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“Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.”

-Albert Schweitzer

When I was entering 6th grade, my parents (along with other Baptists in our community) built a school in the basement of our church. I hated school from that day forward. Students faced into small cubicles with a chart in front of our face. The progress chart held little stars showing how we performed in our assignments – gold stars were hard for me to accumulate. Learning to manage money came much later in life and the gold stars morphed into other attractions.

When I meet with people, I often ask them a couple of questions: “What are some of your early memories about money?” and “What are some ways those experiences affect your attitudes and choices about money today?” I’ve been amazed at some of the stories people have told me, and I’ve also been amazed at their insights about the life-changing impact of these experiences. Let me share three stories with you that I hope can make a difference in your family.

Taylor was only 25 when he shared his story about how he learned valuable lessons from his first two jobs. His first one was a minimum wage job at a T-shirt store at the mall. He worked after school and on Saturdays, and he spent most of his time folding shirts and looking for something to fill his time. He soon realized that jobs like that are incredibly boring, and some of his friends were making a lot more money waiting tables at local restaurants. Taylor isn’t a quitter, so he stayed at the shop as long as he could stand it, but after a year, he applied for a job at a steak restaurant. Instead of being bored, he now came home frazzled because the complexity of orders, the pace, and the need to interact amiably with customers stressed him out. But he was making far more money from tips than he made at the mall, and that kept him motivated. At the store in the mall, Taylor learned that minimum wage jobs may not require much of you, but they don’t reward you much, either. As a waiter, he found out that hard work pays off, and that generosity is one of the highest virtues. He has graduated from college and is making a good living in a job he loves. Even today, when he goes out to eat with his dad, he checks to be sure his father leaves a sizeable tip. That’s important to Taylor.

The second story comes from my wife Connie. She remembers that when she got her first job at Catfish Parlor when she was in high school, she had her eye on some fine leather boots that came almost up to her knees. At the time, they were very stylish, but they were also very expensive. She realized she would have to save every penny she made for an entire month to pay for them. And that’s exactly what she did. She told me, “I was so sure those boots would really make me happy, and they did-for about three weeks. But then they went out of style and they weren’t important to me any more.”

Here are some useful Debt Consolidation tips. Debt consolidation is a loan used to repay several other loans. Debt consolidation loan takes the group of debts that you owe, and consolidates them into one. In other words it combines several debt obligations into one debt.

If you find you have several monthly payments on a number of different loans you can make things easier for yourself by bringing them all together and taking out one single loan to pay off the total debt. This would mean that you only have one monthly payment. Paying off one large sum of money rather than lots of smaller debts is easier to manage.

You will make one monthly payment where you had been making multiple payments before your Debt Consolidation loan started. You only have to remember to make one repayment each month, rather than trying to juggle and keep track of several different ones.

The aim of a debt consolidation loan is to lower your monthly payments thus taking away some of the pressure on you. You can usually find a debt consolidation loan with a lower interest by securing it on your home. A lower monthly payment can be obtained by increasing the term of the loan.

With a Debt Consolidation Loan you can borrow from �5,000 to �75,000. Debt Consolidation Loans secured on property can be repaid over a period of between 5 years and 25 years .

Debt Consolidation Loan rates are variable, depending on status. Monthly repayments will depend on the amount borrowed and term.

Remember that this Debt Consolidation loan is to pay of the existing debts and that all the regular bills will continue to appear and will need to be constantly cleared too to avoid a similar situation in future. Hence you need to take complete stock of your financial situation whereby you need to have money to pay off monthly bills, mortgage repayment and other unavoidable expenses.

Should you be unable to make your loan repayments, the lender has security collateral in your home, therefore continuous failure to pay back the loan repayments could result in the lender legally taking possession of your house.

For some students, the semester begins in less than a month and there is a rush to secure financing. Does it seem harder to get the money you need this year? You might be right. The bad economy and the tight credit markets haven’t been good for student loans.

When shopping for your private loan this year, you’ll probably notice that there are less lenders advertising on the internet. That’s because there are only a handful of lenders making private loans for the upcoming school year. If you have a co-signer with an excellent credit score, you shouldn’t have any trouble securing your private loan. But the average borrower is going to have to work a little harder to get approved this year. That also means you may have to do more research, because private loan products and interest rates may have changed since last year.

If you need a private loan before school starts, here is what you need to do:

Double check that you have maxed out on federal student loans
Make sure you have taken out the maximum amount available to you in federal student loans. Work with your school’s financial aid office if you were not given the maximum amount listed below for your grade level:

$5,500 Freshman
$6,500 Sophomore
$7,500 Junior, Senior and 5th year undergraduate students
Make sure you get enough information on federal student loans and financial aid planning. If you haven’t tried scholarships, grants and federal aid yet, you’re not ready for a private loan.

Identify potential private loan co-signers
Most undergraduate students are going to need to find a co-signer to get a private loan this year. And when we say “most,” that’s an estimated 9 out of every 10 students. Identify anyone over 18 who has significant income and a good credit history, like a parent, relative or friend. Remember that this person will be responsible for the loan with you. Read more about what makes a good co-signer.

Research private loan options
The best place to begin researching private loans is probably your school’s financial aid office. Your school has likely already done some of the research for you and has selected lenders who might fit their student’s needs.

When you are reviewing private loan products, make sure the lender you choose has things that are important to you and your co-signer such as:

No payments until graduation vs. payments required while you are in-school
Various repayment options once you begin repaying the loan
Co-signer release option (your co-signer can eventually drop off the loan once you qualify)
Lender incentives (special rebates or interest rate reductions for making payments on-time or paying automatically from your checking account every month)
Deferment and forbearance options
Apply for a private loan
When you have selected a lender, and are ready to apply, remember that you and your co-signer will need to have these things handy:

Driver’s license number
Social security number
Current and previous addresses
Verification of income documentation
The loan amount you are requesting
If your private loan is denied, you may need to try to find another credit-worthy co-signer. Credit standards and acceptance rules are unique to each lender, so you and your co-signer can also try to apply with another lender.