School Archives - Page 4 of 7 - Making Sense Of Cents

Attending College as a Non-Traditional Student

October 25, 2013 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.

Femme Frugality writes about money as it pertains to young adults, brides, parents, Pittsburghers, and, of course, college students. You can read her blog here.

Recently Michelle shared that W was returning to school, and asked for some tips for non-traditional students. I recently graduated, and now my fiance is going to college for the first time.

We're about as non-traditional as it gets, both being far beyond “traditional” college age, and having children. So I've got a plethora of tips that have been helping us get through this stage in our lives. And Michelle was kind enough to let me share them in a post.

Work as Little As Possible

I know that sounds crazy. As a non-traditional student, you've got very grown-up bills to pay. But trust me. If you're serious about your degree, trimming down your work schedule will help not just your grades, but your overall mental health. I am not suggesting you go into debt in order to go back to school. (Both my fiance and I are doing this without any loans.)

What I am suggesting is that you sit down and look at your monthly budget. Look at your bills, how much you'll need to be contributing to your emergency fund, how much you'll need for other essentials such as gas and groceries, and a realistic entertainment category (though it might not be a bad idea to trim it down a little bit if you can).

Figure out the lowest number you're willing to commit to (be realistic about this) for your overall monthly budget.

[Read more…]

The Benefits Of Paying Off Student Loan Debt Early

July 11, 2013 BY Jordann - 60 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.

Here is a post by my staff writer Jordann. She submitted this post before I announced that my student loans are gone, so hopefully that will clear up any confusion below 🙂

Student loan debt is something pretty much everyone reading this blog can relate to. Most people who go to University will graduate with some form of debt, whether it's federal loans (like mine), bank loans, or a personal loan.

This makes for a sort of bitter-sweet graduation day, where you're excited to take on new opportunities and possibilities, but nervous about finally having to start paying all of those loans back.

The period after graduation from school, that used to be filled with starting new jobs, buying homes and getting married, is now what I like to refer to as the “Paying back student debt gap years”.

There's typically no home buying, and no family starting. How can there be? When student loan debt is weighing you down? Most people don't try and pay their loans off particularly quickly, instead they focus on making the minimum payments and figuring out their life. Not everyone though. Some people take those gap years and run with them.

Michelle is about to pay off her student loans once and for all, go Michelle! She finished up her MBA with a fairly significant student loan debt and has done an admirable job at attacking it.

I'm in the same boat. I graduated from university with the average amount of student loans, $26,720. I was nervous about paying them back, but once I got into a good groove, I managed to get rid of them in 17 months. Since we're both student debt free now, I'd like to go through some of the great perks of not having student loan debt.

[Read more…]

My Student Loans Are Fully Paid Off!

July 9, 2013 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 272 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.

This blog post on how to pay off student loans quickly was last updated on December 31, 2018.

Yes, you just read the title of this blog post correctly. My student loans are gone and fully paid off!

Donezo. Eliminated. Demolished.

It seems like just a couple of months ago I published my post about my $38,000 in student loans (scroll down to the bottom of this post if you are interested in how I paid off my student loans) and how badly I wanted them gone.

I have made a decent amount of recent payments and have watched our savings account dwindle down to a very low and uncomfortable number (still livable though).

Our monthly income keeps increasing and without it, none of this would have been possible. I am very grateful for everything in life.

Also, many have asked about why I made some small payments of less than $1 (see the picture below). It is because whenever I would pay the full amount of the loan off, they would still charge interest on the loan for the day until the actual payment was received. So, I had some small payments of less than $1. [Read more…]

How I’m Getting Rid of My Student loans FAST

May 29, 2013 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 138 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.

Back in November of 2012, I wrote about my $40,000 worth of student loan debt. This was the total amount of student loans that I accumulated while I was getting my undergraduate and graduate degrees. When I wrote that post, I had hardly paid anything towards my student loans. Interest was slowing building up, but not that much, as most of my loans were still being deferred.

Ever since that post was published, I have been attacking my student loans like crazy. I have been applying any extra money towards my student loans, and I am now proud to say that they are almost gone. We have enough money in the bank to completely pay them off, but have chosen to wait as we don't want to withdraw everything out of our emergency fund to pay my student loans off. We don't want to tap into retirement funds as well, so those funds will stay where they currently are.

As a refresher, I graduated in May of 2010 with my B.A. in Management and my B.S. in Business Administration. I applied for jobs and was hired on at a financial firm right after I graduated. I then took a year off from school and decided to go back for my Finance MBA. I then graduated in August of 2012 with my Finance MBA. I continued working full-time throughout this and still hold my same job today. I graduated with a decent amount of debt, but I am happy that I don't have more.

I am guilty of taking out more in student loans than I needed. Right after high school, I needed a place to live and I probably took out an extra $1,000 or $2,000 to help fund my living. So, not too horrible, but that's still an extra couple of thousand that I probably should not have taken out. [Read more…]

12 Facts About Student Loan Debt that will make Your Hair Stand on End

May 17, 2013 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 47 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.

Today I have a post from Kevin and it's all about student loans. Don't forget to read my My $38,000 Student Loan Payoff Plan if you haven't yet.

Getting a college education in the US today appears to be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, graduates are in a better position than those without a college degree when it comes to getting jobs. Yet with the cost of education rising, tens of thousands of students are graduating with piles of debts they spend years paying off.

Sometimes they are not able to pay, with unemployment rates remaining high and stagnant. Dogged by debt collectors, they resort to public protests and hiding. To add more props to the terrifying reality show of student debt, here are 12 facts about student loan debt that will make your hair stand on end.

1. High debt and fear of loans

Two thirds of college graduates from universities across the country in 2011 had debts from student loans, an early 2012 study by The Institute for College Access & Success revealed. There is a total of $1 trillion in outstanding student loan debt and the average debt is estimated at $26,600 per student. Fear of such high loans can keep students from receiving the education that they deserve.

[Read more…]

How to Transition Back into the Workforce After a Long Period of Unemployment

March 22, 2013 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 16 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.

Recently, a reader said that while my blog is helpful, that she would rather me have more tips and posts on those who have had a long period of unemployment. Then all of a sudden I received an e-mail from One Smart Dollar who said that they wanted to guest post and had some general ideas for a topic. What was one of those topics? It was THIS ONE! What great timing right?

This is a guest post from Scott Sery, a freelance writer, who writes for One Smart Dollar. When not talking about money he enjoys passing on his knowledge of the back country in Montana and how to live sustainably. Follow them on Twitter at @OneSmartDollar.

At least one time during most people’s working career they will find themselves unemployed. Whether it’s due to company cutbacks and workers layoffs, or due to the employee being fired, these normally hard working people find themselves forced into job hunting.

While there are plenty of jobs out there, not every job is suited to every person. So, rather than settle for something that is beneath their skill level, or a menial job that would do more damage to their self esteem than it is worth, they collect unemployment. They do this as they keep looking for the job for which they are trained. Many times that looking period is long; often lasting a year or more. When something finally does come along, they often find that the transition from unemployed to working is a lot harder than the transition from working to unemployed. [Read more…]

Is a Business Degree a Waste?

March 6, 2013 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 68 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.

Is a Business Degree a Waste? Is a business management degree worth it? I keep hearing people/news outlets arguing at opposite ends of what seems to be a common question. Short answer – NO! I don't think a business degree is anywhere near being a waste. A business degree is worth it in many cases.

EDIT: Please read my post about how I paid off $40,000 worth of student loans shortly after I turned 24.

Recently, I read an interesting article about whether a business degree is a waste or a good decision.

I read the article multiple times (and unless I missed it), I'm pretty sure it means business schools as a whole (and the various degrees that are offered), and not just specifically a “business degree.”

So when they say business degree, I'm assuming this includes Finance, Economics, Accounting, etc. [Read more…]

Work as Little As Possible

1. High debt and fear of loans

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