NT: Official Personal Finances Thread

When I was looking ally had the best savings rate so I signed up with them. Now sure who has the best rate now.
 
Ally or Barclay . Barclay has a Dream Account with 6.05% APY , I think that is the best for saving only con is 1K max deposit per month. They also have updated their UI a lot it is pretty good now.
 
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So i have about $20k in student loan debt with average interest rate at 6.26%. I make $30k a year. Credit score around 725. Been looking to refi. What should I expect my rate to be around? If I can get a fixed rate around 4% I'll take it. I have the previous posts. Has anyone ever refi thru Citizens Bank?
 
BeezyGotSole said:
Ally or Barclay . Barclay has a Dream Account with 6.05% APY , I think that is the best for saving only con is 1K max deposit per month. They also have updated their UI a lot it is pretty good now.
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Is that 6 supposed to be a 1? Cause that seems unbelievable.



I don't keep a lot of cash to begin with, but from the research I've done on it I would roll with GS Bank.
3900stabler said:
So i have about $20k in student loan debt with average interest rate at 6.26%. I make $30k a year. Credit score around 725. Been looking to refi. What should I expect my rate to be around? If I can get a fixed rate around 4% I'll take it. I have the previous posts. Has anyone ever refi thru Citizens Bank?
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I did my first refinance through citizens bank. Had no issues with them, but a year later I refinanced again through Earnest. Tbh I'd check out Earnest and Common bond over Citizens at this point.
 
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Yeah it's 1.05. I'm sure it's a typo.

I started with a little over $40k in student loans and been aggressively paying them since summer 2013. At about $13k now and on track to pay it off in a year. I've had salary increases since graduating and could definitely pay it off, but choose not to. I've been saving up for house down payments and a new car, in addition to my retirement and other investment accounts. It won't break my pocket to pay more towards the student loans, but I'm at a good pace right now (5-6x the min payment). Increasing it within my budget would only knock off the timeline by 2-3 months. I'd rather have that money for monthly spending.
 
The extra 2.5% bonus isn't on your account balance. It's only applied to the 1.05% you earned. You're not getting anywhere near 6.05% APY lol.

I have both the regular online savings and dream account with them.
 
silkboi said:
The extra 2.5% bonus isn't on your account balance. It's only applied to the 1.05% you earned. You're not getting anywhere near 6.05% APY lol.

I have both the regular online savings and dream account with them.
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I edited the post lol yeah no where near 6.05 . That bonus isn't much at all only being applied to the interest accrued lol.
 
Yeah my Dream account is where I hold my emergency fund money in. I was doing the monthly transfer until it was fully moved over just for the little balances which didn't amount to much.

Even though the normal online savings doesn't have the APY as the Dream, it can grow faster with no monthly deposit cap (if you're depositing more than $1k which I am) and the actual interest gains will be larger.
 
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silkboi said:
Yeah my Dream account is where I hold my emergency fund money in. I was doing the monthly transfer until it was fully moved over just for the little balances which didn't amount to much.

Even though the normal online savings doesn't have the APY as the Dream, it can grow faster with no monthly deposit cap (if you're depositing more than $1k which I am) and the actual interest gains will be larger.
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This was my exact thought as well. The cap doesn't let the account grow quickly.
 
^There are a few avenues.

Biggest one, and not really knocking off money per se, is to always pay more than the minimum. The overpayment applies directly to your principal and lowers your interest burden in the long run.

Loan consolidation would lower your overall interest rate. I wouldn't recommend doing this with federal loans because you lose valuable safeguards like IBR and graduated payment plans. Obviously your credit will affect the benefits of this strategy.

Pubic service loan forgiveness- 10 consecutive years of minimum payments and then the entire balance is forgiven. Public service of course.

Loan interest tax deduction- .25 of up to $2500 in interest paid will lower your tax burden. Use the refund to pay down the principal.

There are also churning strategies like using credit card rewards/cashback but those are coming to an end for federal loans supposedly.

Go at the loans. Best way to pay them off is to get crazed about it. Try to make the biggest payments possible. Rather than looking for ways out, attack the situation.
 
I have $58K in student loans. The lowest monthly payment under all repayment plans would be $259. Under the standard plan they would be $618. I make pretty good money for my age but with rent, car payment, living expenses, etc. I definitely can't handle a $618/month payment and I know I'll pay so much more over time with the $259/month payments.

Not sure what to do.
 
USABasketball08 said:
I have $58K in student loans. The lowest monthly payment under all repayment plans would be $259. Under the standard plan they would be $618. I make pretty good money for my age but with rent, car payment, living expenses, etc. I definitely can't handle a $618/month payment and I know I'll pay so much more over time with the $259/month payments.

Not sure what to do.
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Pick the plan you can afford.

I never understand why people pick the plan that will have them struggling and leads them to start missing loan payments.

Theoretically we should make more money over time. Pay more as your income goes up. 

I chose the graduated fixed plan, because I wanted low payments and to focus on investments currently. 

@HankMoody  I agree, federal student loans are the best loans to have I wouldn't recommend refinancing them .
 
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When I refinanced I chose the ten year plans and just paid more than the minimum. Just preferred the potential flexibility of a lower payment.

But with Ernest your minimum payment amount is dynamic. You start paying more than the minimum each month and they lower your minimum going forward.
 
Paying the minimum at $3k+

Can't wait til this is behind me lol but TBH if your in any student loan debt idk any reason why you wouldn't refi unless you were on a special government plan or forgiveness (but if say 200k was forgiven you still have to pay the taxes on that forgiven amount).

With earnest they allow you to change your terms, a bit more flexibility, and still forgive your loans upon death so your family isn't due with the burden.
 
Whoa I didn't know about that last part. Cool feature although one would hope that isn't the case.
 
silkboi said:
Can you refinance federal loans? I thought that was only for private loans.
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You can refinance fed and private. Most would suggest not refinancing Fed ones cause you lose all the benefits they provide that income based payments and other things, but for me, it was all about the interest rate. 
 
If you are single focus on getting your finances right. It is exponentially harder when you are with a girl.

If i was by myself I'd cop a $800 room in a shared apartment and pay off $2,500 a month and get my 80k student loan knocked out real quick. With a gf it's much harder. Spending 3k on a place cuz of course we need our own place and a one bedroom out here is crazy expensive.
 
It isnt any harder. You have the ability to share larger costs (housing).

That jump from $800 for a shared apartment to $3000 for your own place seems like a personal choice.
 
USABasketball08 said:
I have $58K in student loans. The lowest monthly payment under all repayment plans would be $259. Under the standard plan they would be $618. I make pretty good money for my age but with rent, car payment, living expenses, etc. I definitely can't handle a $618/month payment and I know I'll pay so much more over time with the $259/month payments.

Not sure what to do.
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I'm sure you're able to pay more than the minimum if you wanted to so I would choose 259 and then make additional payment if you can afford it.

When I first graduated and started my career, I paid minimum each month. Then every few months I evaluated my budget and if my expenses were under what I budgeted, that excess goes to my student loans. Now that I make more than I did before, so I doubled my monthly payment.
 
Thanks for the responses.

Like, under the Extended Graduated plan, My payment would be that $259.

Not sure why I didn't qualify for the income-based repayment plan but I'll have to do some research, I haven't looked into this much. I make roughly $80K~ a year. $618 is still a lot to me. Probably just going to stick with the $259.

I live in a somewhat low COL area (Dallas/Austin/Houston) but my credit card bills are what kill me every month. Not struggling by any means, just need to cut down on eating out. I'm planning on paying my CC's off when I get my bonus which should free up like $300-ish a month.
 
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