What Was His Motivation?

The thing that motivated him the most to pay off the debt is the debt itself. He was unemployed after the degree and did not have a job suitable to his degree. He remained job less for 2 years and this caused a lot of tension for him. He went to depression and was not able to do anything, he was hopeless at times and the loan was causing him a great stress every day. He put the loan in deferment and started to think of the ways through which he could pay his loan that was causing him great stress. He started to work as a receptionist for $10 per hour for 10 hours a week. Apart from that he also took another job where he served as a waiter and got $11 for an hour but this job was only twice a week. With this low amount of money he was making his living.

How He Did That?

You will thinking about how he did that, let me tell you, he decided to cut all the expenses without which he could make a living. He only spent money on the basic necessities such as house rent, food and utilities and insurance. Apart from these expenses, he cut them down. He was a simple person with no styles so this plan worked for him. After that he also worked with more side hustles and earned more money, he knew about writing so he also started freelancing his skills and after some months he was able to bring in extra cash for himself. He put his surprise money to pay his debt, for example, any tax refund, bonus, gift or any money that was not expected was been put up to pay the debt.

From Whom He Got Help?

One of the motivation that my friend Jack got was from online blogs. He regularly searched for online blogs of those people who have been in the same situation as of him and paid off debt. This way he learned new tricks and methods through which he saved more money. He learned to live a happy and peaceful life without spending a lot of money. He successfully become a frugal person and maintained a happy life in no time by getting motivations from these blogs.

Biggest Issues He Faced?

One of the biggest issues that he faced was his low income, he said that he only earned $18,000 in a year after graduation and this amount was even not enough to make a living. So in the next year he started the challenge everything budget and cut down all the expenses and along with this he also worked hard to increase the income.

Which Job Did He Worked on?

The answer to this question is quite amazing because according to him he did not had a single permanent job and he worked for 2 to 3 part time jobs at the same time. He said that he did almost every type of job, he did not refused to any opportunity that can bring in cash. He worked in some side hustles and also some seasonal jobs which helped him to manage enough cash. Freelancing, coaching, teaching, bar tender and being a receptionist were his some of the jobs that he did for a longer period of time.

What was the Condition When He Got Debt Free?

It is obvious that it cannot be a better condition that being debt free and the same was Jack’s feelings. He said that his everything changed when he got debt free. He was able to save money for his emergency fund and apart from that he was also able to invest money properly. He was not facing any difficult times now and was stress free because he did not have to make a payment at the end of the month.
After this success, he was a different person, he felt a lot of change in his self, and his confidence was boosted. With this positive change he was able to conquer many other goals. So it helped him in the best possible way.

How Long It Took?

It only took 3 years to pay off the loan and after that it was a win situation for him. He said that he managed to pay the debt with a lower income and this was his biggest success of life.

What would you Suggest others?

The first thing you need to do is that you should calculate your priorities. Write down the things that are important for you and try to be strict with yourself as much as you can. Having a debt can cause stress in a thousand ways that you cannot imagine. After that you have made you mind and you are on the way to pay off your debt.

One of the most effective step was to cut down my expense, when I cut down expense it helped me to gather much amount and reduce the payment that I would have to pay as interest. I tried to pay as much payments as I can in a single month to reduce the debt amount. By adding more payment in to principal amount can help you pay the debt quickly.

Apart from that, let me tell you about his experiences of buying products. He always recommended me that I should buy things in bulk or when it is sale because it would help me to save money. But only buy those things which can preserved for a longer time and those that are used mostly. Try to use coupons and rebates apps, so that you could save some dollars every month.

What Should You Do?

If you are in the same condition as Jack was, then you need to take some serious steps to pay off the debt. You cannot live freely while you have debt to pay. The first thing you need to do is that you should calculate the amount of money that you owe to the lender. You can do this manually or by using some online portals. Then calculate whether you are making enough payments on time or not and if you are not paying it enough, try to increase the amount of money that you have to pay. Find new sources of income such that sign up for online survey sites and other get paid to websites to bring in extra dollars every month. You can use this money to pay off the debt more frequently. Try to refinance you loan to a lower interest rate if it make sense. Save money for an emergency fund and use online free tools and apps to manage the calculations well.

The post How to Pay off Debt on a Lower Income first appeared on FreebieRush.

Loan Forbearance is an action in which you stop paying your debt payment for a limited period of time or you can reduce the amount of money that you are repaying. This is mostly allowed with a federal student loan but in case of private loan it depends upon the company whether they allow the deferment period or not. As it is most common with federal student loans so we will discuss that in detail. Let’s start,

What is the Difference between Loan Deferment and Loan Forbearance?

There is a slight difference between loan forbearance and loan deferment that you must know. When you apply for a loan forbearance, you will not have to pay your monthly payments but you will still have to pay the interest only payments till the forbearance period ends. Otherwise the interest payments will be added in to your total amount of debt. You can get a loan forbearance for almost all kind of student loans.

In the case of deferment, you are sometimes allowed to not to pay anything even the interest amount. This does not happens in all cases, and in some cases of deferment you still have to pay the interest amount only. To get a deferment on your student loan, you need to have a federal loan and it is only allowed in some types of federal loans such as subsidized loans or Perkins loans.

So in the case of Loan Forbearance and some cases of deferment, you will still have to pay some amount of money, so you should keep that in mind.

Types of Loan Forbearance

Loan forbearance is of two types and generally there are of two types. First is the General Forbearance and the second is the Mandatory Forbearance. Both has its own rules, so it is better to be aware of,

General Forbearance

The first type of loan forbearance is general loan forbearance. In this case, you apply for the loan forbearance program if you fulfill certain requirements and then it is the loan provider company which decides whether you would get approved or not. It is all on the lender to decide and in this case you also need to fulfil some requirement. These requirements are that you should be having financial issues so that you are unable to pay the loan payments. Secondly, if the borrower has changed his or her job or the borrower has faced some medical problems.

In a general forbearance program, it is up to the wish of the lender to approve you or not and if you want to ask for this service, you need to contact your lender for further details. The company can also provide loan forbearance if there is any natural disaster.

You can only qualify for a general loan forbearance if you have a Perkins Loans, Direct Loans or a FFEL Loan. With these types of loans, you can get a loan forbearance for up to a time period of 1 year. You can also reapply for the loan forbearance if you still fulfill the requirements. With Perkins Loans, you can get a loan forbearance for a time period up to 3 years. While if you have taken a direct loan or a FFEL loan, then there is no limit for the time period of your loan forbearance.

The procedure of getting a loan forbearance differs company by company thus you can contact your service provider, if you fulfil the requirements of the program to get approved.

Mandatory Loan Forbearance

The second type of loan forbearance is mandatory forbearance. In this case, if you fulfill the requirements than it is mandatory to the loan service provider to grant you loan forbearance. This type of loan forbearance is provided to those people whom student loan payment is more than 20% of their monthly income. You can get this type of loan forbearance if you are teaching and there is teacher’s loan forgiveness program for that position, if you are in a medical or dental program, if you are a National Guard current employ that is not eligible for military deferment, if you are a current member of Americorps for which you had received National Award or if you qualify for the U.S. Department of Defense Student Loan Repayment Program.

This type of loan is offered on wider options and you can apply for that easily. You will get approved if you fulfill the requirements and the company is ought to do that. In the case of Mandatory forbearance, you can only get one year of forbearance period at a single time. After that 1 year passes and you still fulfill the requirements then you can reapply for the loan forbearance again. This process will continue till you are eligible for the program and you can apply again and again after the 12 month forbearance period ends.

Is Forbearance Worthy For You?

This is the question that you need to ask yourself before you apply for a loan forbearance program because there are advantages and disadvantages of loan forbearance. Sometimes it is good to get a forbearance but you are increasing your time to pay the loan that will increase the amount of interest that you have to pay.

When you want to apply for a forbearance, ask yourself a question that whether do you really need this or is there any other solution for this? Loan forbearance is not a permanent solution to your problems so if you are facing temporary issues that you can take care off in the future then you should look for this solution, otherwise you should look for other solutions.

To explain this, let me give you an example, suppose if you are area is facing a natural disaster and you are also a victim of this, then this could be a better solution. But if you are facing an issue of your job like you cannot find a job with a sufficient income and you are not able to pay the loan payments then loan forbearance may not be a good solution for this. If you have a medical issue that stops you from doing two jobs at a time or if you have any kind of financial issues then you should not consider loan forbearance on the first priority. I will tell you about some of the ideas that can help you in this regard,

Recheck your budget

If you are facing financial issues, then you should try the Challenge Everything budget. This budget will help you to cut any useless expenses. Go through your budget and find anything that you can cancel, like there are memberships that you are not using, so you should cancel it out. For example, you can cancel your gym membership or your cable TV subscriptions because there are free alternatives for them that you can use.

Consolidate your Student Loan

One of the best way to save money on student loan is to refinance your student loans. Refinancing your loan can help you to pay a lower monthly payment and a lower interest rate. This could be a benefit you a lot. There are many online companies and banks that can help you get a lower interest rate than the one you are already paying. This simple trick will help you to repay your loan faster than you have thought and you can be soon debt free.

Bring-in Extra Income

If less income is the only issue then you should try to find other resources through which you can earn extra money. Bring-in extra income every month can help you in many ways and you can pay your debt on time. The best thing about these side hustles is that there is no limitation in many of these and you can work whenever you want. You can also take more than one side hustle at a time.

Side Hustles are easy to do, if you have a car, you can drive it Lyft or Uber to make a living. These companies provide you a platform where you can work according to your own schedule and convenience. If you do not want to work with these companies, you can also use your car to deliver products with companies like Doordash or Amazon.

You can also freelance your service and skills in the free time you have and you can also start you own business in which you can work after your primary job. You can start as a baby sitter or a pet setter or even by walking dogs.

Conclusion:

So these are the pros and cons of loan forbearance and deferment that you should know. Now you would be able to find an appropriate solution, if you are facing issue in paying your loan payments. Do comment in the section below and let us know if you have any queries regarding the solution because we would love to hear from you.

The post The Student Loan Forbearance Guide – Is it worth it? first appeared on FreebieRush.

There are many benefits of paying your mortgage early and it can bring a lot of peace of mind when you are debt free or buy a house without a mortgage. You can have more money to save, you can invest more and you can start a new business. If you think that paying off debt early cannot help you then let me give you an example, if you have taken a mortgage of amount $150,000 for a time period of 30 years at an interest rate of 4.2% and you are paying it monthly then if you complete that in 30 years, you would have paid $114,069 in debt that makes the total amount $265,069. Suppose you took the same mortgage for a time period of 15 years with an interest rate of 4.0% and paid it in 15 years than at the end of 15 years you would have paid $49,715 in debt. Thus you can save an amount of $64,354 if you pay it off early. It is a huge amount if you can save it. So let’s start, so that we could pay off the mortgage early,

1. Make your Plan

The first thing you need to do is to make your plan, you cannot travel to a destination if you do not know the way. So the first thing you need to do is to set your goals, make your plans so that it could be easy for you. By making a financial plan, you will in line your expenses with your future goals and you will be able to save more money this way. You need to mark your financial goals and write down what are the important things that you want achieve that is basically that you want to pay your mortgage early. After that you will have to create a budget and track your expenses. You will have to make a challenge everything budget to put the maximum money for your mortgage monthly payment. Try to eradicate your expenses as much as you can, so that you could save the maximum amount for your mortgage amount also try to stick to your budget so that you do not face any difficulties.

Try to find extra income source and put all your money to pay your mortgage. This will help you to save more in future.

2. Refinance your Mortgage

One of the best way to pay your loan of any type is to refinance that loan. By refinancing, you can get a lower interest rate than the one you are already paying and you can also have a lower monthly payment than the previous one. Refinancing is sometimes not recommended but I would say that it can help you a lot even if you have less time remaining to pay the mortgage.

If you are paying your mortgage on a high interest rate and you got 10 to 15 years remaining to pay the loan then you should consider refinancing you mortgage to a lower fixed rate because this would help you to save some thousand dollars in a year. A simple step saving some thousand dollars is worthy at all. Let me give you an example, suppose you have to pay $150,000 in 10 years at a rate of 5.0% and you refinance it to a lower rate of 3.5%, in this case, you would simply save $12,923 for the time period of 15 years.
So refinancing is worthy and you should compare the rates of your lenders with other companies to find a lower rate.

3. Additional Principal Payment

If you want to pay your debt fast, then is one of the important step to take. When you will pay extra amount of money every month on your mortgage then this would help you to reduce the payoff time. To calculate the extra payment you need to pay to reduce the time you can use online mortgage calculators. Go to a website you like and then find the mortgage calculator, on that page put your mortgage details and your monthly payments with the left amount. After that put the same information with a lower time period, this will tell you the difference between the interest amount that you will have to pay and it will also tell you about the principal payment that you need to make to pay it early.
So add the saved money from your budget in to your principal payment and pay more money in the form of principal payment so that you could save the interest money. Make sure you tell your bank to put the money as an additional principal payment because sometimes they add it as a future payments that is not useful for your goal. Thus paying an extra amount every month will help you to pay off the loan earlier. Refinancing your mortgage will require some hard work to be done by you and you will have to go through some companies but taking this step will help you to overcome it.

4. Make an Extra Payment

Another simple step that you can take to pay off your mortgage early is that you should make an extra payment every 6 month that would be equal to your principal monthly payment. By this you will pay 2 extra payments in the year and if you have a mortgage of 20 years then you would pay it off in 17 years and 2 months and by this you will also save almost 3 years of interest money payments too. This is an simple step that you can help you to lost almost 3 years along with other steps, you can make a great change.

5. Increase your Income

This is one of the most important step to take if you are facing any financial issues. If you cannot make enough money to pay your mortgage money and if you want to increase the amount of money you pay monthly then you should try to increase your income. There are many side hustle ideas that you can use and bring in extra money every month. There are many side hustles from which you can choose from and one of the best thing about them is that you can work according to your convenience.
For Example, you can work as a virtual assistant, you can mow lawns, deliver pizzas, deliver groceries, become a handy person on Task Rabbit, become a server at a restaurant, drive with Uber or Lyft, deliver products with doordash or Amazon, become a baby sitter or a pet sitter, you can also walk dogs and you can also freelance your skills to earn more money. Apart from all these ideas, you can also offer your service to people. Hence the list of jobs is endless and you can take the one that suits you the best.
If you do not to go into jobs and you have extra space in your home then you can earn money by renting you space out on AirBnb. This site will help you find potential customers that are looking for a place to live cheaper than the traditional hotels. So you can also make a good deal from it.

6. Use Unexpected Money to Pay Mortgage

This is one of the steps that are mandatory if you want to pay off your mortgage earlier. By unexpected income I mean to say that any income that you did not knew about. For example, if you get a bonus from your employer or if you get a tax return from your government, then you should use this amount to pay off your mortgage. You should put all the amount in the principal payment that month so that you could pay more and end it quickly. Your unexpected money may also include your annual raise, because you can easily make a living in the amount of money that you were getting and you can put the raised income in to mortgage principal payments. Apart from these, your gifts, the cash you receive in the form of gift, inheritance money, overtime money and any other cash that you forget are considered in unexpected money and you should put this amount in to your principal mortgage payment.

So these were some of the ideas through which you can pay your mortgage earlier. By using more than one idea at a time, you can make a good deal. Do comment in the section below and let us know if you have any queries regarding the article because we would love to hear from you.

The post 6 Ways to Pay Off Your Mortgage Early first appeared on FreebieRush.

1. Credit Sesame

Credit Sesame is a financial company that provides loans and monitors credit and is in business since 2010. One of the best thing about the company is that you can avail credit monitoring for free. There are other features that you can use by buying a paid package. This company helps you to automatically update your credit score every month. You can get a free insurance of 50 thousand dollars of identity theft when you join the company.
If you are simply looking for Credit monitoring, then this can be a good platform but if you want to use extra features you can simply pay them to enable new features. You will be notified for any type of suspicious activity that can hurt your credit score.
If you are a victim of theft, fraud, Forgery, Data Breach and identity theft as a user of Credit Sesame then you can overcome the loss with an amount of 50 thousand dollars that will be paid in terms of insurance.
The company provides three different packages apart from free credit monitoring. The first one is the advanced credit in which you have to pay $9.95 for a month and the second one is the Pro Credit in which you have to pay $15.95 for a month. In both these packages the amount of insurance of identity theft has increased in to a million dollars. These two programs will help you to monitor all the three credit bureaus but it is not the best option if your issue is identity theft. The Last package is the Platinum Protection Plan in which you have to pay $19.95 for a month and in this amount you get a lot of security. You get monitoring for public records, black market website and social security number. This is the best package if you are a victim of identity theft and now you want to overcome it and live a peaceful life.
The company has many benefits but the main reason to use this company is the free identity theft protection of 50 thousand dollars with a free TransUnion Credit Score.

2. MyFICO

FICO is financial services company that calculates your credit score and this company is the most famous among all the lenders as almost everyone considers FICO credit score as legit. MyFICO is the by-product of FICO companies and you can use this to see and monitor your FICO credit score. If you use this company, this will help you to see the score that the companies will see when they will see when they will pull your credit report. You can have access to 10 different types of FICO scores every month because every company gets a score of its own kind.
MyFICO has different plans, we will go through some of these. The first package is the FICO Basics 1B and that costs only $19.95 for a month. This plan is for the people who want to monitor your credit score from one bureau and you get an update of your credit score every month. The plan also include million dollars insurance in case of identity theft and you can access to free support whenever you want.
Another package that you can take is the FICO Ultimate 3B in which you have to pay $29.95 for a single month. In this package you will get updates every 15 days about your credit score and credit report. Along with the other packages your credit score will be monitored from all the three bureaus. Another package is the FICO Ultimate 3B+ in which you can monitor your credit for dark web and all the bureaus. Apart from that you get all the benefits that are in the above packages. But here you will get only monthly updates from the company. The FICO Ultimate 3B+ costs only $39.95 for a month.
This company comes with many benefits and one of the best is the theft insurance of one million dollars. This provides a piece of mind and you can focus on your other goals. Other than that the dark web monitoring tool is also one of the things to look at.

3. MoneyTips

One of the companies to monitor your credit is MoneyTips and help peoples to get out of debt easily. This company is one of the best when it comes to building up credit and along with that you can monitor your credit. The company offers three different programs and you can take any of them according to your needs. The first plan is free and the other costs $22.95 and $29.95 for a month respectively. You will get all the advices in details through which you can get out of debt fast and build up your credit.
In the free plan that is termed as the Essential Plan you can get free credit score update and credit report every month. You can also get free texts alerts and if you are victim of identity theft then you will also get a free advice to recover it. In the 2nd plan in which you have to pay $11.95 per month. You can enjoy the free 7 day trail of this version, in this package you can get all the facilities of the above package and along with that you also get alerts on Social Security Number and court record monitoring. One of the benefits of this package is that it comes with a million dollars theft insurance. The last plan known as the Elite Plan in which you have to pay $24.95 for a month. In this package your credit score is monitored from all the 3 credit bureaus. Every type of alerts in texts and emails and along with that this package has a credit score simulator and score tracker.
You can choose the package according to your needs and its worth spending the money because you get peace of mind.

4. Credit Karma

This company is in business since March 2007 and has over 700 employs. This finance company helps people to monitor their credit score for free. Yes for free, this company helps you to monitor your credit for free. You can have a free report and a credit score in the start whose information will be verified by Equifax and TransUnion. The credit score that you receive from this site is not widely used by the companies but this could be a good way to judge your score and to take a quick judge of what to do next.
On Credit Karma, you can monitor your credit reports for errors and you can also check for accounts that does not belong you. The company works effectively and you will be notified whenever a new change take place. For example, you will be notified if a new account is added on your report. Along with these facilities, the company also provides free data breach monitoring.
The company is termed as one of the best because they provide free data breach, tracking for stolen passcodes, free alerts, free access to credit score and you can also get free credit report from Equifax and TransUnion.

So these are the some of the companies that you can use to monitor your credit score. These companies are one of the easiest way to keep your credit score up to date and secure. Monitoring your credit can help you to stay away from all kind of identity thefts. So it is legit to use them. Do comment in the section below and also let us know if you have any queries because we would love to hear from you.

The post 4 Top Companies to Monitor your Credit first appeared on FreebieRush.

Reverse Mortgage

If you know what a reverse mortgage is then, let me tell you about this. Reverse mortgage is basically a process that allows you to have equity on your home. But this loan is kind a different from others equity or credit loans as you do not have to pay any payments to payback the amount. You can still live in the house with all the freedom. So if your home is worth a huge amount, then you can apply for a reverse mortgage and if you get you will be able to receive lump sum payment of your home value or you can take an amount on monthly basis to make a living. But to qualify for these loans, you need to fulfill some requirements such as you should completely own the house and secondly you must be more than 62 years of age.

The loans were introduced by private companies in the 1960s and after the 80s the loans were also introduced by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development as HECLs loans. The loans that are administrated by the Department of Housing and Urban Development are insured by the Federal Housing Administration. There are some scams related to reverse mortgages so it is always advised that you should only take loans form those lenders which are approved from FHA.
This type of loan is best for those people who have failed to make a retirement fund or those who do not have any money left. This program can help them make a living without worrying about the repayment plans. But as I said that this may not be the ideal case for everyone, so let see what advantages this loan can bring in.

The Pros of Reverse Mortgage

As I said that reverse mortgage has its own ups and downs for every person so let us analyze the pros of reverse mortgage. One of the biggest benefit of a reverse mortgage is that it can become a source of income for you if you are in an older age. Every person that retires need some amount to fulfil their needs, the amount they get from Social Security Program is not enough to make a living. If you were good in your finances than you would have made a retirement plan or you would have some source of pension. But if you were not that good at your finances than you it could be curtains for you because there is no income source for you now. The solution to this problem is reverse mortgage, you can go for equity on your home and then you can get a source of income for yourself. Financial experts always suggest that reverse mortgage should be your last option. If you have a 401k or any other retirement or investment account, you should use that money. After that when you have no other option left, then you should go for a reverse mortgage.

Another benefit of a reverse mortgage is that when you have a reverse mortgage, it enables you to live in the same house. Living in your own home also have expenses, such as you have to pay the property tax, community fee and insurance etc. Paying all these charges without a proper source of income is very difficult but if you have a reverse mortgage, it would pay you an enough amount in which you will be able to pay the charges and also make a living. By this way you can stay at your home and keep it on your own name while you get cash from it.
One the biggest benefit and the reason of choosing this loan is that you do not have to pay it back. When you have a mortgage loan, you definitely pay it back and you have monthly payments with interest. However, when you have a reverse mortgage, you do not have to pay it back. For example, if your house got a total of $180,000 payment. You will have that amount completely and you can stay in the house for as long as you want. After you move out or pass away, the company sells the house to recover the loan. You do not have to pay any money in fee or interest and all the fee is added in to loan balance.

You have the choice to choose the way through which you want to receive your cash, you can either have a lump sum payment at once or you can also set up monthly payments. If you want to make a living then monthly payments are the best option or if you have some large expenses to pay then lump sum is the best option. You get the lump sum with a fixed rate and the monthly payments with variable interest rates. You can have your payments in 5 different terms, firstly you can get equal payments as long as you stay in the house or alive. Secondly, you can get fixed amount of monthly payments for a specified period of time. The third option is that you can keep the money and access it whenever there is a need of cash. You can use third option with the other two options combine as you can receive money on monthly basis and can a have access to the total amount whenever you want.
Apart from these benefits, reverse mortgage also have more benefits and one of them is that you will receive the money tax free and you will not have to pay any kind of tax as the amount is considered as a loan and you can spend the money wherever you want because there is no restriction. Apart from that you will not face any consequences of the loan as you cannot get more money than the value of your home.

Cons of Reverse Mortgage

There are also some disadvantages of reverse mortgage. One of the disadvantage of reverse mortgage is that they equity money is your own money and it does not make sense on paying interest and fee on your own money. There are cheaper ways to have access to your cash, such that you can put your money in to a 401k or IRA account, in this way you can invest money and could earn money on that.

Another drawback of reverse mortgage is that it could be expensive, when you will calculate the expenses of the loan, you will be amazed to know that how much it costs. As you do not have to pay any repayments in the process but still there are some costs that you need to pay. The rates you get in a reverse mortgage are much higher than the traditional mortgages. Apart from these high rates, the origination fee, the mortgage insurance premium, the closing cost, the appraisal fee and the service charges makes up a big amount that you have to pay at the end.
It is not like that that you will not pay the loan back, although it allows you to stay in your home while you have the loan but when you move or die, the bank sells your precious property that you have gained by working so hard. If you face any medical issues, in which you have to do a long time treatment, then you will have to sell the house and repay the bank in one year of that time. If you have other people living in your home and you have a reverse mortgage, after your death, other people will be forced to move out as the bank will acquire the place.

Reverse mortgage can cause a big loss to your children because when you will die, the bank will sold the house you have so definitely your heirs will loss an asset that once belonged to them. Your heirs can repay the loan if they can and save the home but it is difficult in most of the cases as the amount owed by the deceased person is higher so it becomes difficult. Also sometimes the amount increase from the property value and your heirs have to pay them from their money.

Conclusion:

So these were the pros and cons of a reverse mortgage, if you have children than you should not consider mortgage. You should only consider this loan when there is no other choice left to get money as it is costly. Do comment in the section below and let us know how much you gained from this article.

The post The Pros and Cons of Reverse Mortgage first appeared on FreebieRush.

Which Loan Is Better?

Today we will find out that which loan is better, according to a stat, people who have variable rate loan pay less amount of interest money than people with a fixed rate loan. But this depend on a number of different factors.
One of the factors to keep in mind is the time that it will take to pay off the loan. It has a significant impact on the amount of money that you will pay in interest. Another factor to keep in mind is the current interest rate environment because interest rates has increases widely in the past few years. The interest rates have increase from 3.31% to as high as of 18.61 in the last 5 decades.

Interest rates depends upon a number of different factors, firstly the fed fund rates are set by the Federal Reserves that plays a vital role in setting up variable and fixed rates. Banks and investors priorities also decides the interest rates, thus these three forces have the main hand in setting up the interest rates.

If you know the right information, you can easily choose the best loan term for yourself, so let get in depth of these loans so that it could be easy for you.

Fixed Rate Loan

Fixed Rate Loans are simple and easy to understand, these are the loans in which the interest remains the same until the loans ends, even if there is an increase in the interest rate in the market, it will not affect your payment and you will pay the same percentage for the whole of your loan. Most of the loans in the past were of fixed rate loans. We can get fixed rate loans from all type of loans such as car loan, mortgage or a student loan.
If the rates are rising then the best decision to take is to take a fixed rate loan because that will keep the same rate for the whole time period of the loan and you can easily calculate the amount of interest that you will have to pay. But if it is the opposite of the above picture and the rates are gradually decreasing, then if you have a fixed rate, you will be paying more money than others in the town because you will be still paying the old fixed rate. The solution to this is refinancing but this is not the best decision every time as you have to pay an application, origination fee or the closing cost sometimes. Thus you need to calculate carefully before you can refinance.

The duration for which you are taking a loan and the type of the loan plays a vital role in determining that whether a fixed rate will be more preferable or a variable rate for yourself because a longer time loan will have a different impact than a shorter time loan. So it is better to do the calculations first.

Variable Rate Loan

Floating Rate loans or variable loans are not that easy to understand like fixed rate loans. These loans come with a lower rate than of a fixed rate loan but the rate change with the market fluctuations. The amount of money you will have to pay in interest will depend on the interest rate at that time and it will change with time. So you cannot calculate the fix amount that you will pay before the time. The change in interest rate only effects on your remaining balance and you only pay on that.
There are different kind of variable loans, so make sure you know, which one you are choosing. The rate fluctuate because these kind of loans follow a banking index. The rate changes monthly when-ever banks borrow money from one another on their desired rates. As the rate changes monthly, so it will change the amount of money you will have to pay monthly every month and also change your expected interest amount.
The rate indexes are published by third parties and if you are going to take a variable loan rate, than make sure you know which index is being followed by your lender. In some cases, the lenders puts up a limit on the rise of interest rate and the rate does not increase from that specific rate even if it increasing in the market. Having this facility on your variable loan can help you from many issues.

Which type is better in Mortgage loans?

Mortgage loans are one of the important loans of your life because it can change the course of your life for the upcoming years. So taking the best possible type of loan is important. When you want to take a mortgage, study the interest rate fluctuation of the last ten years, it will give you a complete picture of the ups and downs of the interest rate.

If the rates are lower than the past, then it is better to get a fixed rate loan because it will keep you to a lower interest rate for the course of the loan. If the rates are higher than the past, then it is better to get a variable rate loan and you can refinance that loan when you get a lower mortgage loan. When you buy a home on variable rate loan then it makes it more comfortable in the first year because they have less monthly payment and a lower interest rate than a fixed rate loan. Variable loans are also preferred if you want to stay in the house for a shorter period of time and then you have plans to sell it.

Which type is Better in Student Loans?

Student loan can change your financial picture in the crucial years of your life so it is important to get the best loan in this category. Student loans are of basically two types, federal loans and private loans. Federal loans are fixed rate loans and they come with a lot of facilities. You can have payment plan according to your income, you can apply for forbearance or deferment program and you can also apply for loan forgiveness program if you are eligible. So it make sense that your first priority should be federal loans because there is no such facilities in the private loans.

Private loans could of both fixed rate and variable rate and if you are unable to get a federal loan then the only option you have is the private loan. A variable rate can help you save money in the start but it will go up after sometime so if you want to enjoy in the start, then you should get a variable rate loan. Before you get a loan, make sure you check the rules and regulations of the loan first because once you agree with the terms, you will have to repay accordingly.
Student loans are becoming a problem in the US in the recent years. Students are getting graduated with a huge debt on their shoulders and it is getting difficult for them to repay the loan and start their professional life at ease. So it is better to a get a federal student loan.

Which One to Choose?

When you want to take loan, there are two factors to keep in mind before you decide to take a fixed or a variable rate loan. The first one is your financial situation and the second one is the condition of the market. We cannot say that one is the best or one is better than the other, which one is better one for you will completely depend upon your financial picture.
When you have a fixed rate loan, then there is no chance of increased payments and you will pay the same amount for the course of your loan while if you have variable loan, you will enjoy some savings initially but you will have to be prepared for the increase in rate sometimes.

Conclusion:

So I have gone through the ups and downs of the fixed and variable rate loans and now it is up to you to decide for yourself. Make sure you calculate it right and guess the market fluctuations so that it could end up in a win situation for you. Do comment in the section below and let us know if you have any queries regarding the article because we would love to hear from you.

The post Which is Better: A Fixed Rate or a Variable Rate Loan? first appeared on FreebieRush.

This type of loan is made in such a way that the amount of money owe increases dramatically and you can’t afford it. Although some states have make laws on setting a limit of fee on this type loan but still according to a report of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, if you take a loan for 2 weeks on a fee of $15 per $100, it is equal to an annual PR of 400%.
If you compare a credit card debt with a payday loan. Credit card debt is a much better option than a payday loan because a credit card debt comes with an annual percentage rate of 10% to 35%. Thus a credit card loan is much better but of course a loan is still a loan so you should not consider it.

So, we were talking about payday loans, if you have a payday loan it is difficult to get out of it easily. There are some genuine ways through which you can pay off your payday loan.

1. Refinance with a Personal Loan

You can save thousands of dollars by simply refinancing your loans. You can refinance your student loan, personal loan or mortgage loan to get a lower interest rate on the loan you have. As payday loans are only for a short period of time so it would not make sense to refinance it with a payday loan again. So to get rid of payday loan, you can refinance your payday with a personal loan. A personal loan has a much lower interest rate in comparison to the payday loan. In order to get a personal loan on a lower interest rate, you will need a fair credit.
You can take a personal from different platforms but before taking a loan make sure you read the terms and conditions well. So that you won’t face any surprises if you fail to pay any payment.

2. Take a Side Hustle for a Short Time

Getting out of payday is not much easy as I have told in the start that it is like a drug which you have to take again and again to get rid of the previous one. But do not worry, you will be able to get rid of a loan easily after reading the article. We need a payday loan because we are not able to meet end in the money, so we have two choices if we want to get rid of payday loan. First is to get extra income and the 2nd one is to reduce the expenses. I suggest both of them at the same time so that you could also save money for your future. Both of the solutions are not as easier but if you do some hard work it will be worthy. You won’t be able to save much money by cutting expense as you would by increasing your income.

There are many side hustles and ideas that you can use for a short time to increase your income. The simplest way which does not requires much work is selling your extra stuff. If you have anything extra in your home that you do not use, just sell it. Follow the simple rule, sell everything that you have not used in the past 6 months. You can use online selling platforms like Craigslist, Decluttr and Facebook Marketplace etc.
You can also work overtime with the company you are working with. This will enable you to bring in extra amount of cash every month. If your company does not have any overtime policies then you can take a part time job. This would be bit difficult but you can make a good deal for yourself if you consider a part time job. If you cannot get a part time job, you can take a side hustle, there are many side hustles that allow you to work whenever you want and as much as you want. If you have a car, you can drive it with Uber or Lyft to make some extra cash. You can deliver groceries with DoorDash or other companies or you can also delivers pizzas. Thus you can do any type of job to make extra income to get rid of your payday loan.

3. Extended Payment Plan

You will be amazed to know that you can get an extended payment plan from your lender even on your payday loan. There are some lenders that allow borrowers to get an extended program for payment. If your lender allow you to get this program, than you would be able to break the payment in installments for an extended period of time without paying any additional fee.

If you are thinking about applying for this program, then the 1st thing you need to do is to calculate the maximum amount of money that you can pay to your lender. After you figure out the maximum amount, you can talk with your lender so that you can take a program which you can pay on time. Before you finally sign on your EPP, make sure you read all the term and conditions carefully.
Keep in mind that not all the lenders allow you to take an extended payment plan and if your lender refuses you to provide you an extended payment plan then you should try to negotiate with your other lenders. Auto and personal loans can be rescheduled if you are having any financial issues.

4. Payday Alternative Loan

Not every time you need to get a payday loan to meet ends, there are also some alternatives for this. If you are a credit union member, you can take an alternative payday loan from Credit Union. The federal credit unions can offer a loan to a maximum amount of $1,000. Although there is a little fee for this alternative loan that could be up to $20. There are certain requirements that you need to fulfil before you can get a loan and that is that you must be a member of a credit union for at least one month.
The loans you get from a credit union are easier to pay than a payday loan because these loans have a longer time period to pay the loans. You can get a maximum of 6 months’ time to pay off the loan. Thus this an easy way to get rid of the payday loan that you have and to avoid the next loan that you would probably have to take.

5. Take Help from Friends and Family

One of the methods to get rid of pay day loan is to get help from your friends and family. You can take a loan from your friends on a much lighter terms than a payday loans companies. When you take a loan from your friends and family, it has its own issues but it could be much better than a payday loan. You can set your terms and conditions with your lender friend or family person, also set the repayment time and payment schedules. This would help you to treat the loan as of the same important as you take the others loans. If you set the terms and conditions, you will easily pay the loan on time and you will not face any consequences.
This could be an easy way to pay off the payday loan and manage the next way in a way that you will not need a payday loans again.

So these are some of the methods through which you can get rid of the payday loans. Although some methods are again taking you in to a different kind of debt but that debt will come with less issues than of the payday loan. So it is sometimes better to take another loan instead of a payday loan and of course you can easily pay these type of loans. After paying your loans, cut your expense and save money for yourself, so that you will not end up again in a payday loan. Do comment in the section below and let us know if you have any queries regarding the article because we would love to hear from you.

The post 5 Legal Ways to Get Rid of Payday Loans first appeared on FreebieRush.

So today I thought that I should share some of the best blogs that can help you tackle your debt. There are many finance companies that can help you in this regard and a lot of platforms that you can use. Debt blogs are written to help people, so you would find them frequently. Other than that you will see blogs about financial independence and to retire early. You will learn a lot from these, so starting from the 1st blog,

1. Money Peach

Chris Peach the founder of Money Peach is one of the best financial writers. This website has become a place where people have gained a lot of confidence to pay off their debt. You will be amazed to know that Chris and his wife paid more than 50 thousand dollars of debt in just 7 months. This sounds really unbelievable but they did it and became a motivation for many. On their site, you will get blogs about money saving, money making and living frugal blogs that can help you to pay off your debt. If you want to learn more about finances, you can take their course that is named as Awesome Money Course.
You can get more information about the tools and apps that you can use to get debt free and the course will help you pay off the debt step by step.

2. Life and My Finances

These financial websites are designed to help people achieve their goals. One of the debt blog that you consider is Life and My Finances. This site works with a purpose of helping people to get out of debt, saving money for their future and in the end becoming rich. Everyone wants to be rich, Derek Sall, the owner of the site will take you through his experiences and will let you about the methods through which he become rich and through which you can!
Derek Sall writes about the tips and methods to get out of debt, you can gain a lot from them. Apart from that you can learn about budget making, saving money, making passive income, money and its different perspectives and planning about the retirement. This site is a platform where you can also learn a lot about real estates because Derek gets its most income from real estates.

3. Making Sense of Cents

One of the best blog to consider for tackling debt in my recommendation is Making Sense of Cents. This blog is one of my favorite as it covers a number of topics. This blog is owned by Michelle Schroeder-Gardner who paid almost 40 thousand dollars in only 7 months, this is amazing. This happened in the year 2012 and after that she never looked back and earned a lot of money by blogging. She became a financial analyst and now she earns a very healthy amount of money every year. She usually travels a lot and both her and her husband lives on a sail boat.
She focuses on the art of minimalism and on her site, you can find blogs of paying off debt, making money from side hustles, making effective budgets, travelling and real estates. This blog can help you learn about many of the financial skills and you can learn all the ups and downs of personal finance from this site.

4. Debt Roundup

As the name suggest that this sites mainly focuses on paying off debt. The blog is owned by Grayson Bell and you will find a lot of blogs about paying off deb or making and saving money from different methods. Grayson Bell has the same story as I do, in the year 2012, he realized that he has to pay $75,000 in debts only at the age of 25, he started working to pay it off and after 4 years of hard work, he was debt free. He is one of the best blogger and financial expert from which you can learn a lot. When it is about paying off debt, then you cannot get any better blog than this.

5. Jackiebeck.com

One of the famous and older debt blog is Jackiebeck.com. The site is owned by Jackie Beck and she works hard to help people to pay off their debts. She with the help of her family paid of almost 150 thousand dollars of debt in a smaller time than any would could think of. The helping nature of her enabled him become one of the best blog writers and now she and her team is helping a lot of people by writing and sharing a lot of information about debt.
One of the best things about Jackie Beck is that that with her ambition of helping people to pay off the debt, she made an app that can help people to manage and pay off their debts in less time.

6. Club Thrifty

The site is owned by two partners named as Greg and Holly Johnson. They started a website that helped many people to manage and pay off their debts easily, in the start they were only writing about how can a person pay off his debt but after sometime, they started writing on many other topics such as saving money, earning money and travelling. On their site, you will find a lot of success stories of people who have paid huge amount of debt in a shorter period of time.
This couple also struggled with their finances in the start and they were facing many difficulties. By using the technique of zero-sum budget, this couple managed to pay 50 thousand dollars of consumer debt and also paid their mortgage. In this process they also increased their income by working online. Now the couple is debt free and they are enjoying their life.

7. The College Investor

The blog is not only about investing, it also covers a lot of different topics. Robert Farrington is the owner of this blog and in 2009, when he started his blog, his only ambition was to help people getting out of debt and to make them rich. On this site you will get some interesting articles about paying off debt, making and saving money, investing and budgeting etc.
One of the reasons of putting this blog in to list is that they have a special forum, where people can share their loan issues with other people and can get advices. As you know that student loans issues are increasing day by day in the country so the site specially focuses on student loan issues and tries to resolves them. If you have student loan then this is the type of blog, you should be looking for.

8. Young Adult Money

One of the writers to study to get rid of debt is David Carlson. He writes on Young Adult Money about personal finances and has helped many people to pay off their debts. Hustle Away Debt is one of the best creation of David, in which he nicely explained some of the methods to get rid of debt. This is a type of blog where you will get a lot of information about a number of different topics.
On this site, you will get advices to live a frugal life, you will get side hustle ideas, travel advices, money saving and earning tips and of course the most important tips to pay off debt.

So, these are some of the best blogs that you can consider to tackle debt this year. There are a lot of other blogs too but these are some of mine best picks. Do comment in the section below and let us know if you have any queries regarding the article because we would love to hear from you.

The post The Best Debt Blogs of 2020 first appeared on FreebieRush.

Open a New Credit Card

Another simple way of improving your credit is to buy a new credit card. In this case, you will have to strictly follow two rules, if you want to make positive changes otherwise it could be opposite. The first thing you need to do is to pay off your credit card bill on time and secondly you should pay your balance in the same month and should not make any late payments. If you can follow these two steps then you can improve your credit score because it would lower your credit utilization ratio and as I have explained that will increase your score.
If you have more amount available as a credit limit then you can open a 0% APR balance transfer card and if you have this card than you can pay off your debt without interest for a number of months.
Having a credit card at your name, enables to establish a credit history at your name and the longer history you have, the higher are the chances of getting an improvement in your score.

Review your Credit Report

If you have a combined account with your spouse and after the divorce, if one of the spouse if making late payments then this would make a negative impact on the credit report of both the persons. Even if you are not the person who is paying the late payments it could still have a negative impact on your credit report. This could have long lasting effects because the negative marks stay on your report for 7 years and your score also decreases gradually.
If you are facing such an issue then review your report very carefully and try to locate any issues if there are any in the report. You should also tell your bank about the divorce, so that they could send a dispute letter and you could avoid the negative mark. You can check your credit report once a year for free and if you want to do this for free and more than one time then you should check your report once in a 4 months from one bureau. By this you could check the free report from each bureau.

Set Bills to Auto-pay

This is an important thing to do if you want your credit score to improve. If you pay one or two payments late, then this could make a negative impact on your credit report and can decrease your score. So this is one of the important thing to do if you do not want to take any risk because sometime you can accidentally forget your payment.
So the best way to avoid such type of situation is that you should set auto payments for every bill that you have to pay regularly and also pay those bills on time that come once after a long time.

Pay Debt

Debt has a lot of effect on your credit score and if you have a lot of debt to pay then your credit score will decrease day by day. One of my friend faced this situation, when after the divorce, she has to pay a lot of money and that gradually decreased her credit score. She paid almost $100,000 in debt in a very short time by following some simple tips.
She promised with herself that she would not buy anything extra and only buy those things that are very necessary. She first shifted to a smaller house, stopped shopping for new items, unsubscribe for many useless subscriptions, cut down on cable, cut down gym membership and tried to negotiate on bills that she had to pay. She saved money from all these categories and paid for debt.
If you pay your credit card debt first, then it will decrease your credit utilization ratio. This will also increase your credit score because if you are using less of your credit limit then you this will improve your score gradually. If your credit utilization ratio is less than 30% then you would have a higher chance to improve credit. For example if you have a credit limit of $20,000 then you should keep your balance at $6,000 because this will have a positive impact on your credit score.

Conclusion

So these are some of the methods through which you can improve your credit score. Credit is not an easy thing to understand and you have to be very careful sometimes. Having a good credit score can help you a lot in many ways, one of the biggest benefit is that you can get a much lower interest rate on the debt you take. So make sure, you keep a good check on your credit score and history. Do comment in the section below and let us know if you have any queries regarding the article because we would love to hear from you.

The post Best Ways to Improve Your Credit after Divorce first appeared on FreebieRush.

This is a huge amount and can cause a great amount of stress on you when you get graduated. Many college students are unable to pay that much amount and almost 11% students fail to pay the amount on time. That is a huge number of people if we compare that with other loans.
So with all these issues upfront, it is not a better idea to directly go to a student loan debt. There are some alternative ways that can help you to avoid student loan debt. Today I will tell you about some of the methods through which you can save yourself from this debt. So let’s start,

1. Community College

Community colleges are one of the cheapest available option to do a degree. The tuition fee and other cost of community colleges are much less than a college or a university. So in order to avoid student loan, you can spend your first 2 years in the community college. By this way, you will be able to save more money. If after getting scholarships and other programs, your community college is still cheaper than you should not consider that college and you should go to a community college for the first 2 years. But make sure before you take a start in a community college that whether the university that you want to go in will accept community college credits or will it allow you to transfer those credits.

2. Choose a Local College

One of the simplest and effective trick to save yourself from student debt is to take a local college or university and stay at home. By this you will be able to save the money that you will have to pay for the hostel, food and transport. It is not necessary to live in the campus as you can live in the home with your parents and could still get involved and learn a lot of things. So if your parents are cooperative then instead on living in the campus, live in your home and save thousands of dollars. You can use this big amount of saved money for your future goals and it can give you a strong financial backup.

3. Search For the Scholarship or Funding that Colleges Provide

Before you just take admission to a college make sure you do proper research of colleges to find a college that is best for you. There are some colleges that are eligible with my scholarships and funding programs that can reduce your college cost to a big extent. It is not necessary that a college with high tuition fee is a college that will be expensive because they might have more resources that can help you to reduce the college cost such as scholarships. Inexpensive colleges might lag in these kind of opportunities, so before you take admission in a college, visit a college and ask about all the funding option that they have and what requirements they have. If you can get support from one of the funding option of a college than this can reduce the college cost significantly.

4. Search for Other Funding Sources

There are many companies and organization that help students to go to college without getting student loans. These companies pay the tuition fee on the behalf of the students but they have some requirements too. For example, Military services of the US has a program in which they pay for your college fee if you work for them. Just like the Military Services, there are other companies and organizations that pay for your tuition fee if you accept to work for them.
This is possible in the case, if you search for the company that matches your degree or field of interest. Suppose that there is a financial services company near your house or in your city. If you want to start a carrier in that company and are interested in a degree that the company requires than you can search for the program in which they will fund you in the degree and you will have to serve them. A lot of companies does this, so you can find a one that have the same interest as you.

5. Do a Job While you are in College

While you are looking for a college for yourself also find a job so that you could pay the fee on your own. You can do a full time job with a part time college or you can take the college with a part time job that pay more. By this you will be afford the college without getting any loan. This can increase the time of your degree but this can also save you from starting your professional life with a debt. You will be debt free while you leave the college if you do the hard work while you are still in college.
If you are going to another city for your college, then search for companies in that city that are hiring and try to find a job which suits your college timetable. If you are unable to get a job, you can do some side hustles to take a start or you can freelance your skills or services to make an income. But a job is a better ideas because you can earn a fix amount every month for sure.

6. Before you Start College Save Money

It is not necessary that you should join the college right after your school on a student loan debt but instead of that you can take a year off and earn money. Try to make as much money so that you can pay to go to college. In most of the states, teens of 15 or 16 and above are allowed to work and most of the companies hires students who just left school. Try to find a company that pays well and save all the amount for your college. When you will have a big amount before you start college this will allow you to graduate without taking student loan debt. Even when you are in high school, start working on a part time job so that you could start saving money for your college.
An extra tip for you is that keep the amount of money you earn in a saving account or a money market account so that you could earn a profit on that and when you are in college the amount kept increasing.

7. Don’t Spend Extra

Young students are not that much financially mature so they spend a lot of extra money on useless stuff. This can increase the cost of college. I have seen a number of students that have spent a lot of money on extra and useless stuff. So I thought I should tell you to not to do this. As a student, social gatherings, dinning out and shopping can affect your budget.

Due to massive increase in number of student getting student loan, it has become easier to excess money for the students so they get in to the lure of spending more money because they think that they have thousands in their hand. So this can increase the amount of college, so when you are in college, do not get in to this lure and try to live as simple as you can. Try to eat simple things and eat locally, do not buy expensive brands and thus you will be able to reduce the college cost.

So, these are some the methods that can help you to avoid college loan debt, colleges are not that cheap as they were in the past and now the cost of college is increasing day by day. By using all the tips above, you can pay the college cost without getting a student loan and then you can enable yourself to start a carrier without any debt. Do comment in the section below and let us know if you have any queries regarding the article because we would love to hear from you.

The post 7 Ways to Avoid Student Loan Debt first appeared on FreebieRush.