Pay Off Debt or Save for Retirement?
One of the toughest decisions in the world of personal finance is whether it is best to pay off debt aggressively and postpone retirement savings or to save for retirement aggressively while only making minimum payments towards debt. Some experts, including Dave Ramsey, are advocates of aggressively paying down the debt. Other experts, however, recommend [...]
Would You Risk Your Baby’s Life to Avoid Debt?
Recently, on an online message board that I follow, a lady posted about a difficult situation she is in. This lady is pregnant and is having some complications with her pregnancy. Her doctors recommend that she deliver her baby via c-section at 36 weeks gestation. The only problem: this lady does not have medical insurance. [...]
The Purpose of Debt
It seems that nowadays everybody carries some amount of debt. Some people go into debt to start a business, some go into debt to obtain an education, and some go into debt to make large purchases. With opportunities for financing and loans everywhere to be found, it is no surprise that young people can find [...]
What Come’s First? A Step-By-Step Guide to Financial Independence: Step 6–Pay Off Your Low-Interest Debt
Welcome to the fifth installment of Independent Beginning’s Step-By-Step Guide to Financial Independence inspired by Dave Ramsey’s “Baby Steps”. In the last installment, you learned about Step 5: Set Up College Funds. In this installment, you will learn about Step 6: Pay Off Your Low-Interest Debt Step 6: Pay Off Your Low-Interest Debt At this [...]
What Comes First? A Step-By-Step Guide to Financial Independence. Step 2: Pay Off Your High Interest Debts
Welcome to the next installment of the Step-By-Step Guide to Financial Independence here at Independent Beginnings! Yesterday, I introduced Step 1: Set Up an Emergency Fund. In Step 1, you were encouraged to set up an emergency fund equaling $1000 or 1-month’s worth of expenses, whichever is higher. Once this preliminary emergency fund is set [...]
Federal Student Loan Changes–Income Based Repayment
Starting on July 1st, 2009, students will receive a huge relief on their federal student loan payments. The program is called Income Based Repayment (IBR). The new program will set a limit on monthly payments that is a percentage of the student’s income. Specifically, IBR will cap monthly payments to 15% of the amount by [...]
Paying Off Debt: Dave Ramsey vs. Suze Orman
If you are like most Americans, you have to worry about paying off a substantial amount of debt. This process can be stressful and overwhelming. Because of this, it is important to attack the problem with a plan. There are two main methods for attacking debt. The first way, called the “Debt Snowball” is championed [...]
