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12 Strategies I Used To Avoid Getting Buried in Student Loan Debt

November 9, 2018 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 7 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Today, I have a great guest post from Matt from Method To Your Money. Here are the strategies he used to graduate (nearly) debt-free from college.

12 Strategies I Used To Avoid Getting Buried in Student Loan Debt #payoffstudentloans #studentloans #debtfreejourney #moneysavingtips If you’re getting ready to attend college, or if you’ve got kids who are preparing to go off to school, student loans can sometimes feel like a forgone conclusion.

In fact, over 70% of graduates leave school with significant student loan debt. That’s 44 million people who owe $1.5 TRILLION dollars, or around $37,000 per person!!

It’s all a bit INSANE!!

But what if I told you that I have found a way to avoid being one of those indebted graduates, a series of strategies to avoid the anchor of student loans and to start your career off on the right foot? A method that I’m already starting to instill in my children so that when they go to college, they’ll be fully prepared to CRUSH it both in the classroom and with their bank accounts.

My family was firmly entrenched in the middle class. My dad is a pastor and my is mom a nurse. Growing up, money was not a limitless resource and my parents always made decisions with finances in mind. [Read more…]

The Best Money Advice I’ve Ever Received

November 7, 2018 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 26 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

The Best Money Advice I’ve Ever Received #moneysavingtips #howtosavemoney

I’m often asked about the money advice that has helped shape the life I live today.

While I still have a lot to learn, I have grown a lot in just the past few years, and part of that comes from following the things I’m sharing with you today.

And, I am happier than I have ever been. I run a business I love, I have the option to retire whenever I want, I am quite frugal, I'm not the spending disaster that I once was, and I travel full time.

Now, to preface this article, I have not always been good with money. Just a few years ago, I was actually quite horrible with money.

I lived paycheck to paycheck, had student loans, didn't save for retirement, had a car payment, and all of that added up to A LOT of financial stress. I still vividly remember the constant worrying that went along with all of that– it was a horrible feeling. [Read more…]

How to Protect Your Credit

November 6, 2018 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - Leave a Comment

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

In partnership with TransUnion.

Recently, I published How Paying Off $40,000 In Student Loan Debt Changed My Life. In that article, I talked about how I paid off my student loans, but mainly about credit and how to manage it.

Today, I want to talk about how protecting your credit is the next part of managing your credit.

According to a national survey conducted by TransUnion, security of personal data is something that the average person thinks about, but is unsure of how to deal with – 75 percent of respondents stated that they had become more concerned about data breaches in the past year and more than 75 percent of respondents know someone who has been affected by fraud or a data breach.

However, only 15 percent of respondents feel highly confident they have the tools they need to protect themselves from fraud and data breaches. [Read more…]

Reclaim Your Day With These 12 Time Saving Tips

November 5, 2018 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 15 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Reclaim Your Day With These 12 Time Saving Tips #timesavingtips #time Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day. What you do with them is up to you, but you may be wasting time each day. I wish I could say that I wasn’t wasting time, but I definitely find ways to do so. Fortunately, with the time saving tips I’ll share today, you can reclaim some of that lost time.

The bad thing about wasting time is that it can hold you back from reaching your goals.

If you are able to figure out where in your day you are wasting time, you may be able to:

Start a side hustle.
Make more money.
Pay off debt.
Spend more time with your loved ones.
Learn a new skill.
Have more fun.
Travel more.
Reach your dreams, and more!

[Read more…]

6 Things You Can Do Today to Find Over $13,000 in Savings

November 4, 2018 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 9 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

This is a guest post from Empower, the FREE savings app. They’ve help more than 250,000 users get out of paycheck-to-paycheck living and even build a savings by analyzing their accounts for opportunities to save. They’ve dug into their strove of data to tell you where you may be leaving money on the table. Enjoy!

Raise your hand if you're tired of reading articles about saving money. Why is it that these articles can be so frustrating — but we can't help but click when we see the headline?

So much content falls short, more often telling us to do extreme things like selling our plasma than helping us find everyday savings opportunities. It doesn't always seem like the need to save is being taken seriously by those offering tips.

But between student loans, a rising cost of living, and pay that doesn't seem to increase as quickly as our work hours, the squeeze is very serious. That's why we could all use help finding ways to save. So we dug into some data to discover real ways that real people can find savings in their current lifestyles. [Read more…]

Ask Me Anything

October 31, 2018 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 239 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Last year, I published my first Ask Me Anything here on Making Sense of Cents. That went super well, so I decided to make it more of a regular thing!

Ask Me Anything is literally that – you can ask me anything. If you’re struggling to figure out what to ask, here are a few of the topics you may want to know more about:

Personal finance
Blogging
My life
Travel
RVing
Sailing
Being location independent
Business
Making extra money
Questions about my dogs

And so on, and so on.

Seriously, ask me anything in the comments below, and I will take the time to answer every single one. Of course, please nothing inappropriate or creepy. I'll let you be the judge of what is creepy, I guess, haha!

All right, go for it, ask away!

P.S. If you're looking to see all of the comments and questions, make sure to hit “Older Comments” or “Newer Comments” below. The comments break apart in pages once there are over 50 comments.

One Easy Way To Save $720 On Your Car and Home Insurance

October 30, 2018 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 6 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

The following is a collaboration with Gabi.

Is your insurance too expensive?

Not too long ago, I asked you, my readers, how much you were paying each month. The numbers varied widely, but there was one conclusion that many of you have found – that some of you were probably overpaying, and had never really tried saving money with insurance because you never thought there would be such a huge difference from one insurance company to another.

While insurance is a necessity, it’s possible that you are overpaying and could benefit from learning how to save money on insurance, from car to home, and more.

Recently, I came across Gabi – a company that shops for your car and home insurance, and helps you save more of your money.

I heard about them after I did some research on saving money on insurance for this blog post – Stop Being Lazy – Why Overpay When You Can Save Money On Insurance? [Read more…]

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