The finance thread

[elliejay21]

Why not? We talk about everything else... why not have a place to discuss your financial strategies, seek money advice, trade stock tips or whatever...

I have a 0% on my credit card right now, so I am letting my balance hover around the limit & I am keeping the cash in my shitty money market account. Hey, it's better making 1.9% or whatever I get, if my credit card is willing to give me a free loan. I do need to check on when that interest free deal expires, so I can be sure to pay it in full before that date. Paying interest sucks.

Although, I am thinking about extending my student loans from 10 to 25 years. In theory, this would mean paying significantly more interest, but the payments would be much lower. Originally, this plan seemed like a rip off to me, but recently I learned about a governement program that forgives the balance of the loan after 10 years. There is also the NY State Social Work loan forgiveness progam that could dump more than half of my balance over 4-6 years, if I get a job in the city or they extend the program to include Suffolk County...

Anyone more knowledgeable about student loans than I am? Mine goes into repayment imminently and it is my first experience with student loans. I cannot firgure out whether the graduated repayment or the income-adjusted repayment deals would benefit me at all...

[Ms. Jericho]

Find out not only when the 0% ends but what the new rate will be. It could be as much as 30%. So find out ASAP because you will have to divide the balance by however many months (it is usually a year but can be more or less) in order to not pay interest.

I know some people who claim they never pay interest because when the zero % ends they get a new card with 0 % on balance transfers and transfer the balance from the old card. I would be wary of this only because there may come a time when you can't get approved for a zero % balance transfer card for the amount you need to transfer and if you have only been making the minimum payments you are going to be screwed.

I did graduated payments on my student loans. I just got notification that my payment goes up in January. A whole six bucks. I think they have gone up maybe thirty dollars since I started paying it back and obviously I am making a lot more money now that I did when I first graduated college. I also re-financed my student loan through ACS to rate of around 4 %.

I don't know much about the loan forgiveness. I do know that you have to be in public service for a certain amount of time and employed full time in public service. I believe it is 10 years You have to have made 120 payments during that time. There are also certain loans that don't qualify.

I am thinking about refinancing my car loan. It is not needed and I don't know if I can get much lower than the 6% I have now but some places are offering 4.99 so I might as well give it a shot. If it works I have some extra spending money, if not no harm no foul.

[elliejay21]

My loans qualify for the federal public service deal. At present I have 2 years in public service & I do not anticipate a career change in the next 8 years... I love my job and basically the only move I anticipate is doing the same thing on a government item or doing the same thing in Nassau or the city.

I don't have enough motivation to keep chasing 0% cards... when I time runs out, I will just pay the balance. I actually did not even realize that I would not get charged interest until I got caught short when I changed jobs. I basically missed paycheck and a week, because my new job has a 3 week lag & my old job paid to date AND my idiot former boss didn't sign my expense reports for 2 months (over $1000)... anyway, so I paid the minimum, expecting to just pay it all the following month, but I noticed no interest... whoo hoo!!!