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Here’s How to Gauge How Long It Will Take You to Pay Off Debt

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how long to pay off debt

Anyone who has tackled paying off their debt knows having a timeframe doesn’t always work out. However, having an idea about how long to pay off debt can help drive you to meet your financial goals. Luckily, there are plenty of tools to help you put a finish line in your sights.

How to Determine How Long It’ll Take to Pay Off Your Debt

Of course, the key factor in how long it’ll take you to pay off your debt is how much debt you carry. To do this, I’ve opened a Credit Karma account. This gives me a snapshot of all my open accounts and the total amount of debt I carry. Once you get that number in your head, you know where you stand in your debt free journey.

Next, you’ll need to separate your individual accounts by amount and interest. Some people organize these by highest-to-lowest interest (how I do it) or you can organize it by lowest-to-highest amount owed. After you’ve organized your information, you can gauge how long it may take to pay off each piece of debt.

Tools to Gauge How Long to Pay Off Debt

There are a plethora of debt calculators on the internet. However, not all calculators were made the same and not all will give you the same information.

Most debt calculators have you enter some basic information:

  • Amount owed
  • Interest rate
  • Current/expected monthly payment
  • OR desired payoff timeframe

The last two bullet points are where the biggest difference is to be seen. If you are planning to only maintain the current monthly payment, rather than setting a timeframe for paying off your debt, your outcome may be drastically different. Here’s an example:

Auto Loan With Current Monthly Payment

  • The balance owed: $22,074
  • Interest rate: 4.8%
  • Current monthly payment: $488.74

How long to pay off debt: 50 months

Auto Loan With Timeframe

  • The balance owed: $22,074
  • Interest rate: 4.8%
  • Timeframe: 24 months

Expected monthly payment to pay it off in 2 years: $966/month

Debt Calculators to Try

If you want to find out how long it will take you to pay off your debt, there are two calculators I’d suggest checking out.

  1. Credit Karma: I can’t say enough about Credit Karma and the services they provide. Not only can you get your free credit score, but they also provide you with tools to help you pay things off.
  2. Calc XML: This site has a fantastic debt calculator that will help you figure out how long it’ll take you to pay off your debt based on your current or expected monthly payment.

When you look at paying off your debt, it is good to set goals. However, it is also important to not get discouraged when looking at the timeframe and monthly payments. You can use the tools above to determine a reasonable timeframe. Remember, everyone’s debt freedom journey is different!

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Dealing With Debt And How It Can Affect Your Children

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Debt is something that we all are, have, or will be dealing with in our lives, and it’s no secret that it can be quite the stressful experience. From stress about how we’re going to drum up the money, to the anxiety as to what might happen if we don’t can eat away at our nerves, but what about our children? How are they affected when we’re in debt? That’s what we’re exploring today. While online payday loans are available in a financial emergency, understanding how to deal with debt and how it could be affecting the little ones is a must – so read on to find out more.

How Does Your Debt Affect Your Children?

From babies and toddlers to older children and teenagers, your kids aren’t quite as oblivious to your stress as you might hope they are. The last thing any of us want is for our stress to rub off on our children, but the unfortunate fact of the matter is that it will – but is this always negative?

When we grow stressed, we may not be able to operate to our full potential no matter how hard we try and this obviously has an effect, especially on younger children. Stress can make us snappy, less inclined to spending time with the little ones and in general, completely different from how we normally operate. What’s more, a lower budget means that you may not be able to cater for the costs of school trips, socialising and they may have to go without basics when things get truly tough. As a result, a child’s mood, mental health and self-confidence could take a hit.

How Can You Deal With Your Debt?

With the above in mind, dealing with the debt you do have is vital. Stress is a natural reaction when things seem out of your hands, so it’s important to gain control where possible to help reduce stress on you, your bank account and your children. We’ve got a few tips below.

  • Face Facts

First things first, you need to stop, think, and face facts. Coming to terms with how much you owe, what your income and outgoings are and what you can realistically start to pay off without risking the quality of life for you or your kids. Track down paperwork, bank statements, open up bills you might’ve been otherwise been ignoring and actually work out everything you owe. This might seem counter-productive for your stress levels, but by organising your debts and laying them out separately, you can start to tackle them individually as opposed to a large, terrifying total sum.

  • Create A Budget

Remember the organisation you did in the above point? Well, now you can put it to some proper use. Crafting a budget is a great way to save money that you can put towards your debts without having to completely give up your lifestyle. While you might need to cut down on the leisure activities and swap them out for nights in or avoid the early morning coffee shop trips in favour of home-brewed alternatives, you can cut down your outgoing costs and put them where they’re needed more.

  • Prioritise

When it comes to the debts you owe, you need to prioritise as opposed to trying to pay them all off at once. To do this, all you need to do is work out which debts have the highest interest rates, and start pouring your money into them instead. Of course, you’ll need to pay the minimum charges on all of your debts, but with any extra cash, aim for one debt rather than spreading it out across multiple and once that is paid off, move onto the next and so on.

Debt is an unfortunate fact of life and while it’s possible to avoid some debts, there are others we have to take on and it can often be overwhelming. While our children can be affected by our financial stress, there are thankfully plenty of ways to get your debts under control and hopefully, our points above have given you a good place to start.

Pursuing a Master’s Degree When You’re in Debt: Is It a Good Idea?

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Being in debt often limits your options. You cannot get an affordable loan due to the higher risk factor you now carry. It is also difficult to get your personal finances in order, considering you have many loan repayments to handle each month. Your options may be limited, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take steps to improve.

Pursuing a master’s degree in fields such as business administration is a sure-fire way to boost your career to a new level. Better career means better income, which in turn can help you recover from your debt. That said, a master’s degree can be relatively expensive, so is it a good idea to pursue a graduate degree when you’re in debt?

Affordable Options

Let’s take a look at how you can pursue a master’s degree when you’re in debt. You can start by looking into online programs from reputable names such as Rutgers Online. Online courses are now accredited and allow you to get the same valuable degree as their offline counterparts.

There is another big advantage you will gain from going the online route too: affordable fees. Online degrees like AACSB online MBA are up to 50% more affordable than the equivalent offline degrees. Not only can you get an accredited degree that will help push your career forward but you can do it without spending as much money in the process.

Before you jump right in and enroll, however, there are more things to consider. Choose a degree that gives you the most career advantage. If you’re in marketing, for instance, look into online MBA programs that will help you become a better marketing executive and a prime candidate for a promotion.

More Homework to Do

Choosing a degree to pursue is just the first step. Since you have a less-than-stellar credit score and plenty of bills to take care of every month, you need to go the extra mile to make the pursuit of a master’s degree work.

You can start by seeking scholarships and financial aid. There are scholarship programs designed to help online students; these are the programs you should start with. Not all scholarships are based on merit and there are many opportunities to get them, especially today.

Financial aid is just as easy to find. Companies now offer incentives to persuade their employees to get a higher degree. This is because promoting an existing employee to a higher position is much cheaper than recruiting new executives. Check with HR if you can take advantage of such incentives.

Financing the Degree

If you still need a loan to finance the degree, then make sure you get the right type of student loan. Take your time and compare quotes from multiple lenders before borrowing any money. Calculate the total cost of using each loan and go with the best option you have in hand.

With an accelerated master’s degree such as the AACSB online MBA mentioned earlier, you can earn a master’s degree in as little as 12 to 15 months. The extra income you bank after giving your career a much-needed push will help you get your personal finances in order.

How to Complete Your Healthcare Masters Without Getting Into Debt

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Once you complete a healthcare masters, many great career opportunities lie in store for you. However, while you are completing this type of course, it’s easy to get into debt and this debt can take a long time to pay back. You should avoid this situation at all costs, and the following tips will help you to do this.

Study Online

The internet is the perfect platform for healthcare students who want to learn, without having to attend a traditional university or college. Universities like the University of Cincinnati now offer online versions of their degree courses, such as the online master of healthcare administration in strategy and innovation.

As well as being a much more convenient way to obtain a valuable healthcare qualification, there are many good financial reasons why you should consider a program like an online MHA. The fees are usually cheaper than classroom based courses, you don’t have to travel to a college or university, and your living expenses don’t increase.

Combine Study with Work

Making an income, while you study means you don’t have dip into your savings as much or take out expensive loans. Depending on the amount of time you need to dedicate to your studies, you could look for part-time work or even work full time while you are a student. This is where an online healthcare masters comes to the fore, because you should have enough spare time to comfortably combine your work life with your student life.

Study Close to Home

If you do intend to attend lectures in person, there are still many opportunities to spend less money and avoid getting into debt. The closer you live to your college or university, the less money you need to spend on travel, living expenses and other accommodation. These savings may not seem like much every day, but over the course of a year, you could save a substantial amount of money that you can put to better use.

Be Frugal

When you’re a student, it may seem like money continually slips through your fingers. To stop this from happening, identify the reasons why you don’t have money or why you could end up getting into debt.

Until you are in a position to pay for expensive clothes, nights out, school materials, gadgets and other expensive items, look for more affordable alternatives. This exercise could be an eye-opener and could uncover many ways to save money and still manage to have a good time and get the items you need.

Complete Your Course Quicker

The longer you are in college or university, the more likely it is that you will rack up more debt. Completing your course quicker is the obvious way to reduce the overall amount of money you spend on your healthcare masters course.

Completing a healthcare masters should be an enjoyable and rewarding experience. However, if you get into debt while you’re a student, it can leave a sour taste in your mouth. To avoid this situation, make sure you follow the tips above.

Best Homemade Business Ideas to Keep You Debt Free

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Making a little extra income to help keep you and your family debt free is the ideal thing to do. There are many ways you can do it, but one good way is to have your own little business from home making homemade things.

You can choose to do anything you want, you just need the idea and the knowledge to make it happen. Here are a few ideas for things you can do from home to get you started.

Cake Making

Making cakes is something many people do at home, however, if you are good at making cakes and icing them, then you could have something people will want to buy.

There are lots of videos and books on how to decorate cakes if you need a little background knowledge, but once you have learned the basics, you can use your own ideas.

To build up your business, why not offer a gift certificate with your cakes so that they can get another free? There are easy free gift certificate maker applications like Adobe Spark that can help you make them.

Baby and Toddler Clothes

There are a lot of mothers out there with young children, and they are looking for that nice outfit that is unique and well made. If you are good with sewing or using a sewing machine, then it won’t take long at all to start making your own clothes.

You can get easy to understand patterns from the internet that you can follow. If you make them for babies and toddlers, it won’t take long to make, and it will use less material.

Bath Bombs and Soaps

Every now and then, people like to feel pampered, and one way they can do that is by having a luxurious bath. Bath bombs and soaps made with natural ingredients are highly popular, and you can get many recipes online.

Once you get the hang of making them, you can start to experiment with your own ingredients to make them more individual. You may even find that you have a lot of fun making them, and your family can help.

Candle Making

Candle making has been a traditional industry for hundreds of years, and it still captures people’s imagination. Nice scented candles are popular, and they are relatively easy to make.

There are many guides out there, and you can use any scented oils you want to create your own versions. The other good part is that you can make them in many different shapes from long, tall ones to smaller round ones.

Having your own little business at home is a great way to make a little extra money and keep yourself debt free. The good thing with these ideas is that you won’t need to buy a lot of materials or equipment up front. It is also a good way to involve the family and make them part of your project. People will soon be asking for your products and generating you a little income.

The Importance of an Emergency Fund to Avoid Debt

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Apart from the saving strategies like the 365 Day Money Challenge we featured earlier, one way to avoid the negative impact of debt is to keep an emergency fund handy.  There are several economic reasons why people accumulate debt.  Some of these are overspending, having chronic medical problems or getting caught on the wrong side of economic downturns. However, for those finance fans out there, there is an answer to these problems.  That answer is an emergency fund.

Emergency funds – the basics.

Emergency funds aren’t rocket science – they are pretty much a pot of cash designated specifically for emergencies.

You need an emergency fund because life is unpredictable.  Accidents happen, cars break down, people don’t pay you, children cost more than you expect, etc. An emergency fund should be able to cover your expenses when an unexpected situation arises. The emergency fund should be easily accessible, so cash or equivalents like CDs or money market accounts are usually a good option.

There are typically several questions about emergency funds, so here are a few you may be having.

Should you keep emergency funds at home or in a bank?

The answer is: both. You should put your emergency funds in the bank and at home. The reason for doing this is to counter the potential of any systemic issues that may stop you from drawing money out in an emergency. While this isn’t something that will happen regularly, banks can and do go out of business.  While the FDIC protects your deposits, it can take time to get your money out of a bank especially if the bank is having problems or is under supervision.  Keeping some cash at home is additionally wise if you live someplace where natural disasters occur, such as the US States along the Gulf of Mexico.

How much should you keep at home versus in a bank?

The rule of thumb is to keep 50% of your emergency fund at home, and 50% in a bank.  If you have a substantial amount of money to keep in a bank consider looking at the banks Certificate of Deposit products to see if they are offering competitive rates.  Prevailing rates of interest are pretty small, but you may make a few extra bucks if you evaluate your options.

An alternative to banks is to keep your money in credit unions. Credit unions are non profit and are owned by the majority of their members, so you will often get a better deal than with commercial banks. The only disadvantage of keeping money in credit unions is that they have fewer branches. Therefore, if you want to use credit unions, make sure that they’re easily accessible from your home or via the internet.

How much should you have available?

Two to 5 months expenses. As previously mentioned, the emergency fund should be enough to cover your expenses.  But how long for? According to experts, it should be able to cover all of your expenses for at least two to five months. Think about the expenses you have for rent, food, electricity, and loans that you may be paying for each month. If you’re living alone or with a partner but you don’t have kids yet, then at least two months to cover your expenses should be enough. But if you have kids, the rule of thumb is that for every child that you have, you should add another month to your emergency fund. For example, if you have three kids, then make sure that you have at least five months of cash to cover your expenses.

What are the benefits of an emergency fund?

Emergency funds provide obvious financial stability but there are number of other advantages.  These are:

  • It helps build discipline.  You keep your cash in a separate account, which means its ‘out of sight, out of mind’ – so you won’t be tempted to spend it.
  • It prevents you from making bad decisions.  Getting short term cash is often doable, but at what cost?  Short term unsecured loans typically have high interest and fees. Going with these is often a bad idea from a financial standpoint.
  • Emergency funds reduce stress.  If you don’t have an emergency fund you are living a high risk lifestyle.  This is because you are betting on nothing happening to you.  This essentially means you are exposing yourself to chronic financial stress, which has detrimental psychological and health effects.

How emergency funds can fit within your investing plan

You can think of an investment strategy as a pyramid.  Usually pyramids have a strong base of low risk/high safety investments such as cash, certificates of deposit, money market shares, treasury securities or very safe stocks. Next in the pyramid are more risky investments such as riskier stocks, more volatile mutual funds or real estate.  At the very top of the pyramid are speculative investments like actively managed currency accounts, options and futures, direct investments in businesses, highly speculative stocks, etc.  As an aside, there tends to be more leverage in riskier assets, this is because according to the FXCM, leverage increases the profit potential of an investment.  Here is a very nice infographic from Transamerica which shows the main idea behind the investment pyramid.

Don’t put your emergency funds in high risk investments. There are a couple of reasons why you don’t want to have your emergency funds in higher risk investments. There are a couple of reasons why.  First, high risk investment can and frequently do lose money.  The last thing you need is to get caught in a situation where asset prices are declining and you need to take your money out.  Second, cash is more liquid than other assets.  Cashing out a CD or money market fund is often as simple as making a trip the bank, whereas selling stocks or bonds can take 2 or 3 days before funds are available.

As a final word of advice, don’t treat your emergency fund as something that can be used to pay for your credit card debt. An emergency fund should only be used in situations where are is an actual emergency.  If you don’t have an emergency fund yet, you can start now by putting a small portion of your salary away each month.  Savings challenges like the 365 Day Money Challenge or the 52 Week Money Challenge are great ways to get started.

Where To Go Next

Saving up an emergency fund is one important part of financial health. Another is managing the amount of debt you have. If you do have any debt, consider going with an outfit like Social Finance (SoFi) and refinancing. If you owe more than 10% interest it might be worth your time. Click the link here or go with the banner below to contact them.

For more of our great articles, consider reading these:

Use Paribus for Painless Savings
How Lauren Greutman Paid Off $40,000 of Debt
Yes, You Can Pay Off $137,000 in 7 Years
How To Dump Debt When You’re Behind On Your Bills

Image source: Transamerica.

Getting Out from Under Student Loans

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5 ways to pay off your student debt and start earning money

The cost of higher education has been soaring since the turn of the millennium. Already high, universities and colleges pushed the costs of schooling even higher and higher. Easily approved loans from the government allowed many people to go to college when a generation earlier couldn’t have afforded it.

Although this new paradigm offered many people the opportunity for schooling, the collective debt it generates has had a serious and detrimental impact on career and life-choices for the recipients. Staggering under a massive debt load, young people are getting out of college to find that available jobs don’t pay them enough to live and pay back their student loans.

Hard choices

Given the choice between living and paying back their debts, most people chose to live and worry about the future of their credit rating later, when they are making more money. Although understandable, this short-sighted view can irreparably harm your credit rating and make it more difficult to buy a home or a car, get a better job or get more education.

Finding a way to pay off your loans with the money you currently make and live comfortably should be your goal after graduating from college. You don’t want to do anything that will have harmful long-term effects but you don’t want to miss out on the joy of living in your early adulthood, either.

Long-term solutions

Unless you declare bankruptcy, which brings an entire new set of problems to your financial situation, you will be paying off your student loans for a long time. Setting up the best payment plan and ensuring the payments are made should be your first goal. Once you have that done, consider reducing or consolidating your loan payments to make it easier to do.

    • Chose the best loan repayment plan. There are multiple plans to pay off student loans. These plans range from set payments for ten years to a long-term plan that runs up to 25 years with debt forgiveness waiting at the end. Know what you are getting into before you chose a plan that is right for you.
    • See if your employer will pay off your student debt. It never hurts to ask. Paying off your student loans could be negotiated as part of your compensation package. By taking a lower salary, your company might be willing to pay off your loans.
    • Auto-deduct loan payments from your check. Online payments that automatically come out of your check won’t make your debt get paid off quicker, but it will make it easier to pay every month. If you never see the money going to the student loans, you won’t miss it when it comes to paying bills and living.

 

  • Pay off variable rate loans first. Currently, interest rates are low, some might say artificially low, and paying off loans with variable interest rates before those interest rates go back up will save you a great deal of money over the long term. A mere five to six percent increase can cause a great deal of financial hardships, even if your current payment plan is comfortable.

 

  • Consolidate your student loans. Consolidation won’t lessen your debt, but it will make it easier to keep track and pay your student debt. One payment versus multiple bills is why it’s best to consolidate your loans.

College loans are the first taste many of us have with credit and debt in our lives. The way you solve the problems of paying back those loans while living a comfortable life can either give you the confidence to keep a firm grip on your credit or ruin your credit for a long time.

No More Debt, 3 Radical Debt Reduction Strategies You Can Do

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You know the saying, “When you hit rock bottom the only way to go is back up.” I’m sure that this is where many of us begin our journey to becoming debt free. This is when you truly want to live a life with no more debt. What does rock bottom look like to you? Maybe you don’t really know how much money you owe in total because you are in denial about the whole thing. Every month you are making the same amount of money but you are short every single time. You are stressed out to the max that you are moody and snappy at everyone around you. Maybe you haven’t had a good night sleep in months because all you can think of is how you are going to pay all the bills. You wonder how the heck got to this point in the first place.

It seems so easy to get in these types of situations, yet so tough to get out of. That is why it takes drastic and radical changes to begin to dig yourself out of the hole that you created.

Here are 3 radical ways to dramatically reduce your debt.

1. Liquidate

Have you ever gone to a store liquidation sale? This is exactly what you need to do with your life. In this day and age, you have countless ways to try and sale items. If you have nicer items you can post on Ebay, apps like Poshmark, and even local Facebook groups. For everything else, you can have a huge garage sale and even try to sell to consignment shops too. Not only will this put major money in your pocket, but this will help clear the clutter from your life and give you more breathing room. Go through your house with the entire family. If you think you have a lot of “junk” guess again. Sometimes the junk is what other people are most interested in at garage sales. It’s worth a shot to try and sell everything you don’t need.

Many people even take drastic steps by selling their vehicle/s that are not paid of. Buying something cheap with cash and putting the extra toward their debt. Sounds pretty lame, until you realize you won’t have that huge care note hanging over your head every month, your car insurance will decrease too.

If you are really overwhelmed with your debt. Consider selling your home and get in a rental. See what your local housing market is doing. If you have been in your house for several years, you might have some equity built up. Even if you are paying a couple hundred less than your mortgage now you also won’t have to deal with house insurance and any maintenance issues that can put a dent in your monthly budget. If you downgrade to smaller square footage your utility bill can reduce drastically and other expense can decrease as well.

2. Cut Expenses to the Bone

Sit down and figure out all your bills you have for the month. What can be cut out? Cut cable completely or downgrade package, cut pest control maintenance. Monthly subscriptions are very popular. If you are signed up for several monthly subscriptions like razor clubs, IPSY, bark box, any magazine subscription, as well Netflix and Hulu. It’s time to cut them all. Even if they seem relatively inexpensive they do add up so serious cash. Don’t forget to cut out that gym membership as well.

If you have anything set up under a contract consider calling each of them and asking what the cancellation fee amount is. If it’s not worth to cancel and pay the fee ask them if you can drop your package deal to anything else less expensive until you can cancel. Call you credit cards to see if they can lower your interest rates. Lastly, this is also a great time to call your insurance company and shop around to see if you can get a better rate for home and car insurance rates.

Why do you want to cut all this out? Because you will be too busy doing step #3.

3. Bring in More Cash

After cutting out all items that you don’t need you’ve made a little bit of breathing room. Now, to really get the progress rolling you need to bring in more income. Many people opt for a second job or even start a profitable side business. Many people opt for a part time gig in the evenings and weekends like a grocery store, delivering pizza, clothing store, or a restaurant. If your family is keeping you from going out to the work force in the evenings and weekends you can also look into part time stay at home jobs. Just be sure to do your research before signing up for any jobs online. Make sure they are legit and that the company is legit. Also, keep in mind with some of these businesses the income is not immediate.

Another way to bring in more cash is to reduce your expenses.  A classic way to do this is to refinance your debt. There are a number of reputable companies which might be able to help.  A lot of these are pretty new, but they might be worth your time.  Here is a short list.

Lending Tree – Is a loan “supermarket” type of exchange.  The business pretty much links up borrowers and lenders in a single platform.  Its bigger than most of the lenders out there and can offer loans for all needs and credit levels.

SoFi Loans – SoFi is a new company, but they’ve been sucking up a lot of business due to having good rates and a low fee model.  These guys are definetly work checking out.

Above Loans – Above Loans is a totally new company, but they might be worth checking out to see if they are willing to offer you a below market rate.

Many times we try to look for quick fixes or to “cheat” our way through paying debt off faster. Yes, you can pay off debt fast, but it will be hard grueling work and require a lot of sacrifices. Not only sacrifice from you but from your family as well. Once you get some momentum and get the debt pay off rolling it will all be worth the sacrifice once you can live free from the shackles of debt.

Our Best Articles

If you want more practical resources for getting out of debt, consider our most popular articles:

Yes, You Can Pay Off Debt When You’re Behind On Your Bills
Ron and Thu Paid Off $137,000 in 7 Years
In Just 7 Years Alice and Scott Paid Off $200,000 In Debt
Save a Ton of Money With Paribus

What about you? What is the most radical thing you’ve done to pay off debt?