i was also told when to look for a financial advisor to make sure they are "fiduciary financial advisors" meaning they are required by law/its their duty to put your interests over theirs. "The easiest way to determine if an advisor is a fiduciary is to simply ask, 'Are you a fiduciary? '" A true fiduciary will be able to answer yes," Shah says. If so, get that answer in writing, and then confirm the advisor's claim by searching the SEC's advisor information database, he says." (money.usnews) Happy financial advisor shopping
Interest rates on student loans is the silent killer in the background killing all progress. Glad you were able to refinance. I had a similar issue with one of the big refinancing companies. I think if they see you have a high income and your making progress on paying off the loans they don’t view you as a good candidate. I may be wrong but it sure does seem that way.
Omg I JUST refinanced my Sallie Mae loans with Commonbond! My first payment is in January so I'm actually excited to pay it off! Also, congrats on refinancing those loans! Let's do this!!!
Hey, I have sallie Mae as Well. I’m coming up to my last 3 months of forbearance. And my interest rate is 10.7%. Soo annoying I considering refinancing.
You’ve inspired me to pay off my student loans, start a 401(k) and take the next step in becoming more financially conscious. I feel like so many people our age view debt as untouchable and a permanent part of their identity because they’ve had it for so long. Your videos show it doesn’t have to be that way, debt can be paid off. Money is such a touchy subject, even among close friends. Your videos give me comfort and confidence to keep asking questions and learning about what we should be doing with our money.
my kind of economical exactly, we just need to change how money and debt is viewed. It’s not a taboo subject and bc people are afraid to talk about it, they are prohibiting their own financial growth
You mentioning that its December and asking if we are happy were we are financially makes me happy. My goal this year was to get out of debt and I did that. Ive been living on $100 a week for food and toiletries and it has been bad at times but I look back now and it was worth it. Im proud of were I am now.
I am away to apply for student loans in the UK for university and all of these videos are showing me where I should be careful and what the small print and numbers mean. You are the most helpful person I watch with finance in general, I love your videos xx
I'm proud of your deciding to refinance with CommonBond. I also refinanced about 100K of my loans with them this year, saving me thousands (7% interest to 3.x% variable). They also gave me a $500 sign-up bonus. I'm about 60% done paying it off. I wished I could have taken steps to refinance earlier, these interest rates are like really like STDs.
As always, your videos are so educational and motivating Aja! Love the fact that your'e honest and real about debts, it really helps us who are working on paying off our loans to keep on going! Happy to follow you on your journey to become debt free!
5 лет назад
I just want to say thank you for your transparency and for inspiring me to be aggressive with my loans. Just paid off another one today!
Thank you for taking about this! I'm in grad school right now so I'm not paying mine back, but I love your attitude toward it. That's definitely how I feel about paying off my car and credit card. Thank you!
Hi Aja, I honestly can say your finance videos are helping me through my financial life. I have always been scared to look dead on at my current situation but I am slowly getting there with your help. This video about refinancing is inspiring me to look at my own student loan interest rates. Thank you! Thank you! Love you and support you!
The Tyranny of Interest: “Interest [on debt] never sleeps nor sickens nor dies; it never goes to the hospital; it works on Sundays and holidays; it never takes a vacation; it never visits nor travels; it takes no pleasure; it is never laid off work nor discharged from employment; it never works on reduced hours. Once in debt, interest is your companion every minute of the day and night; you cannot shun it or slip away from it; you cannot dismiss it; it yields neither to entreaties, demands, or orders; and whenever you get in its way or cross its course or fail to meet its demands, it crushes you.” - J. Reuben Clark Jr.
It is intimidating to ask someone about any questions. But you are right, there is nothing to lose asking questions and get better understanding of unfamiliar stuff. I am trying to pay off my car loan as quick as possible, too! I don’t like giving my money that I work so for to a credit card company or a loan company.
Kumi Hi when I was paying off my car loan I asked (I think it was the loan provider) if there were any add ons that I could cancel that would lower my total payment. I think I was able to get rid of 2 added payments that were added into my car bill that I didn’t even use. I’m not sure if I’m explaining it correctly bc I know I’m not using the correct terminology. But basically call the bank or whoever and ask if there are any services you can cancel that was grouped into your car payment
Aja Dang I have to ask them! Thanks for your tip!!! It’s 5 year loan that I got last summer, and I am trying to pay it off by next summer. Any and all advice is helpful! Thanks you so much for your kindness to share info and your experience!!!
This series is amazing. Thank you so much for sharing your journey with us. It has make me very conscious with the money I’m earning and spending. For a better life in general. Thanks you for the motivation and YOU CAN DO THIS GIRL!
Hi Aja I know you can do this# you got this girl !! I am on this journey as well, and I want to refinace my student loans too. I am going to be checking around to see what rates and time interest are available. But good luck to you and me.
I don’t want to subscribe because you have nice skin like me. I am a bit envious because of that. Then I notice that you are struggling financially and listened to both “loan” related videos. I hear your honesty and I am thankful for coming across this specific video. Don’t release any other types of video, I’m going to subscribe
It's actually a breath of fresh air that the first refi company denied you because it means they are really analyzing their risk and not just taking on ppl's debt willy nilly- that's something I would want out of a company handling my financial future.
Hey Aja! That's awesome news. How does refinancing save you $15k? Doesn't it just move it around? Or are you saying that it saved you $15k in interest?
It saves her 15k in interest but only over the course of 10 years. Choosing to pay it off in 2 years rather than 10 is where the real savings are at. Just by choosing to pay it off in 2 years rather than 10 it will save her over 45k...keeping the same timeline of two years with the new rate only saves her a little over 3k and ONLY if she sticks to the timeline. If she takes it a little easier and decides to take another 10 months to pay it off then she saves absolutely nothing through this refinance. She would pay the same in interest (a little more actually) than if she didn't refinance and just stuck to the plan of paying it off in 2 years.
I think its pretty cool that you are planning to pay of your debt so fast and yet you don't spam us your viewers with payed advertisement only video's (which we would totally understand). And you are so open about everything
Thank you so much for these vids Aja! If you haven’t done this already (someone please let me know) I would love a video for first time college students, specifically on how you would have handled student loans differently and how to research all your options before taking the plunge 💕
When i lived in la I used to work for a great financial advisor at ubs and while his clients were with business managers/celebrities, i sure learned a lot! Those who are interested in opening a brokerage account or even a small retirement account just go with these generally well known firms such as fidelity or vanguard. They have great options and low fees, and later if you want, you can move to another larger firm with another financial advisor who can offer you more investment options! Not just your general mutual funds, stocks, bonds but maybe you wanna try a private investment, or a structured note, or you’re older and with some money and want a thoughtful financial plan. Just know that when you get a financial advisor, you must feel 1000% comfortable with them and they should be like a teacher to you if you’re new to this kind of lingo. Interviewing them is absolutely necessary and always trust your gut. Financial advisors still have the ability to take bits and pieces from you and unless you are pretty well verse in that field it’s not always easy to catch. Not saying all advisors do this or that they’ll take all your money but i’ve seen it happen a few times where i feel like some people were taken a bit advantage of and it’s too bad honestly.
Can you make a video about what you would do differently as a new grad. I am about to graduate from grad school and need to start learning about how to pay off my loans. Would love some tips now that you are older looking back and what you wish you could have done in the past to have helped you have less loans to still pay off right now. Much love!x
She mentions at 4:08 that sometimes she “thinks about what would have happened if she consolidated and refinanced immediately after school vs 8 years down the road and it just pains me on the amount of interest that I would have saved by now.” A consolidation and refinance isn’t what is going to save you the most money. You can’t borrow your way out of debt. The amount of money she could have saved has much less to do with her rate. What cost her a huge amount of added interest was time. It was the 8 years of additional interest compounding that blew up her balance. She could have saved so much more on interest by attacking it as early as possible and definitely NOT choosing to let it go into forbearance. Those things ballooned her loans…not the interest rate. There are no magic tricks to it. Attack your debt as quickly and as aggressively as possible as soon as you get out.
Thank you for uploading this video! Im upset with not refinancing my loans for the longest time... Happy I am starting this process now. Just got a letter from Earnest, hopefully they are good. If not I will check out Commonbond. Thanks again for this video!
Thanks Aja, great video. 100% appreciate your honesty and authenticity. Im curious, did you refinance on a variable or fixed new interest rate? Do you have any advice on going variable versus fixed? Issues or concerns you brainstormed that were or were not addressed? Sorry if you addressed this in the vid.
Looking into refinancing my loans with Common Bond. If I sign up for a fixed rate with one of my loans, can I switch to a variable rate for that loan in the near future or is that initial rate that you went with is permanent and can't be changed
My husband and I both have student loans we are trying to pay off. Could we consolidate all of our loans together, his loans and my loans into one payment?
@@AjaDang I see, that makes sense! I refinanced this June with LendKey and selected a 7 year loan, which is why I asked. I can't wait to see the rest your financial journey! Best of luck :)
this video ONLY focus on the positives of refinancing, but COMPLETELY ignores the fact that by refinancing with a private company, you lose the safety net and flexibility of borrowing from the government (dept of education/nelnet) like option of income based repayment in case you lose your job or no late fees, this video feels like Aja got paid for promoting this random private company just for her own monetary benefits. BE AWARE people !!! Try not to fall for this !!! !!!! don’t be conned, you would rather owe money from the government than some random company that could come after you if things go south.
You are correct that you do lose safety and flexibility. That being said, I am quite certain she did not get paid to promote common bonds. No need to poison the well.
@@AjaDang Not luck, hard work. I made the decision to go to a community college studying software programming while working part-time instead of taking on 1000s of debt for some fancy university and after several interviews landed myself a tech job at one of the biggest banks in America. None of this was luck. None of this was a hand me down. I made every decision, the key one not going to university to study a meme degree in a saturated jobs market. But as they say, the harder you work the luckier you get.
MrDokha I went to a community college but still have $10k in student loans, which is very cheap for a Bachelors degree from a big state school. School is still expensive no matter how you do it.
Yes....quiet and deadly....hey! p I commend you in digging in and getting your loans done. HIndsight is a wonderous thing to have...if only. I am taking a hard turn off consumerism for 2019. I need to stop with the need to comply to my will of buying, thinking that little thing is ok because its little. I am saving for my own home...thats my goal. Also buying a car ..its a big deal..regardless how old you are. My friend said ' YOu need to meet a rich man..who can buy it for you.' 'Ah no..' I want the independence to do it my way..on my terms.
debt consolidation in the form that Aja talked about (where all your loans are combined and the interest rate you are given is a weighted average of those debts) saves you absolutely nothing in interest. It just makes managing the payments easier. It can be nice since it is just one payment every month. However, after consolidation many fall into the psychological trap that it is ok to run up debts again because now they don't have multiple debts...they only have a single debt. The reality is they are no better off financially than they were before but now they have zero balances on their credit cards so they feel like they can start charging on them again. Don't focus on consolidation and refinancing....focus on how you can make larger payments. You can't borrow your way out of debt....it's just a little extra boost when you have reached the point where you are firing on all cylinders and attacking it as aggressively as you possibly can.
Tim Lee non student loans? No. It’s easier to just just the snowball method (pay off the smallest to the largest. And using the extra money from the paid off bill to payoff the next one) or the avalanche method (paying off the debt with the highest interest rate to lowest). Debt consolidation for student loans is ok because these loans aren’t dischargeable in bankruptcy and they have to be paid unless you die or become permanently disabled.
