While law school loans can often be complicated, it’s never too early or late to organize your finances. In addition to the resources below don’t forget about CharlotteLaw’s awesome Financial Aid staff.
Organize your loans
Big Brother is watching. All of your federal student loans can be tracked online at the National Student Loan Data System. It will summarize all your federal loans including the amount, date dispersed, and interest accumulating.
Calculators
Finaid.org has many calculators to estimate your loan payments and plan your budget. For example borrowing $75,000 for law school at 6.8% equals monthly payments of $863 for 10 years and a total repayment of $103,000. However, extending the repayment of the same $75,000 for 30 years equals monthly payments of $489 for a total repayment of $176,000. The calculators allow you to see how different interest rates, loan periods and loan amounts will impact your monthly payments.
Making a Budget
A budget can be made with a pen/paper or Excel. But the free webpages take budgeting to the next level. These websites organize your spending from debit and credit cards into categories, allowing you to see at a glance how much money you spend on groceries, gas, etc. You can also set up alerts to remind you when bills are due. Each site contains easy to read graphs. I’ve used Mint.com and never realized how much I spent on video games until I saw it in pie chart form.
*No not really.
-Tom Hemstock-
