Guest Post – 4 Smart Money Tips That Help Reduce Interest on Your Personal Loans

Loans give us a chance to do, buy, and experience things that you simply could never pony up the cash to do. They make owning a home possible. For most people, auto loans the ticket to buying a car. In some ways, loans are even an opportunity to build wealth. And in others, they’re an opportunity to spend like you could be wealthy.

There’s a catch. Borrowing money costs money – and it can cost a lot. You pay fees and interest on your loan, and if you have a higher than average loan interest rate, you could spend years paying interest before you even touch the balance.

If you want to borrow, you need these smart money tips to help you protect your finances when paying back a loan.

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Dividend Aristocrats with Low Debt

The Occidental Petroleum dividend cut is fresh on my mind.  Trust me, the wounds are deep and still open.  Sadly, this was not the first time that a major, oil company in my portfolio slashed their dividend in an attempt to clean up their balance sheet.  Who could forget Kinder Morgan’s infamous cut in 2015??

There was one underlying theme in both of these dividend cuts: Debt. Both companies had amassed large debt balances; debt balances that eventually became too much to handle in a time of crisis.  Large debt balances are not exclusive to oil companies, sadly. Thus today, in the midst of the turbulent market and COVID-19 pandemic, I wanted to talk a little more about debt and then identify dividend stocks with low debt balances.  Hopefully, this will help us find some great, undervalued Dividend Aristocrats with low debt balances to invest in!

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What to Expect When You Can’t Pay Your Debts

It can sometimes feel like the more you do to try to get out of debt, the deeper into it you sink. This, by the way isn’t your imagination. Interest accumulates each month when you carry debt over into the next.

If this describes your current situation, you’re probably wondering what to expect when you can’t pay your debts. Well, in most cases, it looks like this. Continue reading

4 of the Best Tips for Taking out Student Loans

The following post is a guest blog post from one of our good friends, Taylor, and he offers a unique perspective about student loans and will provide some great tips about taking out student loans!   We don’t traditionally have these, but we always enjoy reading a different perspective and other avenues to take to become Financially Free!  Please see the post below and we thought it could be for something of consideration:

Student loans are unavoidable now that the college fees are skyrocketing and with students wanting to get in the top-ranked colleges. However, when students take loans, it does not end there because then there is the matter of loan repayments. If you take out loans wisely and with some tips in mind, you may be able to manage them after graduation. Please see the following article for more information about student loans.

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Using Side Hustles to Paydown My Mortgage

I hope at this point it is not a secret that Lanny and I are doing whatever it takes and side-hustling our tail off to earn every extra dollar we can.  In fact, I am earning some Swagbucks as I am writing this article as I have a video running in the background. We always say that every dollar counts and every dollar makes a difference in our pursuit of financial freedom.  I’ve been thinking long and hard about that phrase recently, especially as I spend hours staring at a computer watching spreadsheets open at work or I walk to the water cooler for a needed break. After a conversation with Lanny at the water coolers one of those days, something he said caused a light bulb to suddenly turn on and I cannot wait to starting using my side hustle income in a different manner, to paydown my mortgage.

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Why We’re Finally Maximizing our 401k Contributions in 2018

Fresh off of a record-setting December in terms of dividend income, I’m ready to hit the ground running in 2018 and make some serious moves.  Now that we are comfortably moved into our house and our cash outflows to make repairs and upgrades are shrinking drastically, we should have a lot of additional cash flow available for use in 2018.   After brainstorming what the most efficient use of the capital would be, I realized there is an easy change that I need to make with my finances.   Like Lanny over the past few years, my wife and I are finally taking the steps necessary to maximize our 401k contributions during the year!

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