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How I Paid Off $40,000 In Student Loans in 7 Months

January 18, 2017 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 39 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Want to learn how to pay off student loans? With my student loan repayment plan, I was able to pay off $40,000 in student loan debt in 7 months! One of the best ways to save money is to finally get rid of those pesky loans that are hurting your financial situation.

Learning how to pay off student loans can lead to many positives, such as:

You may finally feel less financial stress.
You may be able to use that money towards something more important, such as saving for retirement.
Getting rid of your student loans may allow you to pursue other goals in life, such as traveling more or looking for a better job.

I know these things are true because learning how to pay off my student loans is one of the best decisions that I’ve ever made. [Read more…]

How Blogging Paid Off My Student Loans

April 27, 2016 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 57 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

In July of 2013, I finished paying off my student loans.

It was a fantastic feeling and something I still think about to this day. Even though I have a success story when it comes to paying off student loans, I know that many others struggle with their student loan debt every single day.

The average graduate of 2015 walked away with more than $35,000 in student loan debt, and not only is that number growing, the percentage of students expected to use students loans is on the rise. Plus, if you have a law or medical degree, your student loan debt may be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

This is a ton of money and can be quite stressful.

After earning three college degrees, I had approximately $40,000 in student loan debt. [Read more…]

How Much Can You Save by Refinancing Your Student Loans?

February 1, 2016 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - Leave a Comment

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

If you’re reading this article, chances are you graduated at least a couple of years ago and you’ve been paying a high interest rate on your student loans. You are also probably looking at interest rates being at an all-time low and are wondering if your good job and credit score can get you something better. Well, it turns out that there are several private institutions out there that offer certain graduates very competitive interest rates and payment options through refinancing. In the long run, there is a very good chance that refinancing with one of these companies can save you hundreds, or even thousands of dollars. [Read more…]

Learning How To Survive On A College Budget

October 14, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 39 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

College is expensive and everyone knows that.

Between paying for tuition, parking, textbooks, extra fees, and everything else, you also have basic living expenses to pay for as well.

All of these costs are either brand new or somewhat new to you most likely as well, so you might not even know how to survive on a budget, let alone a college budget.

Don’t worry, though, surviving on a college budget is possible. Learning how to save money in college is possible!

Whether you are trying to survive the whole year off of what you made over the summer or if you have a steady job throughout the school year, there are ways to budget your money and not fall into any extra debt. Plus, you can still enjoy your college years on a low budget as well!

Below are my tips on how to survive on a college budget. [Read more…]

How To Balance Working And Going To College

October 7, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 34 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

More and more are choosing to attend college and work at the same time.

Whether you are working a part-time or a full-time job, it can be tough to balance both. There are many working students in college who are able to manage both, but there are also many who aren’t able to.

If you don’t balance them both correctly, it may lead to stress, lower grades, low-quality work being produced, and more.

No one wants that and I’m sure you don’t either.

This is supposed to be the time of your life where you are growing and changing, not feeling like you are drowning in everything that is going on around you.

There are ways to get around it and manage both successfully at the same time, though.

I took a full course load each and every semester, worked full-time, and took part in extracurricular activities. It was definitely hard and I won’t lie about that. However, sometimes a person doesn’t have a choice and has to do everything at once or maybe you are choosing to multi-task and you are wanting to better manage your time.

Whatever your reason may be, below are my tips for working college students. The tips below are what helped save me! [Read more…]

How Do You Use a Degree That Isn’t Very Specific?

June 5, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 33 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Hello! Enjoy this post from my friend Martin. I know this situation applies to many out there (the possibility of what you or others may believe to be useless degrees), so hopefully this post can help someone out!

“Why did you waste your time on that degree?”

The most ignorant question in the world. You deserve a smack across the face if you’ve ever asked anyone this. There’s no such thing as a waste of time if you learned a few things and opened your eyes a little. Also, it’s none of your business what someone else studied, unless you of course paid for their full education.

Why would you ask someone this?

The person with the degree doesn’t possess the power to time travel and change things. It’s already too late. They have the degree proudly hanging on the wall. There’s no need to be a ruthless jerk who puts down their friends. The person on the other end will get highly defensive and the argument won’t be pretty.

Why would you ask such an ignorant question?

Sadly, European relatives ask this all of the time. So do friends on Facebook. Most people will ask about why you studied what you did. It’s fairly standard small talk. [Read more…]

6 Ways I Saved Money On College Costs

April 8, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 34 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

How much does college cost? This is a question many wonder. There’s rarely a week that goes by where I don’t receive an email from a student or parents of a student who are looking for ways to cut college costs. That’s why today I want to talk about college costs and how you can create a college budget that works so that you can save money in college.

College is very expensive – there is no doubt about that.

However, I want you to know that it IS possible to get a valuable college degree on a budget!

The average public university is over $20,000 per year and the average private university totals over $45,000 once you account for tuition, room and board, fees, textbooks, living expenses and more.

Even with how expensive college can possibly be, there are many ways to cut college expenses and create a college budget so that you can control rising college costs.

Continue reading below to read about the many different ways I cut college costs. While I was not perfect and still racked up student loan debt, I did earn three college degrees on a reasonable budget.

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