Here are those promised tips from the last post on how to help reduce the amount of money you have to take out in student loans.

Many students have the equivalent of a mortgage in student loans when they graduate. If they went to a fancy private school and financed it mostly through loans, the total cost of the loan can end up being a couple hundred thousand dollars.

You can see how discouraging it would be for a student, or their parents, to have this sort of debt burden when they are just starting out in life and should have a clean slate to look upon their future with promise and hope.

Some of the tips you can use to avoid coming under a heavy student loan debt burden and effectively reducing that income you get from that sweet new job :

1.) Wait a year to go to school after high school, and work and save up money. This will reduce the overall amount you have to get in loans to pay for your expenses while in school.

2.) Go to a local community college for the first year or two to live at home and save money, then go on to the two year school of your choice. This is what I did and it saved me a boatload of money and I only had to take out a very small loan which I paid off in five years after I took it out.

3.) Look into state colleges instead of the more expensive private colleges. Often times you can get the same education for much less cost.

4.) SAVE UP YOUR MONEY before you go. And this goes for parents who are going to help their kids pay for school as well. The more you save, the less in loans you have to take out, and the less debt burden you or your child will have after college.

5.) Look into taking online courses for your first year or two of a preferred college, to at least save on room and board if you are looking at a college that is far away. Sometimes the online courses may be less expensive than classroom classes, sometimes not. It depends on the school.

6.) Try for grants and scholarships. Of course, this means that you either have to have stellar grades or sometimes fit into a specific demographic to qualify, but who knows what you’re eligible for until you try. These grants and scholarships can significantly reduce your debt burden from student loans.

There are ways to minimize college student loan debt, you just have to be as smart as possible about the choices you make.

I know how there can be a sense of urgency to get a mortgage paid down. Especially when you look at those mortgage interest statements at the end of every year. And also when you look at the calculations that you’d almost rather not see that show the total amount of interest you would have paid the bank that gave you the home loan in the end, after you’d paid off the mortgage, assuming you’ve kept it for thirty years and not accelerated your payments. Believe me, I feel that pain.

I do, you see, because when we bought our home (first time home buyers, mind you), we did something that I sort of regret now. This was before all the financial and economic hoopla hit the proverbial fan, so they were giving out secondary mortgages so that if you didn’t want to lay down that large chunk of money as a down payment, you could essentially get another bank to loan you that money you would have used as a down payment.

The only trick is that since it isn’t the primary mortgage, and since they just know they can get away with it because they are offering you something you clearly need because you really want to buy the house and don’t have the full down payment, they charge usually a higher interest rate on these types of mortgage loans. It can be as high as a few points higher, and that adds up to QUITE BIT OF CASHOLA in the end, trust me!

Well, every time I look at that one bill, I cringe when I see how much my payments are dropping down the principal – which is pretty much nill, so it’s very tempting to throw every extra dollar we have at that mortgage. But there are other considerations when thinking about paying off a mortgage and paying your credit card debt off first.

First of all, even the worst home mortgage loan isn’t as bad as most credit cards when it comes to interest, so the credit card will almost always win out as being the first priority to pay off over a mortgage bill.

Second, you do get some benefits to paying out the hind quarters in interest on your mortgage. At least with this interest, you get to deduct it from your yearly taxes, thereby lowering your total taxable income (I’m not a tax professional, so I don’t know how it actually works, I just know that it helps us out a lot on our end of year tax payouts).

Usually, it’s no contest when deciding between credit cards and mortgages when figuring out which to accelerate payments on. When you consider also that credit cards are just old debt, and at least with a mortgage you are owning something that will increase in value eventually, it really isn’t even a question.

I remember when I was in a world of trouble just after college with a lot of high interest credit cards, which I always paid on time, but which I kept charging up, being new to credit cards and thinking it was almost like free money.

It wasn’t until after college that I truly realized this “free money” was actually a debt collar around my neck that would take years to pay off – something like 30 times the amount I actually charged on them for things like car repairs, meals, groceries and all kinds of other stuff college students can’t afford, was what I would actually end up paying in the end.

The true reality of it hit me, and I realized that I either had to get one large, low APR credit card and balance transfer everything over to that card, or I would end up having to get a debt consolidation loan. What I ended up doing actually was going to a debt management counselor, and getting a consolidation loan for a decent APR, which had me paying off all my cards, with a total of around $10,000 in debt, in five years rather than the thirty or more projected if I made the minimum payments!

You see, good credit cards are truly a great thing. If you know how to use them correctly. You MUST adopt a strict regimen of paying your credit balances off every month, or maintaining them so low that you never truly accrue a large balance if you are to have any hope of being debt free in life.

Consolidating your credit debt is a big decision. You should probably talk to a qualified professional in debt management or consumer debt crisis before you make any major decisions, so that they can take a look at every facet of your financial reality and make a decision or at least present you with the best decisions so that you can make the best one for your situation.

I made the decision to do it with a credit card consolidation loan because it was the only way I could see clear to actually get it all in one lump sum payment, where they would be able to help me pay it all off in a set amount of time, rather than me flailing to pay them every month, and still being discouraged when I saw that interest piling up every month, even though I wasn’t even using them any more!

I can say that as a young woman in college, and racking up a good ten grand in credit card debt – which meant a lot more to me ten years ago then it does now, I felt that I had no other choice than to go to a consumer credit counseling agency. I’m really glad I did, because they put me on a five year plan where they said I would be completely out of credit card debt within five years. To me, this was a huge load off. Free from the high interest, never ending balance of credit cards – forever!? It was a concept that was totally foreign to me.

Up until I was 21 or 22, when I seeked the help of a credit counseling agency, I was used to living with seeing the heart stopping bills every month that never seemed to go down no matter how much I would pay on them. I was used to paying several hundred, and still owing just about the same amount of money year over year. That’s what the whole credit card trap is, you never can dig out of it without paying it off every month because you don’t realize how much that concept of revolving debt is truly hurting your bottom line.

However, the problem is that most people use credit cards out of desperation. They live paycheck to paycheck, and when the paychecks can’t pay the bills, well, then the credit cards have to be pulled out, and all chaos breaks loose.

But what about these loans you get in the mail all the time? They seem to always promise that they will have your debt paid off for you, your mind eased, and your revolving debt door closed for good. However, some financial experts say that these loans aren’t usually a good idea. Why?

Well, because that great advertised rate you see is rarely available to you. That rate is usually that absolute best rate that they can offer anyone, and guess what, most people they send these mailings to don’t qualify for that rate. So, not only will you pay a higher rate, but also you may be subject to lots and lots of fees for them paying off your creditors.

Research has also shown that most people who consolidate their credit card debt end up in the same, or even worse, credit card debt in the next two years. They actually end up worse off, or at the same point as they were before they paid the credit cards off! If you are in really deep with credit card debt and just can’t see your way out, I think you might want to look into a counseling agency that can help you with your debt problems.

I have read a lot of books about getting rich financially, and they almost all have one theme which applies to all of us who were not born into money or had some exquisite twist of fate come our way where money basically just fell in our lap. Let’s face it, how many people does that really happen to anyways?

They are definitely the exception, not the rule. What I’m talking about here, is the vast majority of us who were not born with silver spoons in our mouths, and yet we have that drive, that desire to become financially free at an earlier age and to retire very comfortably. I categorize myself in that niche. I grew up in a household where we had food on the table, but my dad’s job was of a volatile nature, and when money was tight, there were a lot of arguments between him and mom, and their spending habits were different.

I never wanted money to come between me and my spouse like that, and I never wanted to be wondering where my next mortgage payment would come from. Hence, I started working my butt off to create extra income, and started saving, saving, saving.

The main theme running through these kinds of financial wisdom books about getting rich from nothing is that you can never “act” rich and spend money like stereotypically rich people do, but rather you have to be frugal and save your money if you are to have hopes of retiring with at least a million, or several million, in the bank when your day finally comes to enjoy those golden years with abandon.

Books like “The Millionaire Next Door” and “Stop Acting Rich!” are just a few of the common sense books showing people that the most common millionaires are self made, and they usually don’t go around spending money on things that are expendable and disposable like fancy cars, lots of expensive dinners, lots of expensive entertaining, and huge mortgages and lots of toys like boats and other expensive bit ticket items.

Instead, they say that the millionaire, which means that you have a million or more in the bank and also aren’t ridiculously in debt, is more of a quiet type millionaire, not spending on flashy items, but rather is more of a practical kind of person who pays themselvs first before paying for items and “things”. They put money away before they run out and buy stuff. It does take discipline, but it will put you on the road to financial freedom quicker than walking the walk fo a rich person and talking the talk, trust me, I’ve learned that myself!

Dave Ramsey has become quite a phenomenon these days. I first heard of him when a coworker told me she listened to his radio show a couple years ago. Before that, I had never actually heard his name and didn’t know what he did. Then I actually caught his radio show when I was flipping channels in my car one day, and he reeled me in, because I’m a sucker for anyone who knows a lot about how to stay out of debt, invest wisely, and not spend more than you make, which all equates to retiring with a lot more than what you would have without that knowledge.

One of my biggest fears is that when my fiance and I retire, which is a long way off for both of us since we are in our thirties, early at that, we won’t have enough money to sustain the same type of lifestyle we enjoy today. I don’t want to be one of those people who is disillusioned into thinking that I am going to be just fine when I retire and won’t have to live on foodstamps and scrape by, because I’ve seen that happen to too many people these days, especially with the economy going belly up over the last two years.

Dave Ramsey’s message is one of faith and common sense. He does mix religion in with his financial advice, which is fine with most of his followers since many of them do happen to be religious as well. I’m actually agnostic, and I didn’t really hear any faith talk when I tuned in, but then again I only turned in for a little while. What I heard was a guy who offered solid, very practical advice to people to stay out of credit card debt and really tame their spending habits so they could live a life that is free of anxiety inducing debt that seems out of one’s control, and avoid ever having to deal with bankruptcy as he did in his twenties when he was already a millionaire but had it all taken away.

All in all, Ramsey’s teachings offer ways for average earners to save as much as they can, donate where appropriate and give away to the needy since this is all part of the sort of karmic cycle of money, and also to pay down their biggest debts quickly and efficiently, and above all, not to spend more than you make, which means never living off credit cards, or making sure you pay them off every single month to avoid finance charges.

Sometimes, when I look at the plethora of goals I have for my financial future, as well as the many times conflicting goals that I have for things like home improvement, self improvement, vacations endeavors, business endeavors and other various goals that your need money to reach, I wonder how I’m ever going to prioritize them so that they can all get done within a reasonable period of time. It is hard for most people to prioritize their financial goals and other longings, unless they happen to be a millionaire many times over (just being a millionaire these days doesn’t seem to quite cut it).

I figured out that my timeline for one of my major goals was going to be five years. This timeline is fairly doable, since it has to do with paying off our secondary mortgage, the one we got to make up for the downpayment on our house since we decided to use the money we saved up for the myriad of furniture we needed to furnish our new home, plus the closing costs, etc. that we needed to pay to get in the home, hookup fees and so on and so forth.

I set this as a priority because paying this loan off will allow us to refinance our primary mortgage, which will save us thousands of dollars in mortgage interest over the years. I had to use another factor to determine this priority, and that was the additional savings in interest, so this goes to show that sometimes you need to use other factors in your decision making when determining which of your personal goals involving money in one way or another should go above the others.

In order to pay the additional principle on the home loan, we of course had to forego other goals, like putting a deck on our home, so that we could save money first rather than building more interest upon interest since we would have had to take out a home improvement loan to get this done. Another goal that came in place over our deck and other home improvement desires was to pay off some lingering credit card debt by consolidating and paying off several cards at once. By doing this, we saved all that revolving interest over several years, which puts us in a better financial position for the future.

When you make decisions about your goals, try to prioritize based on what is going to save you more money over the long haul, or what is going to allow you to put more money away for your future or for emergency savings and things of that nature. If you’re making decisions solely based on emotion, like taking that 5k vacation to the Pacific, then you could seriously regret it in the near future. Things like vacations feel great while you’re on them, but if you’re neglecting things at home, then the tension will just still be there when you get back, trust me!

I should have titled this one to “get and stay” out of debt, however I was a little worried that would be too lengthy a title for it to be read by anyone What I’m talking about is a recommendation by financial experts that of course is not doable for everyone by a longshot, but can certainly be done if one puts their mind to it and makes sure they stick to a budget and also at the same time make sure they are disciplined in putting away an immediate percentage of 50% of their pay.

50% is a lot! I’ll admit that, but if you have a business, or you do make a lot more money than you need for the basics, and tend to waste a lot of money on things like eating out a lot and taking a lot of vacations, this option is definitely a possibility for you. Some experts say that most people don’t have the discipline, but if they did, they could potentially be out of debt in much less time than if they took traditional ways out like consolidation, plus they would also be guaranteeing themselves in effect that they would never go into debt again since they are not spending anything that they don’t have in cash.

If you could live on 50% of what you make, not only would you be debt free very soon, but you would also eventually have a lot of money to invest for your future retirement, which means you’d be putting a lot more money into yeilding investments, and have more time for that interest to compound which means you have higher chances of retiring as a millionaire like most people need to these days just to make it by.

I know someone like this. He and his wife both made very good money and were naturally frugal and wise when it came to spending decisions. They both put away a combined percentage of 50% of their income because he had always expressed that he wanted to enjoy an early retirement, especially since his job involved a lot of travelling. Now, they have their first child on the way, and I’m not sure if they are going to be realistically able to keep up with putting so much of their income away, but they can certainly shoot for it.

My boyfriend and I live together. We do not share bank accounts as I personally do not believe that to be with someone, even married, that you have to share checking accounts, or even credit accounts. We do have our home we bought last year in both of our names, but even that is slightly split in that he is on one of the loans (we got two mortgage loans, it was the best way for us to go at the time), and not on the other because we had varying credit.

Which is funny because now he actually has better credit than I do, perhaps because my name is on the larger mortgage and that symbolizes a higher debt to income ratio for me, especially since I am partially self employed, which is typically a harder income to prove than a regular “salary” job. However, I digress. We both receive plenty of credit offers in the mail, ranging from special loans to balance transfer credit cards, to mortgage lines of credit that can be transferred into fixed rate low interest loans, but he still receives the bulk of the credit card offers.

Like I said, I think that even though I have a higher income and pay my bills on time every month, it is looked at as higher risk to extend more credit to me because of my debt ratio, so he does still get the bulk of the credit card offers. However, when do you know if it’s worth it to transfer a lot of outstanding revolving debt to a card that may be just the same thing pretty much after your introductory period is over? Well, it’s important to read the fine print on these.

Always go for something that says “fixed rate”, otherwise they “reserve the right” to change your APR terms on you any time, which can end up being the opposite of getting you out of debt, but instead steeping your further into it by increasing the interest you owe on your existing debt. Always have your calculator ready.

We’ve sat down and actually calculated, when the term is over, and how much you are paying for monthly payments, you are actually saving in the end on interest when taking on these deals, and sometimes you are better off just sticking with several balances on lower APR fixed rate cards rather than transferring it all to one card. Sure, it’s easier to make one payment a month as opposed to 2-5 payments to separate cards, but who cares when in the end you are paying more money for the luxury to do so?

My boyfriend and I live together. We do not share bank accounts as I personally do not believe that to be with someone, even married, that you have to share checking accounts, or even credit accounts. We do have our home we bought last year in both of our names, but even that is slightly split in that he is on one of the loans (we got two mortgage loans, it was the best way for us to go at the time), and not on the other because we had varying credit.

Which is funny because now he actually has better credit than I do, perhaps because my name is on the larger mortgage and that symbolizes a higher debt to income ratio for me, especially since I am partially self employed, which is typically a harder income to prove than a regular “salary” job. However, I digress. We both receive plenty of credit offers in the mail, ranging from special loans to balance transfer credit cards, to mortgage lines of credit that can be transferred into fixed rate low interest loans, but he still receives the bulk of the credit card offers.

Like I said, I think that even though I have a higher income and pay my bills on time every month, it is looked at as higher risk to extend more credit to me because of my debt ratio, so he does still get the bulk of the credit card offers. However, when do you know if it’s worth it to transfer a lot of outstanding revolving debt to a card that may be just the same thing pretty much after your introductory period is over? Well, it’s important to read the fine print on these.

Always go for something that says “fixed rate”, otherwise they “reserve the right” to change your APR terms on you any time, which can end up being the opposite of getting you out of debt, but instead steeping your further into it by increasing the interest you owe on your existing debt. Always have your calculator ready.

We’ve sat down and actually calculated, when the term is over, and how much you are paying for monthly payments, you are actually saving in the end on interest when taking on these deals, and sometimes you are better off just sticking with several balances on lower APR fixed rate cards rather than transferring it all to one card. Sure, it’s easier to make one payment a month as opposed to 2-5 payments to separate cards, but who cares when in the end you are paying more money for the luxury to do so?

All of us, at one point or another, feel like we’re going to lose it when it comes to paying bills, keeping track of what you’ve paid out to whom, and the sheer frustration that occurs when you simply don’t have enough to pay the bills, and it seems like you are constantly “robbing Peter to pay Paul” so to speak. I’ve been there, and I’m sure many of us can identify with these feelings of stress, and yes, sometimes even hopelessness when we know we are simply not brining in enough income to justify our way of life.

And yet, so many Americans are still living this way, living paycheck to paycheck, that is, and worrying about it only when they sit down to pay those bills they’ve accrued and realize that they’ve overspent for the month. You have to realize that if you’re paying so much in bills that you cannot put away any money for retirement or any type of interest bearing account, that you are simply spending too much and bring in too little income to be able to comfortably and justifiably be spending that much.

So many young couples and young people in general are finding themselves in this same unfortunate situation, and this is a large part of the reason for the recent housing slump and the “mcmansion” phenomena where young families think they need to keep up with the Joneses or buy the nicest items and furniture on the block so that they can keep up a more lavish lifestyle than what their income comfortably permits.

My advice to those who are living in this financial fastlane without the income to back it up is to seek the help of a professional financial analyst or counselor, and they will in turn force you to write down all expenditures and come up with an alternate budget so that you can begin saving the way you should be again. We all need help sometimes, and there are tons of excellent counselors who can help us budget our money and get our financial priorities straight when we can’t seem to get them straight ourselves.