Your Financing Strategy
Ask questions from your bankers which of one these will benefits you most and which one could be costly to you. You can also get free checks when you open your account, you do not need to pay for checks. All checks are processed the same way that is up to you and how you manage your money.
-Savings Accounts: Custom Savings, Money Market Account Checking Accounts: Economy Checking, Express Checking, -Regular Checking, Senior Checking, Student checking
-Your Debit/Visa Card to use for shopping could be free when you open your account, make sure you ask for it, at times they will ask you if you want one or not. Where you use your Debit/Visa Card to withdraw money matters to your bank, it could cost you for using it at the wrong places, ask your banker for information where you could use your card without paying extra charges...
Some banks charges between $1.00 up to $3.00 if you use their card to withdraw money from another bank that they do not do business with. It is your money...
Each one of the above has advantages and dis-advantages, be careful when you are opening your accounts; you could loose money to the bank right away. You also need to know if your monthly statements are going to be free or not, when you make inquiries, the bank could be charging you for too many inquiries. Some things are free from the big banks and something's are cheaper from the community banks.
Basic Requirements for lending you money:
· Savings and Checking Account
· (2) Good Credit or No Credit it depends where you are getting the money.
· (3) Collateral such as your House, Car, Boat, Gold/diamond or any valuable assets they can hold on
· Driver's License,
· Social Security numbers
· Good Employment, at least for six months.
Lenders Information:
Big Bank requirements-
Can be very tough to meet because they have to abide by the 'Federal Reserve Bank or Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)' regulations. They got their money from the Federal Reserve Bank at a lower rate, however, they could turn around and loan it to the smaller banks at a higher rate, and the smaller banks loan it at higher quote rate to the public.
Community Bank requirements/Credit Union:
Well, the community bank is no different either, they turn to the big banks to borrow money at a lower rate so that they can loan it to their customers/clients at a higher rate to make some profit to stay in business.
Private Capital market requirement:
This is where the business gets tougher. The Capital Market enterprise is a big boy on the Wall Street, where they can finance just about anything they like, because they are not being regulated by the government, it is an individual rich businessmen that have money to loan out at a higher rate. They are not required to follow financing rule rigidly as the bank does, but they still have follow the consumer law that protect all of us from being taken advantage of.
Family friends requirement:
This one is your best source of financing, if you could find a rich friend or family friends that can loan you money without any attachment or collateral. They may ask you to pay them some small interest, or none it all depends what you are using the money for, at they would like to get a piece of the apple when they know you are going to make a lot profit.
Collateralization:
There some companies out there that would loan you money to meet your emergency needs, but becareful, they may ask you to give them your house, car, motor cycle or any of your valuables for collateral just in case you were unable to pay them back, but, they are very quick to take your valuables and you may not have any re-course to take them to court for doing so. I would stay away from such financing unless you have to...
There is going to be a time when we are going to need finance or re-finance our mortgages, car, motorcycle, big boat, air-planes etc., that we cannot come up with up-front lump sum money to pay for it This force us to turn to our bank, family friends, private capital market, small loan companies to loan us that money. This is where we are being taken advantage of by offering us some sort of un-affordable rates. At first you would think this a great opportunity that it will not be problem, you could afford that payment being offered to you by your lender, you better think again before you sign that dotted line. They could be collecting interest from you money for long time without any of it going to your principle.
Pay attention to dotted Line and Small print in the loan documents:
The loan documents can be very tricky to read when you are not an attorney, the small fine prints areas are very important areas to pay attention to, because this is where they hid rates, timeline, and warrante, but if you don't pay attention to the rates they quote or offer to you in the loan document that you are going to sign you could be losing a lot of money. You probably better off to take to your attorney before you sign the dotted line.
In the fine print of the loan documents is where they hid most important information that your lender did not want you to know about, especially mortgage and credit card documents. It sounds strange, but it is true, If you don't believe what I said here in this document, go to your loan documents and read the small prints in there you may find out something that you would not like to see or hear about, or if don't believe what I said here, ask yourself a question of why didn't they just print the whole loan documents in a readable format with nice fonts that an average third grader can read and understand it without having to scratch their head or look up words in the webster dictionary for interpretation of words, after all you are the consumer paying them for this services and they will be collecting interest from your financing for such a long time. 95% of mortgage homeowner never gets to the point of paying principle or their mortgage finance off before being taken away from them, but the bank or private investor already started to benefit. Yes, I understand they took the risk to finance us.
I think what is fair is fair, they should make the loan documents more readable for us, and there should be no small prints that is had to read on any loan documents. They should be in a readable format that average Joe can understand; my question all the years was why are they making it so complicated to read if they do not have anything to hide? I also think the loan documents should not have so many pages when we are talking about saving the threes... Not too many consumers read all these pages, it has no value to have so many pages when no one really reads it, of course the attorney will not be making money if they these document could be reduced to minimum.
My solution to this big fat loan documents should be to reduce them to minimum, all it should it be contain is, who own the house, the rate, how long is going to be paid, warranty, borrower's and co-borrower, and all other very valuable information it should not be more than 10 pages long.
Bekas Pengawal Peribadi Tun M Dedah Rahsia
Financing a Legal Education
Simply put, the number of people who are/were at some point interested in going to law school greatly outweighs the number of those who actually do. There are a number of reasons explaining this phenomenon. One explanation may be other job offers come first. There's the possibility that one's LSAT score and GPA were simply too low to get in anywhere. Laziness is another possibility. Also, there are horror stories circulating regarding the terrible legal job market and inability for graduates to get jobs. However, it's my contention that the single most deterring factor is the high cost of attending law school. We'll look at an example to get some numbers in our heads.
Let's take DePaul College of Law, for example. DePaul is a private institution ranked right at the middle of the pack. Tuition for the 2010 entering class sits at roughly $37,000. Living expenses in Chicago (which are higher than most cities) come in at just over $22,000. So, with tuition and living expenses alone you're looking at $60K per year. Do that for two additional years and you're putting your debt somewhere in the realm of $180,000. That, my friends, is quite a scary number. And remember, this was before we figured in any additional fees, textbooks, entertainment, etc.
So, now that everyone's shaking in their proverbial boots and thinking why anyone would go to law school and then thinking about the tens of thousands of lawyers who have already incurred similar amounts of debt, let's look at this more realistically.
While most law students finance their education primarily by taking out loans (which we will talk about in a moment) there are other sources of financing.
For example, the vast majority of institutions offer merit-based scholarships to qualifying students. While you're not likely to receive one if you barely make the cutoff to get in, if your numbers (LSAT and GPA) lie above the school's expected mean then you may be looking at some financial assistance. While these merit-based scholarships are of course and honor to receive and will lighten the load of financing law school, they often complicate the decision of which school to attend.For example, someone may apply to Northwestern and DePaul and get into both places. However, they may get into Northwestern by a hair and have to pay full-tuition while at DePaul they are likely to boast the best numbers out of many applicants and thus could be granted big bucks to attend. This undoubtedly begs the questions, "Go to a better or school or get a law school education on someone else's dime?" Nevertheless, this article is about financing you education not where to receive it so we'll move on.
In addition to scholarships offered by the schools, there are a limited number of external scholarships offered to first year students and many more after completion of 1L. One of the most widely publicized and coveted 1L scholarships is provided by the American Bar Association (ABA).Their scholarship, The ABA Legal Opportunity Scholarship, to pull from their website is, "intended to provide resources to increase the flow of racial and ethnic minority students into the legal profession, these scholarships consist of $5000." As stated in the quotation, this scholarship is offered to minority students looking to practice law (usually at top institutions such as Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, University of Chicago, Michigan, Northwestern, etc.).
Another possible situation is that your parents help fund you education. While, for most, this is laughable to ask one's parents to shell out six figures from their bank account to pay for law school, this is more common than one would think. In my best assumption this happens most frequently when daddy is successful lawyer and wants his son to follow in his footsteps and inherit the family practice. So,popping a percentage of his yearly earnings to be able to brag to his lawyer buddies seems a worthwhile investment. Meanwhile, his son is enveloped by his dad's pressure to succeed in law school that he may lose sight of anything else that tickles his fancy in the ream of potential career paths. I understand that speaking so bluntly about this issue creates the implication that I personally am in this predicament, but I can assure you that this is not the case. The last sentence seems like an opportune transition into my next topic:LOANS.
Taking out loans is the most common way law school students pay the bills while they are consumed in legal literature (case files and LexisNexis). Taking out a loan, most of which comes from the government, allows students to defer their undergraduate student loans (if relevant) and continue to study for an advanced professional degree. Then, a few years down the road, when they earned their piece of paper to be framed proudly on their office wall they have to begin paying back the government with interest tacked on to the bill.
Step one in taking out loans is filling out your FAFSA, the financial aid for students application. This basically enumerates how much money you currently possess (or lack thereof) and how much external funding you are expecting to receive from parents, schools, etc. Then, FAFSA and any of the schools you are considering and have been accepted to tell you how much financial aid you are awarded. These awards come in the form of subsidized loans, unsubsidized loans and GradPLUS loans which are especially issued for graduate level students.
The myths inherent with financial aid come into play when 0Ls say, "Well, I'll take out $160,000 in loans but then work for a year after school and make that $160,000 at my BigLaw firm job and be able to pay it all back." The fact of the matter is that those jobs are far and few between AND even if you do somehow land one I guarantee your full salary (or even half) is going to pay back loans.
In summation, go to school wherever you please but I beg you, don't get into too much debt because it's going to be a heck of a time trying to crawl out.
