In today’s ever changing economy, it’s hard enough for the average working individual to make ends meet, without a wage garnishment, while supporting themselves or their families. Sometimes living pay check to pay check with the regular bills and sudden unexpected expenses is hard enough without having an old student loan debt rear its ugly head to bite you in the wallet. Borrowers who have not made voluntary and timely payments to the institution from which a loan was made, may face a wage garnishment through their current employer.

Under the Higher Education Act, the Department of Education and security agencies can require employers to deduct a minimum of 10% of the indebted employee’s pay check each pay period toward repayment of the debt. This wage garnishment may continue until the entire balance of the outstanding debt is paid. This method of wage garnishment is used only for the borrowers who refuse to voluntarily repay their defaulted loan and is not used with those borrowers who continue to make regular and timely payments.

Employers who have received an Order for Withholding of Wages must conform to the order by law. Employers will only receive information that is necessary to conform with the wage garnishing order and are prohibited to discharge the borrower from employment, or subject the individual to disciplinary action due to wage garnishment. Any individual who is discharged from their job or disciplined is allowed to seek restitution in federal or state court if such action occurs. Administrative Wage Garnishment is a tool of last resort used by the U.S. Department of Education to recover defaulted student loans through wage garnishment. Thirty days prior to the issuance of the Order of Withholding, a notice is sent to the borrower notifying that individual of the Department of Education’s intent to garnish wages and of the borrower’s rights and appeal procedures.

To avoid wage garnishments, the borrower has an opportunity to enter into a written agreement under terms agreeable to Department of Education to establish a voluntary repayment arrangement. If the borrower has any objections to the existence, amount, or enforce-ability of the debt, a hearing can be arranged to present and obtain a ruling; also of any objection that wage garnishment of the borrowers disposable pay would produce an extreme financial hardship. A wage garnishment action can be withheld by filing a timely request for a hearing. No action will be taken until the hearing is completed and a decision is issued.

Borrowers may also object to a wage garnishment if the validity of the claim is in question or if the current enforce-ability of the claim is barred by law. The borrower is responsible for providing documentation or evidence to corroborate any objections raised in defense to the enforcement of the debt. It would be in your best interest to learn all you can about garnishment law.

Henry Byers, Retired IRS Manager and irs-wage-garnishment.info IRS Wage Garnishment expert – focusing on garnishment-attorney.info State Garnishment and irs-bank-levy.info Wage Garnishment.

Online banking, also known as PC banking, home banking, electronic banking or Internet banking, uses today’s computer technology to relieve the customer of the time-consuming, paper-based aspects of traditional banking in order to manage his or her finances more quickly and efficiently. Thanks to the advent of the Internet, banks have been using powerful computer networks to automate millions of daily transactions to minimize the time-consuming paper record and providing different banking services to its customers quickly. Online banking is a powerful value added tool to the banks for attracting and retaining new customers by helping them in eliminating costly paper based teller interactions and has become very important in an increasingly competitive banking environment.

Unlike traditional corner banks, online banking sites never close; they’re available 24 hours a day and seven days a week. If the customer is out of state or even out of the country when a money problem arises, he or she can log on instantly and take care of business. Similarly he or she can access and manage all aspects of their bank account including IRAs, CDs, even securities, from one secured website.

The processing speeds of online bank sites used to execute and confirm transactions are much more quicker than ATM processing speeds. Online banking sites now offer sophisticated tools like account aggregation, stock quotes, rate alerts, and portfolio managing programs to help the customers in managing all of their assets more effectively. In order to register for q bank’s online program, the customer will probably have to provide ID and have to sign a form at a bank branch.

Today, most of the large national banks and many regional banks offer some form of online banking. Almost all the large banks now offer fully secured and functional online banking for either for free or for a small fee. Some smaller banks offer limited functionality; for instance, the customer may be able to view account balance and history but cannot initiate transactions online.

banking-web.com Banking provides detailed information about banking, banking jobs, banking services, and more. Banking is affiliated with e-bankaccounts.com Swiss Bank Accounts.

I’m looking at the accounting book kept by my grandmother in the 1930′s. This is the first of her books that were kept right up until her death last year. What an amazing story the pages tell: The sorts of things she liked (lifesavers); she liked to do (go to the show); the gifts she bought for friends and family (a $2.75 Yardley’s shaving kit and $1.00 zippered pouch for her fiance, a $4.00 amethyst pendant for her mother, $27.44 altogether); the money she gave to the church; the things she needed ($1.00 to use an iron in 1931, sewing accessories, stationary, hair, coats, shoes, hose, hats, dresses, cosmetics, soap, hope chest, phone, insurance, gifts, mom, sister, teeth, doctor, board, miscellaneous for a total of $569.87 in 1930). I’m almost afraid to touch the book. There is so much detail, so much history; so much of her life is in these pages.

Inside the cover is an old newspaper clipping of a story of a society lady who seemed to keep the same records. This lady obviously had the same respect and appreciation for the importance of keeping financial records as my grandmother. It seems from the article and from my experience with elderly clients that this record keeping was a common practice years ago. What happened? It would be easy to say that it was a practice done only by those who were poor and had to watch their pennies – but that wasn’t the case – with my grandmother or with the lady in the newspaper clipping.

What does this have to do with how we manage our finances today? Well, quite simply, I know very few people keep a cheque book today, let alone balance one or keep detailed financial statements like the ones kept by our grandparents. You could argue that the information is available on your bank statements and credit card statements, but is it? The careful analysis of a cheque book entry or of categorizing expenditures and tallying them monthly and annually is a completely different process than simply scanning an electronic statement to see that all the items did indeed belong to you.

Today, we have automatic debits and deposits, several credit cards, interac purchases, automatic charges to credit cards, various bank accounts, savings accounts, investment accounts, lines of credit and overdraft accounts so that access to cash is easy. However, along with the access to cash is the temptation to spend – and there is plenty to spend money on. Our values are demonstrated by the things we spend money on, rather than how we really live. For example, if you spend a lot of money on your children, it’s a good indicator that you place a high priority on your children’s well-being. However, the values that are really being taught to the children might be that the “stuff” money buys is their right as children. They aren’t learning the value of delayed gratification, or of quality time spent together, or of the real value of all the “stuff” in terms of what was sacrificed in order for them to have it.

The basic priorities of household financial management are not being taught to our children. They are instead learning that if they like something it can be bought – they don’t know the difference between items purchased with cash and items paid for with plastic much over time. They don’t have any means of recognizing that there was effort made by the parent to acquire the item. In fact, often, the parents might not even recognize the actual effort they put out in order to fund their lifestyle because it is financed over such long time periods. If something was bought on credit the parent could be paying for the item for years, while the child can all too frequently toss aside these impulse items and ignore them within a short time because all they did was satisfy an immediate gratification, not a true desire. How many children’s toys end up thrown in a heaping box somewhere broken and pieces missing?

In fact, very few people even realize the full cost of something purchased on credit and not completely paid for at the end of the month – and this extends well beyond purchases made for our children. Furthermore, even when credit cards are paid in full each month, studies have shown that an average of 35% more was spent. I believe this statistic would probably transfer to any form of plastic payment, although I’ve not seen any studies. Why do I believe this? Simply because if the money is there and accessible it is easy to see something we like and buy it. And, if we have no means of keeping track of our purchases, we can spend unconsciously and never realize where all the money is going.

There was no credit in the old days–no instant gratification or electronic access to banking information; and our grandparents found the time to record their purchases and analyze their spending. They didn’t do this out of scarcity – they did it to maintain a responsible control over their personal finances.

Some people might say, then, that the answer to having better control over personal finances is to cut up credit cards. Not so. The answer is to keep better records, take the time to record purchases and analyze the data. Find out where your money is really going, then use this information for your own benefit by comparing your financial transactions to your life priorities: are they reflected adequately in your day-to-day transactions? Take a look around your home – do you have clutter – particularly extra papers that need to be dealt with, and stuff that you just don’t want or use any more? Are you where you want to be financially? Perhaps this clutter and extra papers is a clue that you need to make some financial changes.

Here, then, are the lessons on financial management from my grandma (and other’s from that generation):

1) Take the time to track your expenditures, then
2) Take a little more time to consider the categories of expenditures and how they relate to your real priorities, and finally,
3) Take the time to develop and follow a system for filing your papers.

It’s an invaluable exercise, for how you live your life today; for your future planning; for the taxman if he ever comes knocking; and perhaps for your future generations – because of the story the pages tell and of the lessons passed on to your children. Thank you, Grannie, for the values you demonstrated and the legacy you left in the pages of your financial journals!

Money expert Tracy Piercy is a Certified Financial Planner, author, and founder of the personal MoneyMinding Makeover System. To learn more about this step by step system and to get the Free 12 Simple Steps program visit moneyminding.com moneyminding.com

This article can be reprinted freely online, as long as the entire article and this resource box are included.

The internet has become a valuable tool when it comes to trading and investing, and online FX trading is both convenient and accessible. The benefit of using the internet for online trading is that it allows you to view how the market is functioning in real time – and to make your Forex trading successful, you need to make sure you have these real time capabilities to help you make quick decisions.

There is an art to online fx trading and there are plenty of companies that help make the process easier; their goal is to give you the resources necessary to take full advantage of this kind of trading.

Online FX Trading Basics

To do online Forex trading, you need both a reliable internet connection and knowledge of the Foreign Exchange Market. Without knowledge of this market, you will be ill equipped to be successful at FX trading.

The foreign exchange market deals with buying and selling currencies throughout the world, and the market is on a 24 hour clock – this fact alone makes online FX trading a valuable option. Your online efforts can be continually monitored making this global trading more successful.

If you are considering getting started with Forex trading, keep in mind that as with any form of investing or online trading, adequate research is a key point, because you want to make sure you understand what you need to do to be successful. You may want to hire a firm that specialize in the foreign exchange market and will guide you through the process of online trading.

Trading Currencies

Most of the trading that is done with FX trading occurs within the realm of a few common currencies which see the majority of the transactions and are called “the majors”. The currencies include the US Dollar, Japanese Yen, British Pound, Euro, Canadian Dollar, and the Australian Dollar. There is the potential to make a considerable amount of money but you need to watch carefully for market and price fluctuations – this is why trading Forex can be invaluable.

Using Software

If you don’t wish to hire a firm to assist you with online FX trading, there are plenty of software programs out there that you can use to help. These software programs are invaluable and a good one will include multiple features that will help make your online trading efforts a success.

A good software program will provide you with instant access to the Global Foreign Exchange market, and will also offer automated alerts as to the market condition and whether or not you should buy or sell in a particular trade. A good idea is to make a list of the software programs available and then research which are the best for your situation.

For more information visit at besttradinginfo.com/” target=”_new www.besttradinginfo.com/
and get FREE trading lessons from professional traders. Learn form Ryan Lee, a successful, full-time, active investor and others, which strategies to use and how to trade profitably.

Why are rich people rich and how do they retain their wealth through several generations? In this article we try to examine how real estate as seen in investment property has played a large role in generating large amounts of wealth, how it has also been used to retain wealth to sustain several large clans and what you can use in offshore investments.

Wealth Generation with Investment Property

Forbes magazine once commissioned a study and found that most of the rich people today other than a few high tech entrepreneurs like Bill Gates and the Google founders made their money in real estate. But remains, why is there an allure of Investment Property even today?

This is because traditionally, most people consider Investment Property to be a secure investment and Investment Property prices rarely fall and prices continue to rise. Since real estate mimics economic cycles, rich people start building new properties for others to stay and since the profit margins associated with properties can be quite substantial so their wealth increases with each new Investment Property that they develop and subsequently resell. Thus we learn that at the highest stage, investment property, real estate development and finance all move together to make the rich richer then evern before.

Why the Rich retain their wealth

Many people know of the Hilton empire and think about the taxes that they save each year because of the legal trust structure that holds this wealth together. Actually trusts which are legal devices to shield offshore income from taxes help to protect wealth and prevent an heir of a rich estate from squandering it. One way is by having large trust companies to administer the trust and then allow beneficiaries to get a fixed sum.

But what do most trusts invest in? It is no surprise to note that cash flow investment properties like the famous Hilton hotel chain provide a constant source of cash flow into such structures and as mentioned prevent a few heirs from squandering the proceeds of the trust. Rental Income and Hotel Income from investment properties kept in trusts therefore help rich families retain their wealth from generation to generation. Thus we note that rental income and cash streams from investment properties held by trusts can allow for wealth to be transferred from one generation to the next.

Wealth of Nations and Investment Property

Since property represents a large portion of a nation’s wealth and both the rich and poor people are so enamoured with it, many countries codes and laws have specific legislations protecting and regulating Investment Property. The rich have teams of lawyers working for them when they look for investment property since some of the property codes and statutes in both local and offshore jurisdictions can be potentially fraught with legal loopholes. So if you want to be a wealthy property investor, you need to have good professional advisors since every rich businessman today is as good as the team of advisors that he has working for him.

Copyright © 2006 Joel Teo. All rights reserved. (You may publish this article in its entirety with the following author’s information with live links only.)

Joel Teo writes on various financial topics relating to Ahwatukee Real Estate Investment. Signup for his free online Real Estate Investing newsletter today and gain access to the “Six Day Real Estate Investment Profits Course” now at realestateinvestment101.info/Ahwatukee.html www.realestateinvestment101.info/Ahwatukee.html

The most important self-defense skill is awareness. Use the same Color Codes of awareness that most military and police organizations do to increase your awareness constantly.

Awareness, according to experts, makes up 90% of self-defense, the remaining 10% being physical techniques. With awareness, you can identify and avoid potentially dangerous situations. Without it, you become an easy target for a criminal.

Colonel Jeff Cooper, a combat pistol instructor, developed the Color Code system, used by most military and police organizations, to differentiate different levels of awareness.

These color codes help recognize, evaluate, and avoid potential threats. They are used to measure rising threat and make most situations avoidable. The following are the colors in ascending order of awareness of danger: white, yellow, orange, and red.

Code White

You are secure.
Awareness is switched off.
You are unaware of your environment, its inhabitants, and their rituals of attack.
All attackers look for victims in this state.

Code Yellow

You are cautious.
Awareness is switched on.
State of threat awareness and relaxed alertness.
You have a 360-degree peripheral awareness of such environmental danger spots as secluded doorways, entries, and alleys, as well as such psychological triggers as adrenal dump and attacker ruses. Be aware of people, vehicles, behind large objects, dark areas, etc.

Code Orange

You are in danger.
State of threat evaluation.
Specific alert. A possible target has been identified. A particular situation that has drawn your attention and could present a major problem. Someone may be giving oral indicators such as direct threats or using suspicious language. Focus on the potential attacker.
Check to see if there is an avenue of escape, potential weapons available, and if others around you are friend or foe.
Decision is made to take action.

Code Red

You are in conflict.
State of threat avoidance.
Fight or flight. Flee, defend, or attack. You have evaluated the situation, and if there is a threat, you prepare to fight or run.
Never stand or fight if there is a possibility of fleeing.
Carry out decision to act made in Code Orange.
If use of physical self-defense techniques is necessary, use the level of force appropriate to the threat. E.g., don’t treat someone who pushes you because he is rude like someone who is trying to stab you with a knife.

How to Use the Color Codes of Awareness

The color codes of awareness are a continuum of your awareness and readiness to defend. The objective is to constantly flow from one color to the next above or below, depending on the situation.

Never be in white. Spend most your time in yellow, even in places where you feel safe, such as at home.

Constantly be aware and alert, and shift from yellow and orange often as you notice potential threats and dangers. When in orange, notice what you can do to flee, defend, or attack if it become necessary, and make the decision to take a specific action if the situation escalates to red.

When in orange, notice what you can do to flee, defend, or attack if it becomes necessary, and make the decision to take a specific action if the situation escalates to red.

The Color Codes in Practice

Here’s an example of how the Color Codes of awareness could be used. A 100-pound woman is walking to her car, carrying grocery bags. Being aware and alert in Code Yellow, she sees two suspicious men near her car.

She switches from Yellow to Orange. She decides on her self-defense options. They walk toward her and reach for her. She switches to Red, and executes her decisions: she throws the bags at them and runs back into the store.

Conclusion

Starting right now, be in Code Yellow. Throughout your day, identify potential areas of danger and switch to Code Orange as necessary. Switch back to Code Yellow if no threat exists. Do this exercise again tomorrow. And the next day. And so on. Eventually, awareness becomes a habit. Make the most important self-defense skill, awareness, a habit.

Lyman Yip’s website SelfDefenseResource.com provides self-defense articles and a directory of resources. To learn more and claim the FREE REPORT “10 Secrets to Effective Self-Defense,” visit our selfdefenseresource.com/” target=”_blank self-defense website.

People work to earn money. The money earned is to aid in getting by for everyday. Of course, the extra money can definitely be used for some leisure times. However, there are instances that you may find yourself running out of cash. Emergency situations and immediate needs may arise that your cash may not be enough. If payday is still a long time to wait, then you are in serious trouble.

The payday advance loan will be the best answer in such a situation. Rather than fret that you have been stuck in a bad situation, it is best to get hold of the situation. You have the payday loan option for your cash advances. This way, even if needs arise, you always have a resort for the situation.

The Payday Loan Cash Advance

You can get a personal payday loan to serve as a cash advance. This is an easy option if you need credit. All you will need is to ascertain that you are able to comply with all the requirements. Fill out a form. After that, you can get your cash advance in just a few minutes. There is no need to wait for weeks from other complicated loan arrangements. That simple and you have your cash problems resolved.

Payday Loans and Cash Advance Requirements

The first thing to do to get a payday loan is to find a lending company. There are many options for payday cash advance online. You can access different online companies on the internet. You can view their terms and requirements.

Payday loans or cash advances will require that the borrower be employed. This is because the paycheck is the one used as security for the personal loan. Of course, you will also need a checking account in a bank. This should allow authorized deposits and withdrawals to facilitate in your payday loan. These may require further that you provide certifications and documents.

The payday cash advance also entails certain interest rates and fees on your loan. The interest rates may vary depending on the terms that you will choose. For example, if the term will take a longer period, then the interest rate can also get higher. The fees can range from 10 to 15 dollars for every hundreds borrowed. The best thing to do is to study well the terms of the payday loan or cash advance. This way, you will know if you are getting the interest rates and charges that are favorable to you.

Be sure to take the time to canvass the different lending companies online. There are so many of them that you must wait until you find the right one that will get you the best deals. See if they can offer a good bargain. This may be a short-term loan, but you can do a lot more with the money you will save if you catch low interest rates and fees.

Once you have decided on the loan, then it is best to fill out the application form. The forms ask for basic information. They are easy to fill out and answer. You may also have to get your scanner or fax ready so you can easily send the required documents. In just a few minutes of processing you can get feel like its payday with your cash advance.

Mario Churchill is a freelance author and has written over 200 articles on various subjects. For information on a paydayloansinfo.org paydayloan or to get a paydayloansinfo.org payday advance checkout his website.

Day traders look to use hourly charts within the day so they can trade with limited risk and get out with a profit.

When doing this they use a variety of technical indicators such as pivot points to help them.

Let’s see how intra day charts can be used to help make profits in forex day trading.

The answer is you cannot make profits consistently trading using intra day charts!

This is obvious to most people except day traders.

The Proof

The reason is obvious, but many novice traders fall for the hyped sales copy of vendors selling these forex day trading systems.

However, if you ask them for their real time track record you won’t get one.

Of course, you will get a hypothetical track record done in hindsight.

These show wonderful profits, but as the track record has been constructed in hindsight knowing the closing prices it’s not exactly hard to make money!

If I knew tomorrow’s closing price today I would be a multi millionaire but of course forex trading is not like that.

The reason why intra day charts are useless and day trading logic is flawed:

1. Consider this everyday trillions of dollars are traded by countless millions of traders all with different investment objectives and styles.
To think that this mass can be predicted in the time period of a few hours is laughable.

2. Most of these traders pay no attention to day or intra day levels the only people who do are day traders and their a tiny losing majority.
As these levels are not considered important, volatility can and does take prices anywhere.

3. It’s a fact that volatility within in any day is random.
It doesn’t matter what indicators you use, day traders are working with meaningless data.

4. Day traders who use intra day charts think that they can restrict risk, but of course they actually create it.
Their stop levels get triggered the majority of the time, as volatility stops them out.

When their lucky enough to get a winner, they don’t run the position and are grateful to get out with any profit they can.

So not only do day traders use meaningless data, they also break the fundamental rule of investing:

Cut your losses and run your profits to cover them.

Day traders to be fair do keep losses small ( and they have a lot of them ) but of course they can’t run profits to cover them.

What is the end result?

A wipe out of account equity.

If you want to lose your money quickly, their really is no better way then trading with intra day charts.

So why do so many people fall for day trading systems?

They tend to be greedy investors who think forex trading is easy, or novice traders who don’t know any better.

Day trading systems are sold by vendors who rely on attractive sales copy.

They tend to fall into two groups failed brokers or marketing people who have never traded.

Of course their not stupid enough to trade the systems they sell themselves – That’s why you never get a real time track record

They simply make money from selling the system and leave buyers to lose money.

They win, day traders lose, it really is that simple.

MORE FREE TRADING INFO & A SYSTEM WITH A REAL TIME TRACK RECORD

On all aspects of becoming a profitable trader including info and for an exclusive

If you’re deeply in debt and have been for years, you may be losing the hope of ever getting your finances under control again. Though your future can look quite bleak with large amounts of debt, have hope: There are steps you can take today to start managing those debts, and keep them from getting worse.

One of the best ways to manage debt while still enjoying life, is to use a personal or household budget. A budget is simply a financial plan. It catalogs how much income you have, and how much must go out each month.

Budgets are not hard to set up, but they can be a bit difficult to stick to. With a bit of willpower and discipline though, budgeting can help you control how much money flows out each month, and in the process it can also help you avoid additional debts. Sometimes budgeting can even help you reduce the current debts you have.

To create a budget, start by asking yourself a few questions, and writing down the answers:

1. How much total income do I have each month? Don’t make the mistake of using your salary here, you need to work with useable income in your budget. If your “salary” is $50,000 per year, you can’t just divide that by 12 and have an accurate monthly income. Deductions are made before you get the paycheck, so for the purpose of budgeting: Income is actual money received – after taxes or any other with holdings.

2. What are my fixed expenses each month? Fixed income includes bills that are always the same. These include mortgages, rent, credit accounts, car payments, and insurance.

3. What are my variable expenses each month? These will include utility bills, gasoline, and groceries.

By their very nature, variable bills are harder to budget for. If you have a year’s worth of previous bills available to use as reference, add them all up and get an average. Or get a high and low, then create an average from that.

How you budget for these expenses will be your personal choice. You can use an average, estimated high, or estimated low. If your electric bill runs $150 for about 9 months out of the year for instance, but $300 during the three or four months of summer, then you might choose to budget just $150 per month for that bill. It would be smarter however, to budget at least $200 a month. This would allow you to accumulate extra in that part of your budget, so you’ll have the added expense already covered when your more expensive months arrive.

Be sure you do not add any extras or luxuries into the above two steps. Those should simply be lists of required expenses you have each and every month.

Total your fixed and variable expenses, then subtract them from your overall useable monthly income. This is known as your “disposable income”. This is where you can spend on luxury items, put something away into savings, or put a bit extra towards outstanding debts.

The ideal option is to budget for all three. Allow yourself some luxuries: Denying yourself a bit of fun or entertainment will only make you resent the budget more, and you’ll be likely to stop following it soon.

Also allow yourself to put something into savings. Having an emergency fund socked away adds quite a bit of confidence, and helps releive the stress of large debt.

Last but not least: If you’re able to, use a little of your disposable income to pay more than you have to on at least one debt each month. The faster you start paying those down, the more disposable income you’ll have, because you’ll be cutting out the interest those debts generate.

Now that you have everything written down, with estimated or fixed dollar amounts for each item, you have a working beginner budget. Stick with this plan each and every month and you’ll soon find yourself sleeping much easier at night… and maybe even conquering some of your debt demons too!

© 2006, Kathy Burns-Millyard. More About

Federal student loan consolidation is a free federal program that allows anyone with outstanding federal student loan debt to combine their loans, extend their repayment term, and lock in their interest rate.

The terms and conditions on all federal student loan consolidations are set by the U.S. Department of Education, meaning that all federal student loan consolidations are, at least initially, created equal. There are no prepayment penalties or fees, and every lender has to offer the same federal forbearance and deferment options and the same initial consolidated interest rate. This rate is based on a weighted average of the interest rates of all the outstanding student loans rounded to the nearest 1/8th percent.

So, if every lender is offering the same federal terms and conditions, and every consolidated loan will have the same initial rate, what’s the difference between consolidation lenders? The difference between lenders is in the borrower benefits that are offered. These differences can be pretty substantial, and by asking the right questions, smart borrowers can get the best deal on their federal student consolidation loan.

Interest Rate Reductions

The most common benefit offered on a federal student loan consolidation is an interest rate reduction. This benefit is usually offered in two parts: a .25% reduction for auto debit and a 1% interest rate reduction after 36 months of on-time payments.

This is a great benefit that can greatly reduce the total amount of interest paid on the consolidated loan. On a $30,000 loan, this benefit alone can save a borrower over $6,500 in interest!

Although this is an attractive benefit, there are a couple things to ask your consolidation lender before proceeding with the loan:

1. Ask the lender if the benefit will lock in after you’ve made 36 months of on-time payments.Most consolidation companies will add the 1% back in if any payment is late after the benefit has already been awarded. Many people don’t worry about this, assuming that they will always make their payment on time. However, most consolidation loans will take over 10 years to pay back and the odds are a payment will be late eventually. Clarify with the lender when a payment is considered late. Any reputable company should provide at least a 10-day grace period before a payment is considered late. Remember, just because you have your payments set up to be auto-debited from a bank account doesn’t mean they will always be on time. If there are insufficient funds in the bank account, the payment can be rejected and considered late. This means that, after the 1% interest rate reduction is awarded, the benefit can never be taken away, even if payments are made late in the future.

2. Ask the lender if the on-time payments have to be consecutive to receive the interest rate reduction. Many companies will take away the benefit if you put the loan into a forbearance or deferment. This can even include a deferment on payments if you decide to go back to school. Reputable lenders will not take away your benefit for exercising your federal right to put your consolidation loan into a deferment or forbearance.

3. Ask the lender what will happen to the benefit if the loan is sold. Regardless of what a lender tells you, many consolidation loans are sold. Make sure that if your loan is sold, you will not lose your rate reductions. There are horror stories of borrowers making 30 on-time payments to find out that their consolidated loan had been sold to a new lender who will not honor the 1% rate reduction they were initially promised.

Cash Back Rebate

A relatively new benefit being touted by consolidation companies is the cash back rebate. This is usually a percentage of the principal loan balance that is either applied to the outstanding loan or sent to the borrower as a cash payment. This can be a very attractive offer, especially when in the form of a cash payment to the borrower.

It’s hard to resist a check for thousands of dollars, but when compared to the savings from the interest rate reductions, the cash back rebate is usually not the best financial discount.

For example:

One lender is offering a 1.25% rate reduction for on-time payments, and the other lender is offering a 3% cash back rebate on a $60,000 consolidated loan. The lender offering the cash back rebate will mail the borrower a check for $1,800 after they make 10 payments on time. The other lender will give the 1% rate reduction after 3 years of on-time payments. The cash rebate sounds tempting, but when you realize that the 1.25% rate reduction could save over $32,000, it is clear the interest rate reduction is the superior benefit.

1. If you decide to go with a company offering the cash rebate option, make sure to read the fine print. Many companies require that a rebate form be submitted by a certain deadline to process the cash back benefit. If the cash back rebate form is not received, they will disqualify the borrower from the rebate.

2. Ask the lender what exactly is required to receive the cash back rebate before submitting a signed consolidation loan application. Many companies combine the cash back rebate with other borrower obligations. One company requires that a borrower enroll in their electronic newsletter with a valid email address before the rebate is awarded.

The federal student loan consolidation program is an excellent way to manage student loan debt as well as save thousands of dollars in interest payments. By asking the right questions and knowing what to look for, you can maximize your savings and make sure that you get the best deal possible on your consolidation loan.

Joe Elias is a partner in 4.0 Student Loans, a financial aid company that provides student loan information and consolidation for students and parents. 40studentloans.com 40studentloans.com