Personal Finance Tips For College Students

Student Loans - One of the future consequences of borrowing too much debt or getting too many Student loans is becoming over extended. Credit can be very easy to get which could also lead to you taking on more debt than your income. Even in the case of student loans, you can still take on more than you actually need and end up paying a ton of interest.
The first part of my goal to repay my student loans required that I look for potential firms that offered student loan forgiveness once I graduated. There are certain fields like education that offer loan forgiveness in exchange for a commitment of services. In the financial services their exist the same benefits plan for those with a special area of expertise. The second part of my plan was to simply double up on my payments. I planned to pay off my loans in record time because I have already experienced what can happen if you allow them to linger.
If You Sit Out A Semester, Get Ready To Pay Your Loans.
I have firsthand experience with the entire student loan cycle. I originally registered for college, but dropped after about 6 semesters. I wasn't really serious about college at that stage in my life, therefore I did not hesitate to drop out. Once I drop out of college, 3-6 months later the lenders came knocking looking for their money with interest. I paid the interest for a while but later I fail into default.
Default is a hole that you never want to be in; it truly lives up to its name. When I went into default the Government started garnishing my checks. During Hurricane Katrina I could not qualify for SBA Emergency Funding for my business because I was in default. All of the loans appeared on my credit report as DEFAULT, which dropped my credit score to 478. Worst of all I could no longer get student loans or grants because I was still in default, which meant that I had to cover all of my own expenses up front.
Thank God For President Obama, who signed into law the Public Forgiveness which allowed me to consolidate all of my student loans and continue my education. I am so appreciative now for the opportunity extended to me that I put forward my best effort even when I am tired. My credit rating improved instantly because the status on all the loans was changed to current. If I stay in school I will not have to start repayment until 6 months after I graduate. Stay out of Default by all means necessary, even if it means getting your PHD to delay re- payment
Student Credit Cards
The only major benefit of having a credit card is shopping. Not only shopping for everyday items, but also shopping for specialty items like rental cars and plane tickets. We will always have a love hate relationship with our credit cards; there is simply no way of getting around it. The convenience of being able to receive items before you actually pay for it is a system that has been around for years, but the credit card companies were brilliant in creating their own commerce system. Simply check the tag lines of the three major credit card companies and you will see how we have gradually become more and more addicted to the service that they provide.
* Visa "It's everywhere you want to be"
* American Express "Don't leave home without it"
* MasterCard "Priceless"
With the growing presence of the internet and e-commerce sites like Amazon and Wal-Mart, the only way to make purchases on these sites is to use a credit card. Having a credit card is almost essential being that there is not much you can transact without one, if you want instant gratification. At the end of the month simply brace yourself for the retribution known as a credit card statement in the mail, which represents the hate part of our relationship with credit cards.
I now feel that credit cards are the Root of All Evil, or even worse than the Great Tempter. The picture from the Garden of Eden that showed Eve offering Adam an apple should now be updated to depict Eve offering Adam a Sears Credit Card. My wife just had to have a Sears Credit card like it was a Right of passage, I'm not sure why, but she really wanted one. Shopping with a Sears Credit Card is the equivalent of borrowing money from a drug dealer, miss one payment and something really bad will happen to you.
I now pay for everything with the Wal-Mart Money Card, which actually saves me from myself. The best part about the Wal-Mart Card is once you have spent all of your money on the card, it shuts down. No over draft fees, no checks to balance, there is absolutely no way I can screw up my account. Shopping with the Wal-Mart Card is like being at Chuck E Cheese when you have just spent all of your tokens, time to go home. Credit cards taught me a very painful lesson in personal finance, convenient money is not always the best money.