Close Your Tab & Don’t Look Back: A Guide to Getting Out of Debt and Getting Ahead in the Real World

Copyright © 2018 Angela Ozar.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-3450-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-3449-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017915308

iUniverse rev. date: 01/25/2018

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Legal Disclaimer

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

PART I

Chapter 1A: Financial Aspects of Finding a Job

PART II

Chapter 1B: Understanding Your Loan by The Numbers

Chapter 2 Saving, Spending & Credit

Chapter 3 Repaying Your Loan ASAP

Chapter 4 How to Stay on Your Plan to Repayment

Chapter5 Extra Income

Final Thoughts

Glossary

Frequently Asked Questions:

Credit:

Job:

Loans:

Personal Finances:

About The Author

Notes

DEDICATION

For God, who gave me everything I have in the first place. My dad, who taught me everything I know and believe about handling finances. And for the women graduating from college with debt and dreams, just like I did.

LEGAL DISCLAIMER

This book is for informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional financial advice. The information and statistics mentioned in this book are current as of the last five years. Laws can change that would affect this information.

Personal Disclaimer

This book is written solely from my experience successfully managing my personal finances and paying off my student loan debt in three years. I realize that not everyone may be able to pay off their debt as quickly as I did, and that’s OK. Everyone comes from a different financial situation and viewpoint, and each one is valid. No one’s story is the same. My intent is to be helpful and to provide some practical tips and tricks for managing your finances and your life after college. Let me give you a little bit of background information.

As of 2016, the average college grad graduates with $37K in student loan debt.¹ When I graduated from college with my undergraduate degree, I had about $29K in student loan debt. I was personally responsible for paying back my loan; my parents and my profession didn’t help me. I had a student job all through college and I was wise with my spending and saving. By being the annoying overachiever in class, I worked my butt off to get a really good job right after school. I’ve never had debt from a credit card, and I don’t plan on having any in the future. I disciplined myself to pay back my loan in a short amount of time, while investing in my future and avoiding any additional debt. If I didn’t take the steps I did, then I wouldn’t be sharing any of this with you.

Keep these things in mind while reading this book and don’t get caught up in comparing your financial situation to mine. What’s important is that you are seeking help to pay off your debt and managing your finances at such a critical point in your life.

Assumptions

I made some assumptions in presenting this information:

• Each individual is personally responsible for his or her financial future

• People reading this book have varying amounts of debt from college

• People reading this book are personally paying off that debt

• People reading this book have public government-held loans

• People reading this book aim to get jobs using their college educations to pay off their debt.

PREFACE

This book was written specifically for women, but men can learn from and enjoy this book, too. In my career, I have spoken with many women who couldn’t start businesses or pursue their dreams because of the financial mistakes they made early on in their lives. This experience sparked me to share what I’ve learned so that young women could avoid these pitfalls. Aside from my personal experience, there are some other statistics that explain why this book is targeted towards women:

• There is an increasing number of women attending college across every ethnicity²

• 42% of women have more than $30K in student loan debt, 1.5x that of men at 27%³

• Women are 2x more likely than men to think it will take them more than the average amount of 20 years to pay off their debt⁴

These statistics show that we need to do a better job of preparing women (and men) to manage their student loan debt. My hope is that this book is a start.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First, I want to thank my editor and motivator, Caitlin Saia. She has made me a better writer, and without her help and encouragement, I never would have found my voice, or had the courage to publish this book. I also want to give credit (no pun intended) and a special thanks to Britt Scearce for being my expert source on all things credit. I want to thank my family and friends who encouraged me to write this book; especially my dad (and financial role model) for sharing all of his wisdom about money management and constantly asking me when I was going to become a published author. Special shout-outs to Michael Heckman, Kara Warden, Katie Denlinger, Debra Mooney, Brad Felix, Michael Winkfield, and Paige Klein,