expenses

Financial Motivation For A Two-Year Education

When it comes to college, you are considering an expensive proposition any way you look at it. There are, however, ways in which you can significantly reduce your overall expenses when it comes to getting your college degree. The first method, which in many cases is the most preferred, is by attending a community college for the first two years of your college educational experience. Believe it or not, you can literally save thousands of dollars throughout spending two years on the community college level.

You will hear all kinds of arguments on why it is better to attend all four years at a university. The universities almost always make these arguments. Unfortunately, their opinions are a little bit biased in these matters. Most universities offer equivalent courses with community colleges meaning that the first two years of study should transfer with no problems or snags along the rocky road to your degree.

The universities make money each semester you begin classes as a student. It is in their best interest financially to have you from the beginning rather than as a transfer. In fact, many universities offer lower level classes as auditorium classes. They pack more students into categories and have fewer professors or graduate students teaching the courses and maximize their money off the first- and second-year students rather than those in upper-level classes. Yet another reason to consider a community college for the first two years of your education.

Most community colleges are mainly commuter campuses. This means you won’t face the high housing costs that are associated with universities, particularly if you are attending college close to home. Community colleges also offer far fewer distractions that cost additional money than most major universities. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t ample social opportunities; it merely means that there are fewer of them. This also leaves fewer distractions than universities present when it comes to studying.

Community colleges simply cost less all around. While it would be nice if you could receive a full four-year education at this level, they are able, for the most part, to keep expenses down by not requiring the level of qualification that universities need of their professors for upper-level courses. You will have excellent, if not a superior quality of education at lower levels than you would have on the university level, but you will also eventually need to move on to the university level to complete your education.

For this reason, you would do well to save half of your savings over university costs for each of the two years you are attending community college and apply it to your university education. This will ease the burden of the additional costs of the university and feel as though you are paying the same amount for tuition throughout your education although you are literally saving thousands of dollars on your educational expenses.

Some states have educational savings plans that allow parents to save for tuition at current costs by enrolling. These plans cover two years of community college education and two years of university education. By locking in today’s prices, you are eliminating inflation. When you consider the fact that college tuition is increasing at an alarming rate this is by far an excellent way to go. You should check with your state and see if they offer a similar plan to parents of younger children and what the requirements are to enroll your child today.

If you are looking for a real value in education whether you only go for your two-year degree or move on to a university to finish your four-year degree you should find that a community college education offers a significant value for the money. Most people see that every penny they spent in a community college was a penny well spent.

We hope this information was beneficial. You can have anything you want if you are enthusiastic about putting in the time, effort and plans to get to your goals. Discover the secrets why the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor. Click Here to view a video with more life tips!

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Top Tips for Traveling Responsibly on a Budget

Traveling responsibly on a budget can be an incredible challenge. Not only do you want to save money, but you want to do so in a way that respects the local country.

Here are a few tips to help you do this.

Start with Setting a Weekly Budget

Setting daily budgets while traveling is rather unrealistic. That’s because your expenses can fluctuate drastically.

Crossing the border from Laos to Cambodia might cost you $50, plus $40 for the visa. If that went into your daily expense, that’d mean you couldn’t eat or sleep that day.

Instead of using daily expenses, use weekly expenses. If you have high expenses one day, compensate by lowering your expenses on a different day.

Make sure you’re tracking your expenses while you travel. It can be very tough to keep track of everything but do your best to write down everything you spend when you spend it.

Eat at Small, Local Shops

Eating at small local shops is a great way to save money and support the local economy.

In most major tourist destinations today you’ll find KFC, McDonald’s and other major chains. You’ll also find many upper-class restaurants and many restaurants that sell Western food.

By and large, however, these restaurants are much more expensive than just eating local foods. They’re also often owned by foreigners or global corporations.

Beware of Waste

You can save money and travel responsibly by reducing the amount of waste you produce.

Try to buy as few water bottles as possible. Refill wherever you can find clean water.

Trade books with other travelers rather than buy books. Most hostels and guesthouses have book trade shelves set up, which makes it easy to find interesting reads along the way.

Try not to print anything unless it’s necessary. Get maps from hostels or hotels instead of printing them yourself.

Get to Know Locals

Getting to know locals is not only fun – but it can also save you a lot of money.

Locals don’t eat at the same places that tourists do. They eat at little-known places that taste great and cost half the price.

It’s very difficult to find great places to eat and shop when you’re in a different country. Anything that’s written about in guidebooks is likely to be overpriced and will surely attract people just trying to sell to tourists.

Instead, have a local show you all the most amazing places that nobody else has discovered. You’ll get the real scoop on what it’s like to live in that city.

These are a few different ways you can stick to a reasonable budget while interacting responsibly with the culture and people.

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Your Guide on How to Be Debt Free

Debt is something many people all over the world struggle with, and many want to know how to be debt free. Today you can’t afford to spend cash on everything, and sometimes you must use a credit card or get a loan. But if the unexpected happens and you’re unable to pay back those debts it can spiral out of control.

An illness, some time off from work or even an unexpected household repair that requires you to use your credit card can all be reasons for you to find yourself with more debt than you can handle.

There are many options available to you such as debt counseling services, debt consolidation, and even bankruptcy. But before you do anything that drastic take some time to try to fix your debt situation on your own.

It is possible, even without adding income, to pay off your debt. It will take time and it will take discipline but if you are committed to living a life without any debt you can do it.

Below is a step by step plan that will help you to get rid of all your debt. It isn’t a quick fix, but it’s realistic and has worked for thousands of people, and it can work for you too:

1) Make yourself a detailed list of all your debt. Add everything, even the smallest of debts should be added to this list. This list should include your monthly household bills (such as house payments, insurance, utility bills, etc. etc. etc.) in one column and your debt in another column.

2) Make a very detailed budget for all your monthly expenses. Be sure to have enough so you can make at least the minimum payments on all your debt.

3) From the lists, above pick the smallest debt as your target. Pay as much towards this debt as you can without cutting payments on your other debts. Once you manage to pay off this debt completely, take that money and apply it to the next smallest debt. Keep doing this again and again until your debt is all paid off. Doing this will allow you to pay off all your debt, even if you can’t get extra money coming in.

This method works, it just takes discipline. You’ll have to make sacrifices if you want to be debt free. That means making a reasonable budget and sticking to it. But if you stay disciplined, and keep at it, you will eventually find yourself out of debt which will bring you peace of mind and will make all the sacrifices seem worthwhile.

You can have anything you want if you are willing to put in the time, effort and plans to get to your goals. Discover the secrets why the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor. Click Here to view a video with more life tips! In closing, We invite you to share your comments on this subject and the other posts. If you find the information useful, Like & Share us on Facebook, Google Plus and other social media platforms. Remember to keep an open mind and Shift 4 Freedom.

Manage Money Without Depriving

It is a fact that there would always be a system wherein we will not be getting everything we want because of financial limitations. In short, we cannot have everything at the instant we would want it. There would have to be planning or if not, some careful deliberation about whether we would be getting the item we want or not. This is because sooner or later, finances would always fall short of the expenses. That is why we manage our money and budget for the things that we would want to acquire. Nevertheless, when we manage money without depriving, we would want to be able to enjoy a certain degree of satisfaction and fulfillment without compromising our savings.

Deprivation would mean curtailing our freedom to the point of not being able to enjoy some of our hard-earned resources. Though it is an irony that we are already limited with finances and yet would not want to be deprived, a balance of enjoyment and requirement is what dictates the existence of deprivation if ever.

Earn More

One of the most common means of people to raise the level of financial freedom is to earn more by working more. However, this is limited with the many social factors which include the degree of educational attainment, time, job availability, and often, personal accomplishments.

Some may get lucky to be in the lighter side of personal assessment by the human resource personnel and be accepted for a job despite the incomplete compliance of requirements. There are also some who, despite their educational attainment and personal socio-civic accomplishments, are still not able to land a job they desire due to a personal prerogative of the recruiter to not accept the applicant.

What this presents is a semi-random chance of a person to fully comply with all the factors which constitute the landing of another job than the current one.

Save More

A classic means of how to manage money without depriving is to focus on saving the excess money that flows in the household after deducting all the other monthly expenses and bills. Saving money means having money when the need for an important expense is required.

Saving more would merit to having more extra cash, but also poses a paradox in a way that when you save money, you are already keeping that for something projected as an event that could happen. In this manner, there would be a difficulty in using that fund intended for an important thing to be spent on something that would just be for leisure and satisfaction.

Learn to Be Content

The degree of limitation and deprivation on a person’s financial resources are dictated by the personal level of satisfaction. A person’s idea of contentment is the same as his perception of what he needs and wants. A person who is “want” oriented will always be seeking for things that may already be unattainable at the current financial level and would feel deprived of such. On the other hand, a person who is “need” oriented would be able to do away with leisure and may also feel deprived deep inside of finer things that may have been acquired.

The key to managing money without depriving is to learn to already accept what is possible to be attained and work from there. If there is a rather unattainable thing to spend money on, then that is the time the person should plan and think about the means to reach that and make that attainable.

A Community College Education is a Good Start

Many people search and search for the University they will attend upon graduation from high school. Eager students look forward to their time at university while parents wring their hands hoping that their children choose to attend a university that is not only close to home but also within their budget limitations. Another worry that parents have when their children decide to attend college is whether that university they attend will have the specialized and individualized services that their children were accustomed to receiving in high school. Face, it; larger universities tend to be rather impersonal when it comes to the education of their students.

One answer to all those worries and more is to transition your students from high school to a two-year college rather than throwing them to the University wolves so to speak. Many people find that two-year colleges can, in fact, provide superior educations to four-year universities for those first two years or foundation college level courses. You will not get the specialized or specific instruction in a two-year college that is available to upper-level students on a university level but most students find the first two years of their college educations focused on getting the requirement and prerequisite courses rather than the specialized courses in their intended field of study.

Many people also find that those first two years at a community college-transitioning from a small pond to a larger lake-are much easier to handle than going straight from high school to a university-out of the pond and into the ocean. Universities often have lower level classes as auditorium classes. These classes offer little individual instruction and are often sink or swim sorts of classes. Those students who have special learning needs are often lost in the shuffle when entering a university. Community colleges offer smaller classes and ample opportunities for tutoring as well as classes on how to learn to study.

Two-year colleges are also much easier on the budget than most universities. Most people find that community college does not place nearly the financial burdens on families that universities place. Add to that the fact that most community colleges offer very flexible class scheduling and even some courses online and you will find that there are many reasons to consider community college that go well beyond mere budgeting requirements.

Another benefit to students who wish to enter the work force sooner rather than later is that you can get a degree or certification in certain programs from a two-year college. This means that you can actually graduate and begin earning much sooner than if you were to attend a four-year college in search of a degree. If you aren’t sure you want to invest the next four or five years of your life in pursuit of a degree or you simply aren’t ready to commit yourself to one line of work for the rest of your life it is an innovative idea to spend two years in a community college rather than making the leap straight into a university setting.

If you are considering whether a community college or two-year education is the best course of action for your specific needs, I really recommend creating a list of pros and cons of each and balancing your budget to see where your needs are most likely to be fully met. Remember you can always transfer to a university once you’ve completed your two-year college education or at any time during that education if you meet the universities admission requirements. Good luck and remember that your college education is one of the largest indicators of your future earning potential so take it seriously.

Discover the secrets why the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor. Click Here to view a video with more life tips! In closing, I invite you to share your commits on this and all the posts. Like us on Facebook and Google Plus. Remember to keep an open mind and Shift 4 Freedom.