My Loans Consolidated

With the tobacco companies boosting their cigarette prices by 11% as the US government has shown the figures, smoking is not just bad for your health but is also getting rougher on your wallet. The increase in prices is due to the federal government increase in excise tax from 39 cents to $1.01 per pack which was effective early this month.

One of the many ways to save money -especially if you are deep in debt already- is by cutting cost on smoking. If you have already toyed with the thoughts of saving money by stopping to smoke, you probably already realize that you can actually save hundreds of dollars per year! Imagine what you could have used the money for instead.

Here is a great tool to calculate the money you spend on cigarettes while you are struggling to get out of debt!

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As the current national mortgage rate for a 30 year fixed mortgage is 4.95%, a rush of application for a mortgage refinance is still happening. To help you decide whether you should refinance yourself or not, use this 20 in 1 mortgage calculator and see if refinancing is actually saving you money instead of wasting it even more.

If you are applying for a first mortgage, click the link in the left sidebar that says How Much Income Do I Need to Qualify. You should also consider whether it is best for you to apply for a mortgage or rent. Use one of the 20 mortgage calculator below to determine Rent vs. Buy.
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Many people are tempted to only pay a measly one fifth a month off their credit cards mainly because it just sounds very cheap. But most of them don’t realize that paying off only a little every month is a dangerous thing to do as it may leave you in debt for almost your whole life! The lenders mathematically designed the credit card monthly minimum payments to keep you in debt and make more profit off you by charging you interest after interest of every month that you stay in debt.

Your aim should be to pay off your debt as quickly as possible so you can stop earning your lenders money from interest. The monthly minimum repayment is a percentage of your outstanding credit card balance. So as you decrease your debt, you also decrease your monthly minimum repayment.

Most of the reason why people only make the minimum payment is simply because they don’t understand how damaging this is. Use this calculator to check how long it will take to pay off your debt, and how much interest you will pay over the life of your debt if you only make minimum monthly payments.

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