All About Financial Matters

Archive for June, 2007

For the good majority of those that have attended college, there are debts to be paid off after you’ve graduated. Tuition costs continue to rise and sometimes it takes more than one loan to pay for those additional costs.

When you’ve had your graduation ceremony, have or have not gotten a job, and six months have gone by you will be expected to start paying those loans back. A college loan consolidation can make that repayment easier on you and your bank account.

There are many companies and banks that offer student loan consolidations. These will take all loans that you have taken during your time in college and combine them into one lump sum. That lump sum will be given one interest rate that will often be less than the interest rate that you’ll get from the loan repayment plan you’re given when you’re close to graduation. You will be able to make smaller payments and work toward the ultimate goal of paying off your student loans.

As you are looking for a student loan consolidation company, be fully aware that there can be huge differences in how their program operates. Be sure to compare costs and interest rates especially. Also be on the lookout for those companies who charge a fee for early pre-payment of the loan they give you, which only serves to lock in the interest that they will be collecting from you on this loan.

Most of the loan consolidation companies will offer an interest rate that is preferable to the one you are paying. If you have more than one student loan, you are paying that interest rate more than one time every month. When it comes right down to it you may end up paying far more than the amount you borrowed if paid over a long period of time.

The consolidation loan will give you the benefit of only paying an interest charge one time per month. This interest rate may be 4 or 5% whereas the student loans that you will be starting to pay back at the end of your six month grace period may be 7 or 8%. Many of the consolidation companies will not have a penalty for early payment, but some of them might. Be sure to find out if this is a penalty before you agree to the consolidation. Be well aware of the details of your payback agreement before you sign the papers for the loan.

Each student loan consolidation company will offer something to appeal to you as a way to earn your business. Find the one that will work the best with your needs and will charge you the least amount of interest. This can save you thousands in the long run and make the payback of your student loan as simple and pain free as possible. Since your goal is to pay off your student loan, the last thing you want to do is rob Peter to pay Paul with another loan, which leaves you in the same situation you are now!

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Some people think that getting a great loan deal for a new or used car or truck is just a matter of being at the right place at the right time, or perhaps a matter of how hungry the dealership is at the time you make the purchase. Totally wrong. Getting a good auto loan rate is not luck, but rather a skill that you must learn. Why depend on luck when a bit of research before the purchase can give you more bargaining power? When you are in a better position to negotiate the price, then you are savings even more money.

This same logic can apply to refinancing an existing auto loan where you were not in a position at that time to get the best possible loan deal, or perhaps didn’t know at that time that better deals were available. But whether refinancing an existing auto loan or finding the best deal on a new auto loan, you need to realize that the financing deal is a critical component of the whole deal, and getting the best possible deal can keep hundreds and even thousands of dollars in your pocket.

Like anything else, the informed consumer is the one who saves the most. Know what the prices are, what they could or should be, and do your homework. Some people have even taken the attitude that they are being paid like $50 or more per hour to do this homework before the purchase, because in effect, that is exactly what they are doing in terms of how much they can save by having this information in their back pocket BEFORE they step into the car showroom.

Your first step is to go online and find out how much you should be paying for the car or truck you have in mind. Then you can run various different scenarios with the built-in calculator at many of the online car shopping sites, determining the monthly payment amount of various amounts of down payment, interest rate, and term of the loan. Compare that against your personal budget and you will already know what you can and cannot do before you even start shopping, and potentially wasting your time.

Some people have said that online sources are your best place to get an auto loan. Let us correct that statement right now – they can be a GOOD place to get an auto loan but they are not necessarily the BEST place. Local banks and credit unions frequently have specials for car loan deals, and like any smart shopper, you need to be aware of what they offer to see if you already have found a source offering a better deal on your car or truck financing.

Your best deal for an auto loan is going to come from a good credit score rating. Do you know what your credit score is? It would be well worth your time and effort to find out so that if there are errors in your credit report, you can get those errors corrected and get the best deal. Even a difference of 1% in your auto loan interest rate can mean the difference of a few hundred dollars over the life of the loan.

Unless you already know for a fact that your credit report is squeaky clean, be aware that it is probably not as clean as you think it is. The majority of consumers have ERRORS on their credit report, and the only way those get fixed is if YOU file a dispute with the credit bureaus. Get more information about how to credit-help-center.com Improve Your Credit Score in order to have the best credit score possible, which will qualify you for the best financing deal possible.

Bottom line: do your homework, since shopping for the best financing deal is every bit as important as the other things such as the make and model of the car you are buying.

Jon is a computer engineer who maintains web sites on a variety of topics based on his knowledge and experience. You can read more about your best options for Car Loans at his web site at car-loan-resources.com/ Car Loan Resources and raising your credit score at credit-help-center.com Improve Your Credit Score.