Budgeting on a budget

Going off yesterday's post, I have decided to share a tool that has helped me craft a budget as well as keep track of all my expenses. I have used Mint for a few months now and I have to say that the overall experience has been great. It is a great one stop shop that for all my financial needs. It keeps tracks of all your accounts in one location which includes credit cards, investment, and also my favorite student loans.

One of the best functions of Mint is the ability to check your account for any fees and unauthorized spending and it will text you if anything is suspicious occurs. With this, I have been able to hone in on my spending and watch carefully what I am being charged on a daily basis. The only downfall is that privacy is an issue with this tool as it does need the accounts and passwords of all your financial information. This alone is the only if not significant problem with the tool.

I would personally advise that a person trying out Mint for the first time start out slowly. Maybe start by adding your student loans and/or credit cards until you get comfortable adding other accounts. There are always risks in having in your accounts in one place so do take caution. For me not knowing what is going on my accounts on a weekly basis is worth the extra risk.

Happy Budgeting!

The Growing Debt

I don't know how many of you out there have student debt, but I bet you know someone that has a ton of it. Like many, I funded my way through school by getting easy to access government money. It was as easy as filling out a form and e-signing your life away. Going to USC for a master's degree was completely worth the debt but paying it off is another story.

With a federal loan that racked up to more than 40k for just two years of school I felt that 20k a year was a bit excessive. I know many of you going to law or medicine can only wish for such a low amount to pay back as the debt can easily extend pass 100k. Paying back the loan in a reasonable amount of time has been the toughest problem for me to solve. I have to consider either paying off loans faster or save up for a bigger expense later down the line.

Usually, I tend to want to pay as much as I can to loan each month, but a series of unfortunate events and pleasure trips has forced me to reconsider. My current plan is to make minimum payments as I use the loan money to pay off credit card bills and other expense. My current minimum payment is about ~$600 a month to Sallie Mae and Nelnet, at that rate it will take around 6.5 years to pay off everything. So I guess, I am not buying a car for 6.5 years. 

I think the key thing to take away from this was that I didn't realize how much of a bite loans take every month. The money literally can go to something more useful for the long term such as a car or house. Instead I have to delay those things to possibly after I am 30.

For those of you that are taking on loans that are greater than my amount, just know that when you get out and have to start paying them back it will hurt in your pocketbook for a long time.