Resources

Budgeting Tips

A budget is an outline of estimated income and expenses used to plan for your financial life.

Many people have a “mental budget” where they generally have some sense of their financial resources and some of their expenses. However, this is not a tactic that will best set you up for financial success.

Spending time even just once to think through and write out a budget can plant the seed for real behavioral change if it is deemed necessary. This may also spur additional savings for retirement or deciding to adjust your spending in an area that is noticeably high once you construct your budget.

Continually review your budget. Checking to see if you really are spending money in the way that you initially planned will make creating future budgets easier.

People should make a budget in a format that is accessible and visible to them. Many banks have apps that can track spending on purchases used with your debit card where you can also manually add purchases if you used another form of payment. The same is true for many credit card apps. Some people may prefer to manually type all expenses into the notes section on their phone so they can make it a habit of tracking all expenses immediately. Others may prefer the old-fashioned budget on paper or in excel. We have attached a basic budget sheet with some expenses broken down into greater detail that may serve as a starting point as you create/review your budget.

Follows These Steps to “Pull Your Credit Report”

At any given time, you can have at least three different credit scores since each calculation depends on what credit report is being evaluated. Since there are three entities that compile your credit reports (Experian, Equifax, and Transunion), each report may be slightly different from one another. These reports are used to determine how reliable you are at making payments on debt. Information on each report is used to calculate your credit score. It is important to view your credit report to notice and correct any errors on your credit reports. Your credit score may not be included in your credit report. Many banks include the ability to view your credit score within their apps. You may also pay to view your score, but that is not typically necessary.

Directions:

1. Go to the Annual Credit Report website
2. Click on “Request your free credit reports”
3. Click on “Request your credit reports”
4. Fill out the form to completion (For address, do NOT put campus address) (Also, you do not need the last 4 digits for the zip code)
5. Request your credit report from any of the 3 bureaus

If you are denied access due to answering any of the identify verification questions incorrectly for one bureau, try pulling your report from a different bureau as they may ask different verification questions.

*You may be asked to verify who your student loan servicer is as a pre-requisite to view your report if you have student loans. You can find yours by going to the Federal Student Aid website and logging in with your FAFSA log in information.

6.     Look for errors

You can view one free copy of your credit report from each bureau each year. You are also legally allowed to view a copy of any credit report used that resulted in a credit denial from a lender, even if you have already viewed your free report from that bureau for that year.

Student Loan Repayment

The Federal Student Aid website is the official website for the most up-to-date information on repayment plans and other information related to student loan repayment.

• Your “loan servicer” (the organization you will make payments to) can be found at this website
• When you navigate to your loan servicer’s webpage, you will need to create an account with them; your FAFSA log-in credentials will not already be connected with an account for your student loan servicer.

The following video gives an overview of some options available on repaying student loans:

For additional information on loan repayment, please schedule an appointment with our team by navigating to the top of this webpage.

Additional Resources

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