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How student loans work
What is a Student Loan? A loan is borrowed money that is repaid over the time. In addition to repaying the amount borrowed, most borrowers also have to pay a fee, called interest. A student loan is used to pay for college costs. What is Interest? Interest is a fee charged for the use of someone else’s money. It is typically charged once a month based on the unpaid loan ...
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How Student Loans Affect Your Credit
Student loans can have a major effect on your credit score, so it pays to understand the relationship between student loans and credit. On one hand, borrowing and paying back student loans can do wonders for your credit history. On the other, a misstep like a missed payment can send your score plummeting. How Student Loans Can Positively Impact Your Credit Think student loan debt is all bad? Not quite. If you ...
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How Student Loan Debt Can Harm Your Credit
Though student loans can be a good thing for your credit, it's also easy to get into trouble. If you aren't careful with payments or take on too much debt, your credit score can suffer as a result. Missed payments. Remember how important payment history is for your credit score? The last thing you want to do is miss a payment. Because payments comprise 35 percent of credit history, missing and ...
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How Personal Loans Work
Credit comes in many forms, including credit cards, mortgages, automobile loans, purchase financing over time and personal loans. Each type of credit serves a certain purpose for a goal you may have, whether it's to buy a house or car, or to allow you to break up a big expense into more manageable monthly payments. A personal loan is a form of credit that can help you make a big purchase or ...
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How medical debt can harm you
Medical debt is still debt, and any debt can ding your credit. On the FICO scale of 300 to 850, “a collection that hits a credit report could have an impact of up to 100 points,” says Nancy Bistritz-Balkan, vice president of communications and consumer education at Equifax. Regardless of what caused it, a lower score will affect whether you can borrow money or obtain credit, and on what terms ...
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How long do you have to roll over a 401(k)?
If you have more than $5,000 in your former employer’s 401(k), you generally won’t be forced to roll over your 401(k), according to the IRS. If a distribution is made directly to you from your retirement plan, you have 60 days from “the date you receive” a retirement plan distribution to roll it over into another plan or an IRA, according to the IRS. But if you have more than $5,000 ...
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How financial advice can help
We believe in the value of financial advice. In today’s complex and ever changing financial world, it’s never been more important to seek qualified and experienced guidance to help you secure a successful financial future. The major goal is to make it easier for all people to access and benefit from receiving the right advice for their individual needs and objectives. Whether it be simple fact based information to make ...
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How Do Student Loans Affect Your Credit Score?
Student loan debt is fairly common these days. As of 2018, more than 44 million Americans were dealing with student loans – so don’t feel alone. And while paying off your loans may be an added stress during these already complicated years of young adulthood, it’s good for you to know that having a student loan may actually help your credit score and even allow you to build a credit history that could enable ...
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How Do School Loans Show up on Your Credit Report?
Yes, your student loans appear on your credit report and are factored into your credit rating, just like any other loans. That means they can provide a positive effect on your credit rating if you make payments promptly, or a negative impact if you miss payments or go into default. If you take out a reasonable amount of student loan debt and make responsible payments on it after graduation, your credit report will reflect ...
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How Do Private Student Loans Work?
Federal students’ loans offer standardized loan types, interest rates and terms to most borrowers. With private student loans, your options and interest rate will vary, though there are some laws that affect all private student loans. Your credit, and that of a co-signer if you have one, will also impact what types of loans you qualify for and the interest rate you’ll receive. Loan Types Lenders may offer different types ...
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BENEFITS OF DEBT NEGOTIATION
You’re finally ready to admit it. You’re in serious trouble financially. You made the mistake of thinking each month that you could make things better or that it was okay because you were making at least the minimum payments on your credit cards. But you just can’t deny the facts ...
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Basic Money Lessons Everyone Should Know
Where should we learn how to handle money? School. But we don't. Instead, what you know — or don't know — about finances stems from a number of factors: how you were raised and what you learned from friends, financial advisors, a spouse, random Internet searches, and so on. Which leads to money habits ...
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What is Bankruptcy?
Bankruptcy is a court proceeding in which a judge and court trustee examine the assets and liabilities of individuals and businesses that can’t pay their bills and decide whether to discharge those debts so they are no longer legally required to pay them. Bankruptcy laws were written to give people ...
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Avoid Grant Scams
You've won Free Money – just send me $$$... No legitimate federal government employee would ever call you and tell you that you qualify or have been approved for a grant for which you never applied. Protect yourself from scammers that tell you that you need to pay a small ...
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Asset Allocation 101
Asset allocation involves dividing an investment portfolio among different asset categories, such as stocks, bonds, and cash. The process of determining which mix of assets to hold in your portfolio is a very personal one. The asset allocation that works best for you at any given point in your life ...
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American mortgages and home loans: A foreigner’s guide
Whatever your reasons for buying a new home in the USA, you need to understand the type of mortgages available, and the steps needed to get one set up. This handy guide covers which banks offer mortgages and home loans in the USA to non-residents, the paperwork you'll need to ...
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A Guide to Your IRA
An IRA can reduce your tax bill when you save for retirement. YOU CAN BUILD A NEST egg for retirement faster and more easily if you qualify for tax breaks for your retirement savings. Individual retirement accounts allow workers with earned income to minimize taxes as they save for retirement. The ...
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A Guide to Choosing the Right Small Business Loan
Before jumping into the details on the types of loans offered and what loan makes the most sense for your business, take time to assess your current needs. Here are some good initial questions to answer so you have clear goals set before you start your research. How much money ...
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A COMPLETE GUIDE TO DEBT RELIEF
Debt relief is the reorganization of debt in any shape or form so as to provide the indebted party with a measure of relief, either fully or partially. Debt relief can take a number of forms: reducing the outstanding principal amount (again, either partly or fully), lowering the interest rate ...
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A Closer Look at Default of Loans
Although some structural differences exist between how the Department of Education and commercial lenders administer the default process for federal student loans, the consequences for borrowers are similar. FFEL program and direct loan borrowers are in default when their payments are 270 days past due. After a borrower defaults, the servicer ...
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A Beginner’s Guide to Asset Classes
The investment landscape can be extremely dynamic and ever-evolving. But those who take the time to understand the basic principles and the different asset classes stand to gain significantly over the long haul. The first step is learning to distinguish different types of investments and what rung each occupies on ...
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Ways to Finance Your Business
Financing a business is always a challenge. Here we've compiled 10 techniques, including factoring, from the tried-and-true to the experimental. Finding financing in any economic climate can be challenging, whether you're looking for start-up funds, capital to expand or money to hold on through the tough times. But given our current ...
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10 Things the Bank Will Ask When You Need a Business Loan
Collateral As I explained above, banks do lend money to startups. One exception to the rule is that the federal Small Business Administration (SBA) has programs that guarantee some portion of startup costs for new businesses so banks can lend them money with the government, reducing the banks’ risk. So ...
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7 Great Investing Books for Beginners
Want to get smarter about investing? Check out some of these books. Learning about financial concepts can feel intimidating. Even finding a starting spot can prove challenging. If you search for an investment term on the Internet, you often end up with an alphabet soup of complex financial terms. A better ...
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7 Golden Rules for Investing Money
You may be a rookie investor, but that doesn’t mean you need to make costly rookie mistakes. Follow these seven golden rules and you’ll be on the path to success. Play the long game Never invest for the short-term. The market moves up and down in natural cycles that can’t ...
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6 ideal investments for beginners
Here are six investments that are well-suited for beginner investors. A 401(k) or other employer retirement plan If you have a 401(k) or another retirement plan at work, it’s very likely the first place you should put your money — especially if your company matches a portion of your contributions. That ...
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5 Tips to Get Approved For a Personal Loan for Debt Consolidation
If you need relief from your high-interest loans or credit card debt, you may be considering a personal loan. Offered by many banks and credit unions, personal loans let you consolidate or refinance your debt into a lower-interest loan with one fixed monthly payment. While they do have some disadvantages, ...
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5 Tips For Troops And Vets Buying Their First Homes
Current and former service members are in many ways the ideal loan recipients, mortgage experts say. That sentiment should boost the confidence of any troops or veterans looking for the best mortgage options for buying their first homes. As should the benefits of VA loans, which offer generous terms to ...
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5 Things You Need To Know before Taking out A Home Equity Loan
Borrowing against home equity can be a convenient way to access cash, but it also carries risk, as millions of Americans learned in the housing crisis of 2008. If you’re considering it, here’s what you need to know. It’s getting (slightly) easier to qualify. Since clamping down on credit after the ...
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5 Practical Student Loan Repayment Options
Student loan debt can feel overwhelming for many young adults in America. However, carrying student loan debt doesn't have to be a burden when you create a realistic payoff plan. Here are five practical ways to help pay off your student loans: Choose the shortest student loan repayment program you ...
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