Free From Broke

A Personal Finance Blog for Regular Folks

Debt

Debt. It can be used wisely to help free up money to build wealth, but most of us struggle with debt. Take a look at articles that help you deal with debt and eliminate your bad debt.

The Payday Loan Trap

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It’s true: A payday loan provider actually sponsored the Financial Blogger Conference that took place in Chicago not too long ago. Not only did the payday loan company sponsor, but a representative actually appeared on a panel.

I’m not going to lie.  I still think he was pretty brave to get up there and tell a bunch of financial bloggers who hate payday loans that he was a payday lender.  He did try to talk up the fact that the provider also provides prepaid debit cards, but everyone zeroed in on the payday loans.

I felt bad for the guy as he tried to explain that payday lenders provide a needed service to a certain segment of the population.

Obviously, payday loans are in demand, since there are plenty of providers that seem to be doing well enough.  While a payday loan might be just the thing to hold you over if you don’t want to be kicked out of your house, or have the power turned off, you run the risk of getting caught in the payday loan trap. [Read more…] about The Payday Loan Trap

How We Found Over $600 to Snowflake on Our Debt in 7 Days

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My husband recently completed his Ph.D., and he has since taken on a full-time job.  Now that he is settling into his career and bringing in more money than he did with his assistantship, we are ready to tackle our debt, which includes student loan and credit card debt.  We recently wrote up our debt repayment plan and found that after minimum payments, we only had $2.69 extra to apply to our debt snowball.  Using this basic formula, we would be completely debt free by February, 2017, roughly 5.5 years from now.

However, we don’t want our debt repayment to stretch out that long.
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Find the Money to Pay Down Debt

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Many of us, when looking at the debt we have, feel despair: How is it possible to pay down so much debt? When my husband and I were first married, I had credit card debt, and it didn’t take long for him to get into the spirit of using credit cards, since we were poor students without jobs.

A couple years later, we were staring at the bills and wondering how we ended up with so much credit card debt.  We had income by then, but it wasn’t much.  We were already so careful about our spending!  How could we cut back even more? How could we find the money to pay down debt?

The cold, hard truth, of course, was that we really weren’t being careful with our spending.  I had an “ah-ha” moment when I read a book my mother gave me, Debt Free on Any Income.  The book suggested that studies show that the average household wastes between 10% and 15% of its monthly income.  After taking another, more honest, look at our finances, it became clear that there was still plenty of room in our budget.

All we had to do was find the waste and apply it to our debts. [Read more…] about Find the Money to Pay Down Debt

Pay Off Debt or Save? That is the Question

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If you’re a typical American, you probably have some sort of consumer debt and are actively saving your money either in stocks or in a general savings account.  Unfortunately, those two things don’t go hand in hand.  Deciding to pay off debt or boost you savings is a tough choice.  The best decision for you might not work well for someone else.  It is entirely dependent on where you are at financially.  Let’s dig deeper and take a look at some of the positives of each scenario: [Read more…] about Pay Off Debt or Save? That is the Question

The High Price of Professional Degrees on Your Finances

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There was a time not so long ago when many parents wanted their children to become lawyers or doctors because of the prestige and high salaries those positions garnered.  We still often think of lawyers or doctors being wealthy, but behind the scenes, there can be a dramatically different story.  There can be a high price to a professional degree.  Read the following situations to see what I mean.

A Law School Drop Out

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