seeking a financial advisor for student debt - or details on how to seek
August 18, 2018 8:00 PM Subscribe
- or your own experience with a student debt counselor!
If anyone can recommend a financial advisor for a student debt situation in the Cleveland (OH) area, I'll take it! Otherwise, looking for ideas on how to sniff out a good one.
I have a friend up to her ears in student debt with a complicated postgrad situation. She's doing a lot of research on her own about how to handle her debt, but everywhere she has reached out to help so far has been disappointing. I would like to give her a few sessions with a financial advisor as a Christmas/birthday gift to help get her situated and on the right path to paying back while still, you know, eating.
The back-and-forth, q+a nature of this is really important to her. She needs help specific to her situation (which I am not entirely privy to), so the counseling is better than a link tsunami.
Mefi, how do I find some solid help for my friend?
(I'm not local to CLE, so I'm researching online and it all looks incredibly shady. I can't tell if anything's reputable or not. A local recommendation would be great.)
I have a friend up to her ears in student debt with a complicated postgrad situation. She's doing a lot of research on her own about how to handle her debt, but everywhere she has reached out to help so far has been disappointing. I would like to give her a few sessions with a financial advisor as a Christmas/birthday gift to help get her situated and on the right path to paying back while still, you know, eating.
The back-and-forth, q+a nature of this is really important to her. She needs help specific to her situation (which I am not entirely privy to), so the counseling is better than a link tsunami.
Mefi, how do I find some solid help for my friend?
(I'm not local to CLE, so I'm researching online and it all looks incredibly shady. I can't tell if anything's reputable or not. A local recommendation would be great.)
Seconding k8t's advice above. A financial advisor isn't what is needed here. Your friend can do this on their own. Paying off debt feels like such a slog but it's a mindset. Without having income/budget/other debt information for your friend, it's nearly impossible to assess the situation, so I'll keep my advice general.
I was never someone who lived beyond their means, but I did have student loans when I graduated. It wasn't until I started budgeting and tracking all my expenses (yes, all of them) that I could properly decide how much to allocate to my student loan payments each month and come up with a plan and timeline to pay them off. Budgeting forced me to be accountable for my disposable income. When it was feeling like it was never going to end, I'd find a repayment calculator online and remind myself how much I was going to save in interest by paying the loans off early.
Early on, I used an Excel spreadsheet and eventually graduated to YNAB. Perhaps you could get your friend a year's subscription?
posted by futureisunwritten at 4:26 AM on August 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
I was never someone who lived beyond their means, but I did have student loans when I graduated. It wasn't until I started budgeting and tracking all my expenses (yes, all of them) that I could properly decide how much to allocate to my student loan payments each month and come up with a plan and timeline to pay them off. Budgeting forced me to be accountable for my disposable income. When it was feeling like it was never going to end, I'd find a repayment calculator online and remind myself how much I was going to save in interest by paying the loans off early.
Early on, I used an Excel spreadsheet and eventually graduated to YNAB. Perhaps you could get your friend a year's subscription?
posted by futureisunwritten at 4:26 AM on August 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thank you both for the advice! I'll re-think my strategy.
posted by snerson at 6:30 PM on August 19, 2018
posted by snerson at 6:30 PM on August 19, 2018
This thread is closed to new comments.
Financial advisors know little about how student loans debt works. Moreover, it is a constantly changing set of rules.
posted by k8t at 8:45 PM on August 18, 2018 [3 favorites]