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Student Loans

May 2022 Side Hustle Report – $1,569.18

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Hey everyone. May is in the books, which means it’s time for another Financial Panther side hustle report. As a quick recap, each month, I document exactly what I was able to earn by side hustling using various gig economy apps. I use these gig economy apps as a supplement to my blog income, with […]

Don’t Go To Grad School Just To Ride Out A Recession

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This post may contain affiliate links.Financial Panther has partnered with AwardWallet and CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Financial Panther, AwardWallet, and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

One of the formative moments of my life was when I graduated from college back in 2009. This was right in the heart of the financial crisis, so in terms of timing, I probably couldn’t have graduated at a worse time. Like many of my cohorts in that graduating year, I ended up moving back […]

Combining SoFi Experiences And Travel Hacking For Free Flights And Free Events

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This post may contain affiliate links.Financial Panther has partnered with AwardWallet and CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Financial Panther, AwardWallet, and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about SoFi and how much value I’ve received from refinancing my student loans with them way back in 2015. Refinancing did two things for me. First, it dramatically lowered my interest rate, which made it easier for me to pay off my student loans as fast as I […]

How I’ve Received Thousands Of Dollars Worth Of Free Stuff From Refinancing My Student Loans With SoFi

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This post may contain affiliate links.Financial Panther has partnered with AwardWallet and CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Financial Panther, AwardWallet, and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

About a month ago, I was checking out the SoFi events page when I came across a SoFi event that I couldn’t miss – free tickets to the Big Ten Championship in Indianapolis. These weren’t just regular tickets either. They were in the SoFi suite, with free food and drinks and access to the pre-game VIP hospitality […]

My Student Loan Refinancing Experience

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This post may contain affiliate links.Financial Panther has partnered with AwardWallet and CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Financial Panther, AwardWallet, and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

These days, student loans are pretty much a given for most young professionals. When I graduated law school back in 2013, I had a hugely negative net worth thanks to $87,000 worth of student loans that I had taken out. That doesn’t seem like all that much when you consider that the average law student today graduates with almost double that amount of debt. I think it’s a testament to just how normalized student loans have become when $87,000 can seem like nothing.

The thing that really stinks about student loans isn’t just the monthly payment. It’s the huge amount that you’re paying out each year towards interest. If you look at my own student loan history, you can see that I paid over $15,000 in interest over the life of the loan. And that’s with me paying off the loan in just two years!

One of the reasons we’re paying so much in interest is because of the high interest rates we’re given. Since anyone can get a student loan, the interest rates are higher than they should be for folks who are going into fields where they should hopefully make a decent income. Regular grad school loans clock in at a 6.8% interest rate these days. Grad plus loans come in at a whopping 7.9% interest rate. Those kind of interest rates are no joke…

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