Balancing numerous monthly student loan payments can be a juggling act worthy of a three-ring circus. Before you toss in your juggling balls and opt for consolidating your student loans, there are several crucial questions you must ask.

Are there any origination fees?

An origination fee is money a borrower would pay to the lender in order to cover costs associated with starting or consolidating your student loans. Origination fees typically run from 0 to 5%. Obviously, it would be to your benefit to seek a consolidation with no origination fee. Such loans are not uncommon, so keep your eyes open for them.

Is there a prepayment penalty?

A prepayment penalty is a fee charged to the borrower if he should choose to pay the entire loan off early. Some lenders include prepayment penalties to maintain a certain level of profit from the loan. Prepayment penalties vary considerably. Most student consolidation loans exclude them entirely, but be alert, since others may charge more than a few months’ interest for early pay-off. Look for a consolidation loan that does not include a prepayment penalty. The last thing you want to do is punish yourself for smart loan pay-off by realizing too late you have been slapped with a tail-end penalty.

What is the maximum interest rate?

It is important to know what your current interest rates are and what your new interest rate will be. If the new interest rate will be more, you may want to reconsider consolidating your student loans and return to your juggling, but not necessarily. The life of the loan (as explained below) will determine how low your overall monthly payments are, despite a change in interest rate.

What is the life of the new loan?

In order to receive a lower monthly payment, the length or life of the loan is stretched or extended. For example, if you are paying $500 a month and have 10 years left, but want to reduce your monthly payment to less than $300, consolidation may well do that for you. However, the loan period will be stretched into, for example, a 25-year loan, resulting in more interest in the long run. It does, however, make the payments more affordable in the short term, and, if you do not have a prepayment penalty, you can pay the loan off more quickly and pay less interest overall.

Will my consolidated loan still be eligible for loan forgiveness programs?

Situations surrounding loan forgiveness programs are generally about as varied as the people applying for the loans. When you are consolidating your student loans, what you are actually doing is taking out a new loan to pay off the multiple old loans. If one of your previous loans is eligible for forgiveness, it will no longer be eligible under the same terms after it is consolidated, because that old loan no longer exists. The consolidation may, however, be eligible under the new federal forgiveness program. Check for forgiveness and cancellation information on each of the old loans as well as on the new consolidated loan before making any final decision.

Final Thoughts

Consolidation is not for everyone. Knowing which questions you must ask before consolidating your student loans will help you make an informed decision. Your juggling days may be over!

While most families are wisely choosing to meet the current economic crisis by preparing meals at home, even the most dedicated home cook enjoys the occasional night off from dinner duty and dirty dishes. Does that night out mean a strain on the pocketbook? Not necessarily! Using coupons makes eating out on a budget an affordable reality. Because coupons draw customers, restaurants are eager to get them into your hands. You need only know where to find these treasures.

Finding Free Coupons

Whether at home or in a hotel, check the coupon section of the phone book for nearby budget dining. Hotels and service stations may display fliers or local magazines containing money-saving deals. If staying at a hotel, check the in-room information booklet and ask the desk clerk for available restaurant discounts for hotel patrons.

Newspapers and free weekly sales fliers delivered to mailboxes in most towns are jackpots for those using coupons.

Many restaurants have websites that supply printable coupons. By signing up for a restaurant’s mailing list, you will receive future coupons and promotional materials. If there are no printable coupons, write the company and request some.

Check websites and ask restaurant personnel about birthday clubs or frequent diner programs. Enter all family members into a birthday club to receive special offers and freebies on or around each person’s birthday. These mailbox treasures make eating out on a budget a birthday breeze!

Savings for a Fee

An excellent resource for dining and activity coupons is your region’s Entertainment Guide. Purchasing the guide later in the year will land you significant savings off the cover price. Look for it at www.entertainment.com. Using coupons from the book once or twice will recoup your cost.

A real contender on the dining savings scene is www.restaurant.com. The site sells $25 dining certificates for $10. By signing up for the site’s notifications, you will be alerted to their frequent sales enabling you to purchase a $25 gift certificate for as low as $2, a phenomenal deal for those eating out on a budget. You can print your certificate and use it immediately.

Word to the Wise

Do not allow coupons to sway you toward choices that will cost you more in the long-run. Also, remember that using coupons is impossible if you don’t have them with you, so store them in your car until you are ready to chow down.

With a small amount of effort, using coupons for eating out on a budget is simple and fun! Bon appétit, and happy savings!

While math pages, writing assignments, and spelling lessons all have their place in the homeschool, the lessons remembered best are often those that take place outside of class time. The homeschooling parent is blessed with the ability to take full advantage of a child’s natural desire to learn. A parent can establish learning as a natural, lifelong process by creating a learning environment within the home. How can you establish a home overflowing with opportunities for real-life learning? While the options are limitless, the following will inspire ideas for your family:

• Create cozy reading corners throughout the house. A reading corner can be anything from a cozy armchair, a pile of floor pillows in front of the fireplace, or a corner filled with stuffed animals. Stock the areas with high quality books, perhaps related to current studies or interests. Add poetry, biographies, works by great authors, picture books, and more. Be sure your child has time each day to sit and savor the adventures and beauty that great books have to offer.

• Encourage experimentation. Whether in the kitchen, garage, or outdoors, nurture your child’s natural curiosity. Rather than confining your child’s learning to a textbook, let his natural deductive abilities stretch their limits. Let him try out new recipes, build or sew, or dismantle that old CD player. Part of creating a learning environment is providing opportunities and then standing back and letting the child learn. You’ll be amazed at the results.

• Leave time for play. A child needs time to develop through unstructured play. This will exercise the imagination and creative facilities. Be sure your child has quality toys, such as Legos, blocks, baby dolls, and similar items that require the child to actively participate, not simply be entertained. A homeschool environment is perfect for such free play.

• Turn off screens. While television offers some excellent educational opportunities that would require expensive airfare to match, the box, as a general rule, is best left off. Screen-watching is a passive activity that does not stimulate your child’s hands-on skills and deductive reasoning. The same applies to excessive use of computers and video games. A homeschool family must be disciplined in monitoring screen time.

• Get to know nature. Give your child plenty of outdoor time in nature, whether hiking, gardening, bird-watching, or simply savoring the marvels of Creation. Arm your child with a nature journal in which to sketch his findings. Not only will taking the time to truly study the intricacies of a bug, flower, or leaf increase his understanding of nature and sharpen his observation skills, but sketching his finds will also improve his drawing skills. Keep nature guides handy to identify the little (and big) treasures, and don’t forget to check pockets before washing your little explorer’s jeans.

• Expose your child to the greats. Fill your home with beautiful music and lovely art. A child who can listen with enthusiasm to Beethoven and recognize with delight a Monet will have made the artist and musician his friends. He will encounter those friends throughout his life. Allow the child to imitate the greats. Imitation is a great form of learning. The great masters can serve as excellent homeschool teachers, and they don’t charge tutor fees.

• Encourage artistic tendencies. Fill your home with assorted art supplies and paper. Give the child free rein to create in whatever way inspires him. Read books about drawing, painting, and sculpting. Show your child what you’ve learned and encourage him to artistic pursuits. Better yet, pursue art alongside your child in a positive, non-critical atmosphere.

• Look it up. Load your home with dictionaries, maps, atlases, nature guides and reference books. When a questions arises, go with your child to look up the answer. Not only will the child learn the facts, but he will gain the ability to self-educate, one of the greatest benefits of creating a learning environment.

• Never stop learning. By showing your child that you, too, are a life-long learner, your child will never think of learning as something confined to a schoolroom. Let him see you reading high quality literature. Discuss big ideas. Take an interest in new activities and include your child. Let him see your zeal for learning, and he will share that excitement.

Begin creating a learning environment for your homeschool family today. A lifetime of learning awaits! Go get it!

One of the most powerful weapons in the arsenal of the frugal shopper seeking to save on groceries is the personal price book. Despite its enormous effect on savings, creating a price book is a remarkably simple task.

What is a price book?

Simply put, a price book is a list of the items you generally purchase and the lowest price you can expect to pay for them. It is a personal guide to inform you whether or not a deal at the store is worth purchasing, or if you can expect a better price soon. It works under the premise that sales generally run on a twelve-week cycle, so the items on sale this week will likely be on sale at the same price twelve weeks from now. The price book allows you to check prices according to the expected sale amount to determine if the advertised price is a good deal.  It is one of the simplest ways to substantially save on groceries.

What should a price book include?

A price book should include the items you generally buy, ideally organized either alphabetically or by category. It should also include the lowest price for which you can generally purchase that item and where you can find it.  It is helpful to break the price down to the ounce or unit when creating your price book to allow for quick in-store comparisons.

Example:

If a low price is obtained via a coupon on top of a sale, note that also, to indicate that the sale price is still the lowest price without a coupon. Also, it is worthwhile to note lowest regular prices if there is more than one store in the area. That way the price book will indicate where an item needed immediately should be purchased for the best non-sale price, helping you save on groceries even without a sale.

How does one complete a price book?

The best approach to filling in a price book is slow and steady. Filling in four or five items a week will gradually and painlessly help in creating a price book that will prove highly effective.

How does one use a price book?

Before setting foot in the store, compare the sales flier to the price book. If something is at its lowest price, add it to your shopping list and stock up. If it is not, hold off until it reaches its low price. Taking the price book to the store will also let you know if unadvertised sales and manager’s specials are worthy of your hard-earned nickel.

Can one buy a price book?

Purchasing someone else’s price book will be of no advantage unless that person shops the same stores in the same region. Even so, the items that person purchases would need to be the same as yours. For example, if you love hamburger helper but hate tuna, and you used my price book, you would be disappointed to note that my price book does not contain hamburger helper, but has a detailed account of where to find the best tuna deals. This will not help you save on groceries your own family will actually eat. The best price book is the personal price book.

Take the time to begin a personal price book. The amount you save on groceries will be well worth the small amount of effort necessary in creating a price book that will work for you.

Let’s face it: planting vegetables in the desert is not easy for beginning gardeners. Throwing a few seeds on the ground and waiting for rain will yield only a few dry seeds. Never fear! With a little research about when to plant your garden, you can overcome the challenges of desert gardening and be rewarded with bounty.

The Challenges

Any five-year-old will tell you that the desert is h-o-t, hot! The sun beats down unbearably, sending desert critters in search of shade. You can imagine what that can do to tender seedlings. The desert also experiences a variety of climates within a small area, making it a challenge to determine the gardening conditions of your specific plot of land before planting vegetables.

What You Need to Know

The warmth of the desert allows planting to begin early in spring and extend well into fall. Determining exactly how early plants can be set into the ground depends on the last-frost date. All but 10% of the latest frosts over the past 100 years have occurred before this date. Consult a current Farmer’s Almanac for frost dates.

The seed packet will recommend when to plant your garden seeds which you configure according to local frost dates. For example, a packet may suggest planting vegetable seeds outdoors two weeks after last frost. Simply count forward two weeks from the last-frost date. If it says to harvest before first frost, locate the days until harvest on the packet. Count backward from the first-frost date to determine the latest possible planting day, allowing time for harvest.

The packet will also indicate the plant’s preferred temperature. Some plants require warm soil for germination while others prefer cool. Plant accordingly. If the packet reads that a plant bears up well under severe heat, it would make an ideal choice for a mid- to late-summer harvest. On the other hand, an excellent option for heat-intolerant plants is starting seedlings indoors well before the last-frost date, and transplanting outdoors after risk of frost has ended, harvesting well before the high heat.

Whom to Ask

For regional specifics, contact your local extension office (www.csrees.usda.gov/extension/), plant nursery, or Master Gardener’s organization. Check your local farmer’s market for successful gardeners willing to share their wisdom about planting vegetables. For gardening tips from people in your exact environment, trade some brownies with a neighbor for some helpful tips about when to plant your garden.  Depending on your brownie baking skills, that could be a win-win situation!

Armed with frost dates and plant temperature preferences (and perhaps a pan of brownies), you can easily determine when to plant your garden and overcome the challenges of planting vegetables in the desert. Here’s to your bountiful harvest!

You’ve handled the economic crunch like a champ, shopping carefully, cooking nightly, and really stretching those leftovers. Right about now you could use a night on the town…or at least an evening without dirty dishes. Good news! Dining out on a budget does not need to empty your pocketbook. With a bit of ordering savvy on your side, you can enjoy a night (or afternoon) on the town and still jingle your full pockets all the way home. Follow these ordering tips for budget dining.

What Not to Order

Remember, it is a server’s job to up-sell you, or convince you to order more than you had intended. The server’s tip and job performance may be determined by the size of the patron’s order. Do not fall prey to the suggestion that you need a slice of chocolate cake to follow your drinks, appetizers, soup, salad, and over-sized entrée. Your pocketbook and waistband will both thank you.

Avoid (or at least limit) alcoholic beverages. Alcohol is one of the biggest add-ons to a restaurant bill, often adding 50% or more. Even soft drinks, tea, milk and juice add substantially to the bill. Refresh yourself with ice water and lemon.

Do not order the whole gamut of menu options. Consider appetizers and dessert instead of an entrée. Add a side salad for a well-rounded meal. Soup and salad with a bread basket is a money-saving option. Some entrées come loaded with sides for a bonus deal. Try ordering just an entrée, skipping that $5 dessert, and picking up ice cream on your way home.  Thinking outside the box is the key for budget dining.

What to Order

Ask your server about the special, but pay attention to prices. Often the special is a regularly-priced item from the menu, but sometimes it is an excellent deal.

Of course, there is always the option of splitting an entrée with your dining partner, although some restaurants will charge a splitting or plate fee. You may prefer eating half your own entrée and saving the rest for your next day’s lunch.

Does the restaurant have a lunch menu, children’s menu, or senior options and discounts? All are cheaper than the regular dinner menu. Increasingly popular at family restaurants are the “kids eat free” nights. Time your visit accordingly for budget dining success.

Taking advantage of a restaurant’s drive-up option will save you from having to tip a server or deal with beverages and up-selling.

Extra Savings

Finally, consider the numerous coupons and gift certificates available to help cut dining costs. Check out www.restaurant.com and www.entertainment.com for great savings. Scour restaurant websites, newspapers, local tourist magazines, and other printed material for coupons to shave even more off your dining out experience.

By ordering intelligently, you really can eat out without breaking the bank. Now put down the dishtowel and head to the nearest restaurant for some serious budget dining! You’ve earned it!