Can you please help me understand my school loans? Boring numbers and interest rates within. I'm embarrassed that I don't understand this stuff but I guess it's better to ask and learn... I have two loans, a private loan and a Federal loan (which I consolidated several years back from Federal loans with higher interest rates). I have enough money to pay off one in entirety, but I'm not sure which one to do so to save the most money. Loan details below: Private Loan Original principal balance: $12,632 Outstanding principal balance: $5,297 Interest rate: 5.0%

I want to pay off my student loans - can I do it with an AMEX/other card to get the points and then turn around and pay off my credit card? Sallie Mae says I can make individual minimum payments with a credit card, but that there's no way except a check or bank payment to pay off the entire amount. Can that really be true? is there a way around it?

I am my mother's legal guardian. Can I get a loan to pay her bills using her property as collateral? I need to raise almost $3000 within 30 days or bad things will happen. Last year, my Mom had a stroke. She is pwned in the head and I am her guardian. I own nothing except a car; selling it is a last resort. Mom has two houses -- my childhood home and the one she inherited from my grandmother just before her stroke. Because she owns two houses, she is disqualified from receiving any kind of assistance. I am trying, unsuccessfully, to sell the grandmother-house. It is the remainder of the mortgage on the grandmother's house -- $2,673.90 -- that I need to come up with, or they will foreclose.

My partner and I need to acquire a loan for her grad school. The catch(es): She's not a citizen. We're gay. We don't have the first clue how to go about doing this. Help! My partner is from Canada. A Canadian loan is out of the question. (Period! Don't even suggest Canadian student aid...it won't help!) She has one year of grad school left, which will be around $30,000. I make a pretty good living here in the midwest (less than triple digits, but not substantially less), though the two of us must live on my single income, but paying off the loan shouldn't be too difficult. We're young. My credit is right there in the middle, not great, not wonderful.

Will I be losing my stimulus check because of back student loans that I am now paying? Basically, I was a deadbeat and didn't pay my student loans for... oh about 4 years. Yes, it was dumb. Now, I have decided to be a grownup, and two months ago started paying them after their seized my tax return. I created a schedule of payment and have not been late. Will I be losing my stimulus check? According to the collection agency Sallie Mae uses they will no longer be going after my wages to pay this debt since I have created a payment plan with them. I am in the US, and thanks for all your help.

Seeking guidance with financial planning (loans, down payment, more) I've searched through the questions already asked but didn't see anything quite like this. My situation: 1. I am graduating with a very large student loan debt (more than 50k, less than 100k). 2. I have excellent credit. 3. I have no other debt or loans. 4. I have some retirement savings. 5. I don't expect to have a huge salary. 6. I am considering going back for another degree in a year or two--probably one that would result in a significantly higher salary I'm going to move home for a year or two. I am considering using my cost savings to pay off a large portion of my loans. This appeals to me, except for a few reasons:

Should I choose a private student loan based on the 1-month LIBOR or the Prime Rate? I have private education loan approvals that are based on both the 1-month LIBOR rate (more specifically, the quarterly average of the 1-month LIBOR) and the Prime Rate. Chase Education is calculating the 1-month LIBOR currently at 3.62 (an average of Jan-Mar rates of 4.223, 2.849, 2.708) and the April rate has posted at 2.486, so a clear downward trend. Historically the lowest LIBOR has hit was 1.340 in 2003. My margin with Chase would be +2.5% so right now calculated at 6.12%. The best offer I was received based on the Prime Rate is Prime +1%, so right now a rate of 6.25% with the margin. Within the last ten years, the lowest prime rate was 4.0%.

One of my boyfriend's student loans just got turned over to a collection agency. How bad is this? He's a graduate student and has several student loans. He's always been prompt with payments, including slowly paying off the principal. He assumed that this loan would be automatically deferred since he's still a graduate student, just like his other student loans. He even called them a few months ago and then they told him that the deferment was taken care of. Now, without any warning, they've turned it over to a collection agency. He never received an email, a letter or a phone call before this happened.

How much is a high income factoredd into a car lease loan decision? I want to lease a new Honda Accord. My credit isn't that great due to some missed payments back in law school and about $80K in student loan debt. Other than that I only have $4K in a car debt, but no credit card debt. My score is about 630. I make $100K/yr w/ a discretionary bonus. I'd be willing to put the 20% down (which the down payment is capped at), plus the 1st months payment and security deposit. Does anyone know well enough how car lease companies decide whether to loan money for a lease? I understand

Should I sign up for a credit card right now? If so, from where? I'm an unemployed college student. I'm due to graduate in May, and currently have no job since I'm a full-time student. (I'm looking for "real" jobs for when I graduate.) I'll delve into (much) more detail in a minute, but the basic gist is that people keep telling me I need to get a "real" credit card to build history, but I think now may be a bad time. I should also disclaim that I'm extremely contemptuous and distrusting of the credit industry. I believe that they, as an industry, have gone out of their way to exploit people with financial problems; I find it repulsive that they're exempt from usury laws; I'm yet to find a credit card company that doesn't engage in one sleazy practice or another. More than anything, though, I have major issues with credit reporting: I never asked to be put in a database with some random third-party group, and I think my financial data is the last thing in the world they have a right to know anything about. I realize that it's very helpful to banks, but that doesn't appease me. Not only is it a (creepy) invasion of my privacy, but I have major issues with them being the definitive word on whether I'm creditworthy or not. (It'd be like if I spontaneously declared that I was the "Job Rating Bureau" and kept files on every person in America, every time they've been disciplined at work, every place they ever worked, for how long, and also reported when people applied for jobs. And then, when someone went to apply for a job, the company would contact me to ask what I thought of them. Oh, and employees could only see my ranking of them once a year. And that's only because Congress forced my hand.)</rant>