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With the semester in full swing, students may be looking for a little something extra to add to their schedule. What better way than joining a club or organization on campus?

Not sold on the idea of becoming a joiner? Think about these big two benefits to joining club or organization on your campus:

1. Beefing up your resume — Let's face it, potential employers like to see that you were involved on campus. Whether you're applying for an internship or that first job out of college, being able to list some extra involvement may bump your resume to the top of the pile. There are plenty of groups on campus tailored to your future career. For this journalism major, that meant writing for the student newspaper and joining the campus chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.  Both of those gave me a leg up at internship time.
2. Expanding your social circle — Some groups might not be something you join to advance your professional interests, but rather your personal development. Things like community service groups, Greek life, or recreational clubs could introduce you to folks with the same interests. Joining a club is a great way to meet new people on campus and expand your network.

When you're looking into options, remember not to overextend yourself. While joining organizations on campus have their benefits, they will take up a chunk of your time. Don't let them interfere with your college studies. After all, that's why you're there.

So while you may be very passionate about numerous groups try to choose your involvement wisely. To narrow down your options, ask yourself questions like:

How much time will it require?
What are the benefits to my personal and professional development?
Does it work with my class schedule?

If you don't find something that interests you, consider starting your own club!

What clubs and organizations are you interested in? If you've already found an extra curricular activity, tell us about it!

Barbara

May grads, you knew this was coming. It's almost time to start repaying those student loans. Your six-month grace period on Federal Stafford loans is dwindling — it's time to think about the details of repayment, if you haven't already.

To help you out, here are some items to check off your list of repayment to-dos.

1. Make a plan. Calculate how much your monthly student loan payments will be (be sure to calculate any private student loan payments as well). Make sure you have at least this amount in your budget. Can you allocate a bit more to your loans? Remember paying a little more each month can mean paying less over time. Does it look like your monthly obligations are going to be tough? Then check out the next to-do.
2. Explore your repayment options. There are tons of repayment options for Federal Stafford loans. You can stay on a standard payment plan, extend your repayment if you have a certain amount of federal student loan debt, have your payments based on income if you qualify, combine your loans into one new loan or delay your payments in some circumstances.

Take some time to learn about all your options starting with these:

• Standard, extended, graduated and income-sensitive repayment plans
• Income Based Repayment
• Federal student loan consolidation private student loan consolidation
• Deferments and forbearances

As you explore your options, remember just because you can delay your repayment doesn't mean you should.

3. Know how to contact your lenders. Staying in touch with your lender is a vital part of repayment. Keeping the lines of communication open will help your repayment go as smoothly as possible. Plus, if you hit a bump on your repayment road, talking with your lender about your options can help you get through the situation together.
4. Decide how you'll make your payments. In this technological age, there are more options for payments than the traditional check through the mail. You may be able to manage your loan online. Check with your lender to see if they offer the option to make payments automatically or through your bank's online bill pay service. Making on-time payments is super important, so find the payment option that works for you to ensure your payments arrive to your lender on time.
5. Keep your cosigner informed. I threw this one on the to-do list for those of you with private student loans. Chances are your private loan also has a cosigner whose credit is tied to the good repayment of that loan. Talk through your repayment plan with them to ease their mind a bit. After all, they did put their credit on the line for you.

So let us know: Are there any other items on your repayment to-do list?

Barbara

After a three-year relationship with my gym, it's time for a switch. My new gym is in a closer location, has great classes and is significantly lower in cost. It's in my basement, consists of my favorite exercise DVDs and only costs the electricity to run a television and overhead lights during an hour workout.

The gym is an expense I have previously justified several ways — because of my health, because it was a location just for working out, and because I liked pampering myself in the steam room post-workout.

But as I look to tighten my belt a little to increase savings, I can't justify the expense any longer.

Perhaps this has been one of my splurge items over the past few years. But a girl can only have so many splurge items before she's living above her means, right? Paying a premium for membership at one of the top gyms in town means paying for all the added services — even ones I wasn't using, like fitness classes. Since I wasn't getting my money's worth at the gym, it was splurge I could cut.

However, I'm having a hard time letting go. I keep trying to tell myself that, given the right motivation, I'll still maintain a fitness routine. Here's why (I hope) life sans gym is going to be just as good for my fitness and much better for my pocketbook:

• My house is mere blocks from a local park and bike trail, so when the basement gym gets boring I can mix it up.
• I love rearranging my furniture. Lift with the knees and you have both a workout and a decorating opportunity!
• The outdoors rock — I can do tons of exercises while enjoying the fresh air. Just think of the sweat I'll work up shoveling my driveway this winter.
• With YouTube at my disposal, they'll be ways to vary my workout routines without spending money on new videos and equipment.

Have any of you ended a relationship with a costly routine? Did you have a tough time cutting yourself off? Any ideas for coping are greatly appreciated!

Barbara

Staci is always saying she needs 15% more or less of something. Like when she can't find the movie she wants through the Redbox, she needs 15% more of that movie in the Redbox. Or when Pie Elizabeth is being particularly barky, she needs 15% less barking.

Once I asked her why she uses 15, to which she responded "Fifteen is my favorite percent."

Right now, nine is my favorite percent. It's the percent of my goal I have saved on two savings accounts. I guess technically my favorite percent in this respect would be 100, but for now, I'm happy to see nines.

If you're saving through Wells Fargo, you can set up My Savings Plan^SM to monitor your progress, too. I've established a couple savings accounts with specific savings goals — one for new windows on my house and the other for my ongoing saga of saving for a new car.

I teeter-totter back and forth as to whether seeing my savings percentage — or accounts for that matter — helps or hurts me. Seeing my progress from time to time can help me stay motivated to maintain my current contributions and kick in an extra couple bucks when I am able.

However, seeing that the money is out there just waiting for me can test my patience. Sometimes I start thinking about what debts I could be paying off with the money or how easy it'd be to transfer a couple dollars out of the account for something smaller I need/want (mostly want).

Here's the compromise I made that seems to be working so far. Some of my accounts are visible through online banking and some are not. My emergency fund, which I want to keep growing and never take from unless it's truly an emergency, is one of the accounts that's invisible. The account is funded through direct deposit of my paycheck, so everything is automatic and I don't see the money.

Other accounts, like the window and car goals, are visible. For these accounts, I've found that knowing the specific amount of the specific goal is helpful to keep those savings goals trucking. In addition to automatic transfers, I tend to add more money when I can. Right now I'm thinking about depositing a few more dollars to get the window goal up to 10%. Double digits!

Does having a reminder of how far along you are help your savings goals? Tell us about what savings tricks you have.

Barbara

Tomorrow will mark three years since we launched the Student LoanDown blog. It's kind of crazy for me to think about! For three years, I've been sharing my own financial saga and helping readers understand theirs.

To celebrate, I decided to give you a little behind-the-scenes peek at what happens on our end to bring you the information you find here on a day-to-day basis. Remember, none of us are full-time bloggers — we get to talk with you along with other daily responsibilities. So the time lapses are when I'm doing other tasks that are slightly less fun!

8:45a.m. After procuring a morning beverage, I log on to my computer and start to sort through emails and comments that have come in overnight. One of the highlights of my day is seeing your responses to what we've posted and the questions you have.

9:30a.m. Once I've got a handle on what I need to respond to, I identify the resources I need to answer your questions. Sometimes the questions you ask are pretty complex. So, I get to engage other team members throughout the business. Like when you wonder about deferments and forbearances (technical terms for ways to postpone your student loan payments), I get to talk with folks in our Account Maintenance department. Answering your questions has helped me understand tons of different areas of the business I wasn't familiar with at first.

12:00p.m. I have an idea for a series of posts, but first want to talk with our blog editor, Henrik, to get his feedback. After chatting about how to present the information best, I get started on the first post.

1:25p.m. As I'm drafting responses to the comments and questions I got in the morning, a new email comes in through our Ask the Expert feature. The customer has some specific questions about her student loan with Wells Fargo, so I engage our Executive Office. That's the group that handles escalated customer inquiries. And they can pull the details of the borrower's account for me.

3:15p.m. Ring, ring. Caroline is calling! She wants to have a quick brainstorm session for some post ideas. Along with drawing experiences from our daily lives, we also like to have timely conversations about what's going in the lives of students. Sometimes it helps to bounce ideas off another blogger.

4:45p.m. I realize my post ideas are going to take a bit more research, so I crank out a quick post about it being our anniversary, which you're currently reading! After I send the post to Staci, I wait to hear her chuckle over the cube wall as I am v. clever and v. funny (and v. modest).

6:00p.m. With another day of comments published and questions answered, I note what items are still outstanding for the next day and put them on my to-do list so I remember to follow up.

So there you are: A look into the glamorous life that is blogging for the Student LoanDown! Thanks for teaching me new things every day with your great conversations and questions. I've really had a lot of fun talking with you over the past few years, and we hope you're having fun, too!

Barbara

Summer is dwindling, my friends, but I managed to sneak a summer vacation in under the wire. Ohio and Indiana, where I visited friends and family, were my destinations earlier this month..

The little vacation was full of fun new experiences at sprawling museums , quaint caverns , and in my first vacation car rental! Admittedly, I was probably most excited about the car.

Remember how the cost of my insurance dropped when I turned 25? Once I crossed that mark, insurance companies deemed me a less risky driver.

The same age barrier generally applies to car rentals. If you're under 25, you usually incur a surcharge in addition to the daily rental fee. There are even some companies that won't allow renters under 25 years old.

If you're thinking about renting a car and may be dealing with a surcharge, it's important to look for ways to save in other areas of your rental. Let's face it: Even if you're not dealing with a surcharge, everyone is looking for a bargain these days, right?

Here are some money lessons learned from my first official car rental:

• Research, plan and book in advance. With multiple companies offering car rental service, you should always comparison shop. Search online to price your vehicle options. If you are able to book in advance, do so to make your life a bit easier when you get to your destination.
• Decide what's really important. Several days before my flight I altered my car rental reservation. Initially, a GPS  sounded really appealing. But after careful consideration and multiple search and prints from MapQuest, I chose to go without. Saving on that cost made the upgrade to a vehicle with cruise control less painful – could you imagine six hours on the Interstate 70  without cruise control? No, thank you.
• Find any possible discounts. Dig around for online coupon codes and possible discounts before you rent. By checking some discounts available through work, I managed to get a 15% discount on my rental. And you know I love a good discount.
• Skip the coverage if you can. Before renting, double check your insurance policy and find out if you're covered in a rented vehicle. If you are, consider forgoing the coverage offered by the rental company. Be sure you understand how your coverage differs from the coverage offered by the rental company before you opt out of additional coverage.
• Fill it up. Make sure you have time to replenish your rental's gasoline before you return the vehicle. Otherwise, you'll pay a premium price for the rental company to refill the emptied tank. And I say make sure you have time because sometimes you miss the exit to the airport, are forced to take a long detour to get back, and then can't find a gas station anywhere near the airport. It could happen. I'm just sayin'.

Does anyone have a car rental experience or advice to share?

Barbara

Lately, we've been getting a lot of questions about student loan cosigners — more specifically, how to get a private student loan without one. Unfortunately, this is one question where we don't have the answer most borrowers want to hear.

That's because generally, you're going to need a cosigner.

Here's the thing: Before lenders loan you a large amount of unsecured debt for your education, which usually won’t have required payments for several years, they're going to want to verify you meet certain credit requirements. It's reassurance that you'll have the means to give them their money back.

As a young person, you haven't had much time to establish a stellar credit history — which brings us to the cosigner. When you bring on a qualified cosigner who assumes equal liability for the loan, the lender gets someone who meets the needed credit requirements and provides the reassurance that the loan will be repaid.

A cosigner doesn't have to be a parent. In fact, by law lenders can't tell you who should cosign your loan. It could be a relative, a family friend, or just someone who's willing to make that financial commitment.

Now, it's no simple task to convince someone to put their credit on the line for you. So let's talk about having a conversation with your potential cosigner. What would you say to reassure them that you're worth the investment?

Here are some potential conversation topics to get you started:

• "I'm first using no- or low-cost options to pay for college."
  Show your cosigner that you're a responsible borrower. Tell them about scholarship and grant opportunities you've been given and that you're borrowing federal student loans before turning to private student loans to fill your funding gap.


• "I've chosen a college that's affordable given the financial aid I've received."
  Assure them that you're not over borrowing and attending a school that's out of your price range. If you can't make this statement, perhaps you should reevaluate your school choice so you're not taking on too much student loan debt to attend college.


• "I'll be able to afford my payments based on what I'll be making after graduation."
  It's important that your cosigner knows you'll be able to repay the loan. Because if you fail to make payments, it's not just your credit you're hurting, but the credit of your cosigner as well. Plus, your cosigner will be on the line for any payment you don't make. Tell them your estimated income after graduation and what your estimated monthly payments will be. Ideally, your student loan payments shouldn’t exceed 10% of your starting salary.


• "I'm already financially responsible with other accounts."
  Have a checking account or credit card? Tell your cosigner about how you balance your checkbook and avoid overdrafts or pay off your credit card each month to show that you're already financially responsible.


• "I'll stay in touch with you and my lender throughout the life of the loan."
  Your cosigner will want to know what's going on with the loan until it's paid off and no longer their liability. Assure them that you'll keep them (and your lender) updated on your situation so if anything happens you can find a solution together.

What else do you think could ease a potential cosigner's mind?

Barbara

When I opened my inbox today, I found a message from the bank. My automatic transfer had gone through, adding another chunk of change to my savings account.

Recently, I dedicated one of my savings accounts for a specific goal: new windows for my house. When I purchased the house more than two years ago (wow, time flies!), I knew the windows would need to be replaced eventually. My house has been around a while and still has its original windows...from the 1960s. And after estimating the cost to replace them, I decided it'd be better to start saving now, even if they'll last a few more seasons.

Saving for a specific goal has really helped my savings stay in savings. Plus, I can track my progress and set up recurring transfers to help me keep the right amount going in each month (I just divided the total amount I need by the months I have to get there, and make sure at least that amount goes into savings automatically each month).

Thinking about my own savings goal got me wondering: What are all of you saving for?

For me, it was important to find a balance between saving for the things I needed and still focusing on repaying my debt. Saving versus paying off debt  is, in my opinion, something you need to decide for yourself. Each person is different — everyone saves for different goals and deals with different debts.

Have you been managing saving while paying off debt? If so, tell us: How did you find a good balance between the two?

Barbara

As Staci has said before, it's tough to be friends with me. I'm still a gal on a pretty strict budget. And when the money runs out, I'm a gal who cuts herself off.

So it was difficult last week when Staci proposed we head to the strip-mall nail salon for a quick pedicure  to make our summer feet happy. To her credit, even she doesn't splurge on that service at a fancy (read: expensive) spa.

It was very, very tempting. "How much?" I asked. "Oh, $35 plus a tip," she responded.

Technically I had the money to go. But a $35 indulgence could've made things a bit too tight until my next paycheck. "I just don't think I can swing that right now," I told her, finalizing my decision.

To that Staci gave me a frown and said, "That's sad." Then as I was starting to feel bad for myself, I snapped out of it and responded, "It's not sad, it's responsible."

As we talked about the breakthrough I'd just had, I started to think about other situations where I haven't always acted the same way. I know Staci understands that I'm on a budget and has gotten used to me packing my lunch versus going out and other spendy activities. That helps ease the guilt when I have to say no.

However, my finances aren't out in the open for all my relationships, and I started to realize that I am still very susceptible to financial peer pressure! Frankly, I don't want to be the stingy friend. So sometimes I say yes when I should be saying no (or at least offering a lower-cost option).

Do you feel the same way sometimes? Tell us about the times you've felt peer pressure to spend or times when you've said no.

By the way, later that week I did get a pedicure. It just happened to be with the assistance of hot bucket of water and a home pedicure kit setup in my living room!

Barbara

Does your current (or future) federal student loan payment seem a bit daunting? As of July 1, there's a new repayment option for federal student loans that may help.

Income Based Repayment  (IBR) is designed to help borrowers who find that their current income makes the required payments with a standard repayment term difficult to afford.

Here's how it works:

Loan eligibility: IBR is available for the Federal Stafford Loans, Federal PLUS Loans for graduate and professional students, and Federal Consolidation Loans, either with Direct Loans or a private lender like Wells Fargo through the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP). However, there are a couple of exceptions: The loan cannot be in default, and IBR is not available for Federal PLUS Loans for parents or Federal Consolidation Loans that repaid a Federal PLUS Loan for parents.

Payment calculation: Through IBR, borrowers' monthly payments are calculated by taking into consideration their adjusted gross income , family size, and the state where they reside. If the IBR payment is less than the payment under a 10-year standard repayment plan, then the borrower is eligible for IBR. To see if you may qualify, calculate the payment with Income Based Repayment  and compare the payment with Standard Repayment.

How to apply: If you find that your payment with IBR may be lower than with a standard repayment period, you can apply for IBR directly through your lender. If your loan is with Wells Fargo, you can call 1-800-658-3567.

Now that you know how it works, here are some considerations for you:

Added benefits: A more manageable student loan payment is a big deal, but there are a couple other benefits of IBR. If you make qualifying payments on your loan under Income Based Repayment for 25 years, you may be able to have any remaining balance discharged. Also, if you have a subsidized loan and your IBR payment doesn't cover the monthly interest your loan accrues, that unpaid interest will be subsidized by the government for up to three consecutive years from when you first enter IBR repayment.

Possible drawbacks: Remember to consider the cons of IBR as well. A reduced payment through IBR usually means you're taking more time to pay off your loan, which can mean paying more interest over the life of the loan. Borrowers must also submit necessary paperwork each year to continue with IBR. And if you are no longer eligible for IBR, any unpaid interest that has accrued on your loan is capitalized (added to the principal balance) and will be charged interest.

Anyone have additional questions on Income Based Repayment? Leave them here!