Graduation day is fast approaching and your mind may be on many things. For example, passing all of your classes or getting ready to start a job after college. However, some other major items you need to be thinking about are repayment of student loans, budgeting with your new salary, and what your new job benefits mean for you. While this can seem like a daunting task Powercat Financial is here to help! This blog will focus on some of the key items in each of the three areas listed.
Repayment of Student Loans
There are four key items you want to be sure to know in order to be ready to repay your federal student loans. All of the following information can be found by logging into the Federal Student Aid website.
- Loan type – make sure you know what type of loan you have. They could be subsidized or unsubsidized.
- Loan amount– know the balances of your loans and if your loans were unsubsidized or private loans be aware of the interest that has accrued while you were in school.
- Servicer– the servicer of the loan is who you will be making payments to. It is important that you know who your servicer is and make an account with them in order to be ready to make payments.
- Repayment options– Be sure to look at the different repayment options and find the best fit for you. You can also use the Loan Estimator tool found on the Federal Student Aid site to find what repayment method they suggest for you! Also, be aware that you will automatically be place on standard repayment if you do not contact your servicer to make any changes.
Budgeting With Your New Salary
For some this may be the first steady stream of income that you have had. It may also be some of the largest paychecks you have gotten so it is important to budget your money. It may sound simple to spend less then you earn but there are some factors you may not have considered:
- Cost of living– If you are moving to a new state for your job you need to factor in the new cost of living. Even just moving from Manhattan to Kansas City you’re going to see an increase in your housing, transportation, and food cost. You can use tools like the cost of living calculator found on NerdWallet to get an idea of the changes for your cost of living.
- Taxes– You need to know how taxes will affect your paycheck. This will help you be able to budget more accurately because you will be budgeting with the amount of your take home pay net of taxes.
- Emergencies-They can come very unexpectedly and cause a lot of financial stress if you are not prepared for them. This is why it is important to factor savings that is put aside for an emergency fund. This will cut a lot of stress out when the emergencies pop up.
New Job Benefits
Every company and every job will have different benefits that will be offered to you. While I cannot go over all of these benefits I wanted to mention the three of the most common benefits you may see. You are likely to see what your employee benefits are in your job offer.
- Health Insurance– There are many different items to consider when looking at the health insurance that is offered to you. Some items to consider are if you have to pay part of the premium yourself, if you can cover you spouse or other family members, and looking into if dental, vision, and disability are included.
- Retirement options– Some things to look at when viewing the retirement plan options are if there are restriction like years worked at the company before you can join the program, if there is an employee match and how much that is, and seeing if there is a retention requirement for when you are allowed to retain the employer match.
- Paid leave time– This is one of the more straight forward benefits but it’s important to understand what type of leave you have. For example if there is vacation, sick, or maternity leave. It is also important to know if you have to work a certain amount of days or moths before you earn paid hours off.
Remember you can always make an appointment with Powercat Financial if you have any financial questions. All you have to do is schedule a free appointment with one of our peer financial counselors at www.k-state.edu/powercatfinancial.
Rebecca Kuderka
Graduate Assistant
Powercat Financial www.ksu.edu/Powercatfinancial
