad thing but remember this is not a “free period.” Your loans will continue to gather interest on the unsubsidized portions whether you are making the payments or not. So while it’s true that you are not required to make any payments for that six month period many students choose to in order to keep their balances from growing.

You may also begin the consolidation process and opt to retain your grace period. Your application is processed and ready for funding but is not actually funded until shortly before your grace period ends. This is a good way to keep your grace period without having to worry about forgetting to apply or not applying in time.

2. Lower Monthly Payments

All federal Stafford, PLUS and Graduate PLUS loans are issued with a 10 year term. This results in a high monthly payment. When you consolidate your student loans, you can increase the term of your loan up to 30 years, greatly reducing your monthly payments.

There are good and bad aspects to increasing your loan term, but they are completely under your control. Increasing the loan term means you will pay more in interest in the long term IF you make the minimum payment for the life of the loan. However, since there are no prepayment penalties you can pay your student loan off at any time. The lower payments of a consolidation can be a great help in the first couple of years after graduation until your salary catches up with your education. Once you have reached your full earning potential you can start making larger payments which will reduce the term of your loan and keep your interest costs down.

3. Graduation

At this time federal law does not allow in school consolidations. This shouldn’t have much impact on students since you are not required to make loan payments while you are still enrolled in school. It can be helpful to have a consolidation lender in mind and your application process started before graduation though to give you one less thing to worry about in the hectic months after leaving school.

4. Loan Forgiveness

Depending on what area your degree is in, you may be eligible for loan forgiveness. Laws and programs vary by state so you will have to check your state’s particular rules, but in general students who work in areas that serve the public, especially in low income areas, are generally eligible for loan forgiveness. Consolidation does not affect your ability to qualify for loan forgiveness with Stafford loans. Perkins loans on the other hand can not be forgiven if they are consolidated. Be sure to discuss this with your consolidation representative when considering student loan consolidation.

5. Number of Separate Lenders

You may find yourself with several different creditors upon graduation. Consolidating them all into one loan has a few benefits. First, you only have to make one payment a month, making your loan easier to manage. Second, having fewer lenders will help your credit score.

5. Payment Plans

Generally your loans have a set payment plan that was established when you took them out and it is usually just a flat payment for the life of the loan. Consolidation offers several different repayment options including graduated payments, extended payments and income sensitive payments. Having choices makes it easier to make your scheduled on time payments.

6. Deferral and Forbearance

All federal loans have the benefit of 3 years of deferral and 3 years of forbearance; this does not change when they are consolidated. In fact, if you have used any of your deferral or forbearance it is renewed to 3 years each upon consolidation.

7. Repayment Incentives

There are a lot of lenders out there who offer many different repayment incentives. Be sure that you weigh out all the options before you decide which company you are going to use. Make sure that you are getting the most savings on your consolidation. Buyer beware: lenders offering a cash back incentive generally give you smaller savings in the long run. Make sure that you weigh out all available plans before you decide which company you are going to be using.

8. Interest Rates

Many student loans are still on a variable rate and it has been steadily increasing over the last couple of years. The only way to fix the interest rate on these loans is to consolidate them. Since the interest rates have been climbing over the last few years it is best to consolidate before the rates increase again on July 1. When consolidating the interest rate is determined by a federally regulated weighted average of your loans current interest rates. One thing to be aware of is if one of your loans has a significantly higher rate it could throw off your other loans. Make sure your loan advisor goes over your interest rates with you to determine the best way to consolidate.

A consolidation is easy and free for you. It requires no credit check or even employment. There are few drawbacks to a consolidation and they can all be managed or avoided by working with a reliable, trustworthy loan advisor. Is it right for you? The best way to find out is to speak with a knowledgeable loan advisor who can go over your individual loans with you and help you determine your best course of action.



Christopher

Debt Settle Inc


Debt settlement companies are accustomed to hearing how people aren’t getting true answers from banks, at least not complete truth.  Every good debt settlement company will help educate you about the way banks and lenders take advantage of everyday people by only partially informing them.

For example, if you are a young person, do you know that banks and credit card companies target you?  Students on college campuses and people who are under 25 are courted by banks because they don’t think about their purchasing choices over the long term.  More than 120 universities have cut deals with banks to issue student-ID cards that are also ATM and check cards.  Schools make millions of dollars from those deals.  In essence, colleges are offering up their students as sacrificial lambs to credit card companies.  No wonder people are in so much debt today, they’re taught from college that credit card debt is a good thing.  Debt settlement companies can help you grow out of the mistakes of your youth, and become financially free.

Courts may seem like a haven for those suffering under mountains of debt, but in all honesty the courts don’t care about your debt problems.  Since the late 1990’s, banks included arbitration agreements into their contracts, meaning you won’t be going to court if there’s a problem.  This means that rather than trying to sue banks over their activities, you will have to go through a private courts, which are heavily skewed towards corporations.  Debt settlement allows you to avoid such nightmarish scenarios and deal with your debt outright.

Also, did you know banks are charging extra fees for your overseas trips?  Your heavy credit card debt may be a result of a “once-in-a-lifetime” European vacation.  If you use a credit card to take money out of an ATM over in Europe, it may cost up to $7, plus any credit card fees on top of that.

Overall, credit card companies don’t tell you very much about their services.  Most of the unsecured debt that debt settlement companies help people with comes from credit card debt.  Part of this is that credit card companies don’t give you much information beforehand.  In spite of the pages of tiny text you get in the mail, credit card companies don’t disclose their inner workings.  In fact, during a 2007 investigation, The Government Accountability Office discovered that although banks are required by law to make fee information available to customers, one third of the banks investigated didn’t provide the required information.  Worse yet, more than half didn’t have any fee information on their Websites.

In the end, it’s important to remember that where you’re getting your information is important.  Debt settlement companies are on your side, and want to see you cut down as much of your debt as possible.  Debt problems can plague you for life, impacting your credit score, interest rates, jobs and more.  Contact a quality debt settlement company today to begin clearing out past debt and paving the way towards a successful financial future.



Sean

Apurva Shree


Credit card companies will probably not help you eliminate credit card debt. The reason is the fact that credit card companies make most of their money through the interest that they collect on credit card debts. A study reveals that in the year 2006, the profit made by credit card companies through interest alone was close to a hundred million US dollars! This is why a number of companies do not encourage credit card debt consolidation. There are ways to legally eliminate credit card debt. To know more about how you can eliminate credit card debt and its legal aspects, read on.

A Few Ways in Which You Can Eliminate Credit Card Debt

A number of individuals opt for an easy home equity loan to pay off their credit card debts. This mode of credit card consolidation would be advisable only in case your credit card debt has not already skyrocketed. This approach is highly popular in the face of the fact that the late fees and interest rates charged by most credit card companies are simply atrocious. An untimely repayment can cost you a lot, quite literally. Your financial advisor may not advice you to go for this option as you may land up using your credit card again to make up for the deficit in your finances caused by the new loan. If you are on a stable salary package then you can latch on to a credit-counseling firm. This is one of the alternatives available to you to legally eliminate credit card debt. Through this approach, you commit yourself to pay a certain amount every month to the firm that you are attached to. The credit card debt consolidation company on the other hand takes up the responsibility of distributing your funds efficiently to all the credit card companies you need to repay.

How to Eliminate Credit Card Debt in the Worst of the Situations

In the worst of the situations, you have two options available:

Debt Settlement

Bankruptcy

To eliminate credit card debt you can use debt settlement as one of the last alternatives for credit card consolidation. If your condition is so bad that even the payment of your monthly bills is becoming a problem, you can then opt for debt settlement, the most effective way to legally eliminate credit card debt. The credit card company in this case can reduce the repayment amount by as much as fifty percent and may even accept the sum in five or six installments.

The other option available of course is declaring bankruptcy. This should really be your last option as it completely messes up your public record. To legally eliminate credit card debt through the declaration of bankruptcy, you must make sure you have the aid of a good bankruptcy lawyer else, your case may go horribly wrong.



Marie

Debt Settle Inc


People throughout the country are asking about solutions to their debt problems.  One issue people don’t seem to understand is that more money isn’t really a solution to your debt problem.  If you think about how you got into your debt problems, you most likely made a fair salary, but overspent by using credit cards and possibly even a personal line of credit.  The issue wasn’t that you didn’t have enough money, in essence, it’s an issue of having eyes too big for your stomach.   The real issue you need to tackle is how much debt you’ve gotten yourself into.

Debt is almost like cancer; cancer is unnatural growth happening in your body.  Debt is unnatural money, money that actually has a minus sign next to it instead of a plus.  By that, I mean if you have $20 in your pocket, then you have $20 in your pocket.  If you have a credit card with a $20 limit, you not only have to pay back that $20, you also have to pay back the interest.  So instead of having $20, you have more like -$24.  When you think about debt that way, like it’s a cancer, you begin to realize how people and nations are in such horrible financial circumstances.

Think about your debt problems like someone who is dealing with cancer.  Does someone with that kind of sickness need more cancer?  Obviously not, but do they need more healthy body?  No, what they need is to get rid of the cancer.  With debt, your problem lies with the debt itself and the ways you accumulated the debt.   Your credit cards, personal lines of credit, medical bills and so forth are causing debt to choke out your finances.  Instead of putting money into a high-yield savings account, it’s going towards debt.  Instead of spending a little bit of money on a movie, you’re spending it on paying off Visa.  Over and over your finances are being choked and your financial future is in jeopardy.

So, how do you deal with your debt problems? Debt settlement companies can help you manage your debt and take care of the thousands in unsecured debt you might have.  Debt settlement companies negotiate your debt amount with lenders and creditors, doing their best to negotiate a low settlement amount.  This means that a $5,000 credit card debt might turn into a $2,500 debt, or even a $2,000 debt.  The first thing you need to do is contact a debt settlement company; then you’ll have to explain your entire situation.  It’s easy to ignore your bills, but it might be difficult to sit down and go through your bills to see exactly what kind of debt you’re in.  However, if you’re going to deal with your debt, you’re not only going to have to go through your bills, but then you’re going to have to explain your debt problem to a debt settlement expert.  Contact a debt settlement expert today and start solving your debt problems.



Elissa

Uchenna Ani-Okoye


Credit cards are no more a luxury, they are almost a necessity. So, you would imagine a lot of people going for credit cards. In fact, a lot of people posses more than one credit cards. So, the credit card industry is growing by leaps and bounds. However, the credit card industry and credit card holders are posed with a big problem called ‘Credit Card Debt’. In order to understand what ‘credit card debt’ actually means, we need to understand the workflow associated with the use of credit cards as such.

Credit cards, as the name suggests, are cards on which you can get credit i.e. make borrowings (your credit card debt). Your credit card is a representative of the credit account that you hold with the credit card supplier. Whatever payments you make using your credit card are actually your borrowings that contribute towards your credit card debt.

Your total credit card debt is the total amount you owe credit card supplier. You must settle your credit card debt on a monthly basis. So, you receive a monthly statement or your credit card bill which shows your total credit card debt. You must pay off your credit card debt by the payment due date failing which you will incur late fee and interest charges.

However, you have the option of making a partial (minimum) payment too, in which case you don’t incur late fee but just the interest charges on your credit card debt. If you don’t pay off your credit card debt in full, the interest charges too get added to it. So your credit card debt keeps on increasing, more so because the interest rates on credit card debt are generally higher than the interest rates on other kind of loans/borrowings. Further, the interest charges add on to your credit card debt each month to form the new balance or the new credit card debt amount.

If you continue making partial payments (or no payments) the interest charges are calculated afresh on the new credit card debt. So you end up paying interest on the last month’s interest too. Thus your credit card debt accumulates rapidly and soon you find that what was once a relatively small credit card debt has ballooned into a big amount which you find almost impossible to pay. Moreover, if you don’t still control you’re spending habits, your credit card debt rises even faster. This is how the vicious circle of credit card debt works.



Emma