Description

A number of viewers have shared their questions with us, and we are eager to provide you with some helpful advice. We have with us, career expert, Maribel Aber to answer your questions.

Transcript

Paying Student Loans Audra Lowe: And with us, Better’s Financing and Career Expert, Maribel Aber here to answer your questions, good to have you back Maribel. Maribel Aber: Great to be here. Audra Lowe: A lot of people, lot of people asking questions about student loans, paying the student loans the dreadful ones and especially graduates and we have one question from a viewer who in particular wants to know how to hand the college loans, let’s take a look: Student: I have really bad student loans, they’re like $500.00 a month and I tried consolidating them as much as I can but any other advice I guess, how I could lessen my payments. Maribel Aber: Well our viewers stated that she’s really looking towards doing their best to consolidate their loans. Audra Lowe: Right. Maribel Aber: So let’s take a step back and do the basics. Like what do you achiever? So two things, one you simplify your payments. So what does mean? You—instead of six loans, you’ve got one payment so that sounds good. Audra Lowe: Right. Maribel Aber: And then the second thing is that you’ve lower your monthly payment that sounds great too, right? Audra Lowe: Yeah. Maribel Aber: Well hang on, here’s the catch. Audra Lowe: The but. Maribel Aber: There’s the but. You are able to do that because now you have a longer period time to pay that loan. So lot of times you maybe up to 30 years to pay that loan so what I like to say is think about how much you actually spending for your unconsolidated loans versus your consolidated loans. Because you might see that you’re going to be spending a lot more on the long run, okay. Audra Lowe: Right, okay. Maribel Aber: Now the other thing is if you want to overall lower how much you’re paying is if you can pay more towards the principal each month, okay? Audra Lowe: Okay. Maribel Aber: And the other thing is I don’t know if people notice but you can actually sometimes get your loan forgiven and you do that because you’re in public service or on government work so it’s really important to work with exceptions. Audra Lowe: Oh definitely. Maribel Aber: And then there’s also a borrowers benefit. You can actually go back to the lender and see whether or not whether they’ll allow lower that rate and I’ll do that sometimes for things that I’ve read about automatic payment plans if you’re paying on time. Audra Lowe: Right. Maribel Aber: So good things to know and you just need to look at it’s the Department of Education’s direct loan program. Audra Lowe: Okay there are a lot of people out there trying to get some more meaningful work they’re volunteering, they’re working for non- profits, but a lot of people want to know how they can still make money at the same time and believe we have another question from a viewer named Trish who wants to know how she can make money while working for non profit let’s take a look. Trish: My name is Trish Campbell and I’m from Kentucky and how do you work a non profit but still make money. Maribel Aber: What Trish is doing is she’s following her passion. Audra Lowe: Right. Maribel Aber: Because if she is what I will say is that the success and the fulfillment all of that will come, right? Now, I think Trish might know more than a lot of people out there but the non profit sector those jobs tend to be paid about 25% to 30% less than the four profit sector. Audra Lowe: Okay. Maribel Abaer: And it’s really hard also to ask for a raise— Audra Lowe: Yeah. Maribel Aber: Because a lot of the executive positions, the executive director, they end up coming from the floor profit sector and coming into the non profit sector they take a big pay cut so that’s the kind of hard to be asking for a raise. So in terms of making more money I say it’s more about how much you save than how much you actually make. So you should be taking advantage of any of the retirement plans they have available to use the Mat contributions. I know if they don’t have a 410K then it start thinking about an IRA because we always talk about it you and I being taxed referred and getting those kind of benefits. So that’s really important. In the long run always remember it’s about how much you can save now how much you make. I mean how many times you’ve known people without a lot of money but they have a lot of bills and it’s being smart about what you have because you do have the keys to making more money. Audra Lowe: Or they’re blowing at all too. Different mind set that was good know. Thank you very much Maribel for that fact. Maribel Aber: Thank you. Audra Lowe: And if you guys have questions for Maribel you can always email her at askmaribel@bettertv.com.