How To Pay Off Student Loans

I get a lot of traffic to MyQuo.com from people looking how to pay off their student loans.  It is as if people think that there is some magical trick that will pay all of your education loans off for you.

There is no trick, no magic pill.  The only way to pay off your student loans is to pay them off.  The real question should be, “How do I find the money to pay off my student loans?”  Now that is a good question and if you are asking it, then you are on the right path.  After all, asking the right question is the first step to finding a solution to the problem.

Many people think that the problem is not having enough money.  The reality is that most people have enough money to pay off their bills.  The real problem is that they are spending too much money.  How much money are these people spending on clothes, Starbucks, eating out, clubbing, drinking, etc every month?  I’ll bet you that it is a significant portion of their budgets.

The #1 reason why people have a hard time paying off their bills is because they don’t live below their means.  They are so busy spending all of their money that they don’t have anything left to invest or to pay down their debts.  No amount of money is going to fix this problem.  The more money that comes in, more that goes out.

The solution to “how to pay off student loans” is just as easy as the problem.  People must learn to live below their means.  The first thing you need to do is create a budget.  You need to know where all of you hard earned dollars are going.  This is an essential step, so don’t skip it.

Once you have a budget, you should be able to identify areas that you can cut back on.  There will likely be a few areas when trimmed that will save you a couple hundred dollars a month.

Have you ever noticed that when a corporation begins to struggle they cut costs?  That is exactly what you need to do.  You need to cut costs.  If you start treating your finances like a business, you will be in good shape.

Make no mistake, the only way to pay off your student loans is to actually pay them off.  Trimming the fat in your budget is the quickest and easiest way to find the money to pay the debt off.  And after making your budget, you should find that the trimming didn’t hurt too much after all.

Written by admin on September 11th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Thinking About Money.

Don’t Let Inflation Bite You In The Rear

A few days ago I had my neighbor complain to me about the recent rent increase in our apartment complex.  The rent was increased from $1100 a month to $1125.  That $25 increase was preceded by a $25 increase 6 months ago.  From what I’ve seen, the rent has been systematically increased twice a year for $25 each time.

As he complained about how he cannot afford the increases in his budget, I couldn’t help but to think that this is his fault.  How is it his fault you ask?  Well, it’s his fault because he hasn’t planned for these increases in his budget.

Let’s face it, inflation is not going away any more than death and taxes.  In this case, the owner of the apartment complex has expenses just like everyone else.  The owner has bills, taxes, and employees to pay.  These expenses are going up for him, which means your rent to him has to go up to cover the increases.

As such, you must account for inflation in your budgets and retirement planning.  In America, the inflation rate is about 3%.  That means everything will get 3% more expensive every year.  Remember that nothing is safe from inflation.  Every single thing that you buy is going to cost more in the future.

What this should tell you is that you need to be making 3% more money every year to cover these increases.  Because if you don’t, you will find that you cannot keep up with your current standard of living.

There is a very important point here and you should be sure to grasp it.  You must always be growing your income streams to keep up with inflation.  I cannot stress this enough.  There are millions of Americans out there living on fixed budgets.  These fixed budgets are like having a bag with holes in the bottom.  They will only continue to shrink unless you refill them.

I constantly hear people complain about how their bills are going up.  I just accept it and know that I can pay for the increases because my income streams are increasing.  People would be much better off finding ways to make the money to pay the bills than by complaining about how high they are.

Written by admin on September 7th, 2006 with 3 comments.
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