The Money-Finder Guide

Here's where you'll get both calculator and instructions on how to easily use it to cut your student loan debt.


The Money-Finder

It's like a leaky money tap. Didn't you have $20 in your wallet this morning? Where did it go?

The dollars you can't remember spending, the ones that leaked away, really do add up. Ever see how a pail fills up when it's left beneath a leaky tap?

You need to turn off that tap.

How much money could you find each month by cutting back on unessential lattes, donuts, magazines, unnecessary cell-phone calls or whatever else you consume without much thought?

Consider cheaper ways to get what makes you happy. Try a coffeemaker at work or roll your own, use the library, turn your cell off, make your own lunch – at least some of the time.

And if you want to add to the above savings by quitting smoking, try another Debt 101 calculator combo: How Much Extra Money Could You Find From Not Smoking?

The Money-Finder, labelled online as the Daily Spending Calculator, suggests that you put the money you find into retirement savings. You can do that later. Right now, you need to put your savings toward wiping out your student loan debt.

Do you know of an investment that's guaranteed to pay more after tax than the interest rate you're paying on your loans? No??? Then, your best investment is getting rid of student debt.

So here's your Money-Finder:

www.debt101.ca/dailyhabits


Debt 101 thanks York University Professor Moshe A. Milevsky for allowing us to use this Money-Finder (Daily Spending Calculator).


How to apply the Money-Finder to cut your student loan debt

The Money-Finder looks at daily savings through the viewpoint of retirement savings, but you need to look at these saving as for a different purpose: paying off your student loans faster.

Paying the loans faster is what saves you money, because it saves you from a heavy load of interest charges.

Here's how to apply the Money-Finder to your student loan debt - in 3 easy steps.

  1. Input enough Money-Finding fields to see what monthly total you could save from your present spending habits.
  2. Input that monthly total amount as an extra payment in The Student Loan Whacker. The Whacker will calculate your rate of investment return. In other words, you'll see how your savings in making extra payments on your debt come back to you as an 'investment' return.
  3. Input that rate of investment return into the Money-Finding Calculator in the fourth line from the top: 'Expected (nominal) Investment Return (p.a.)'. Then hit the calculation button again.

Now - see your payoff from small and painless changes to your daily spending!

 

Share this