Financial advisors provide tips for post-college life
Page 4 • Wednesday, August 2, 2017 • The Hammonton Gazette
FINANCE, from Page 1
scarier than any final exam if op-
portunities are not immediately
lining up for graduates.
Regardless of what adversity
graduates face after graduating,
they should always be focused on
saving money, no matter the
amount. Edward Jones financial
advisor James Siwek described
this mindset as “culture of saving”
and said that, although it can be
difficult to commit to and main-
tain, the post-college graduation
period is the best time to do it
since many of these individuals
are still living with their parents
and may not have as many
monthly financial responsibilities
like paying rent or a mortgage on
a home.
“I think it is a really good way
to go and a lot of people really
struggle with that—I struggle with
it—especially for college grads
that are still living at home that
kind of take advantage of that op-
portunity to put some money
away because at some point,
you’re going to want to move out
of your parents’ house. And
there’s nothing worse than being
in debt and not being able to
achieve your goal,” Siwek said.
One monthly financial respon-
sibility that is burdening countless
college graduates is large amounts
of student loan debt, which finan-
cial advisor Sam Rodio Jr. said is
a problem that graduates need to
stay on top of long before they
graduate.
“I think the most important
thing for a college student while
they’re still in school is to really
understand everything they owe,
the terms of their loans, interest
rates, exactly what the stipulations
are of the loans as far the repay-
ment periods and any grace peri-
ods, and really be aware of that by
the time they graduate,” Rodio Jr.
said.
Once the terms of the loans are
fully understood, Rodio Jr. said
the payments of the debt should
be strictly planned each month be-
cause it is something that can
cause financial burdens if left un-
attended.
“I know several recent college
grads who the first one, two, three
years out of college, they may not
be making a whole lot of money,
and the money they do make they
end up spending maybe a little
foolishly and they neglect that stu-
dent loan payment, and it does
cause problems,” Rodio Jr. said.
Kingsview Asset Management
financial advisor Benjamin Ott ac-
knowledged that student loan debt
is “an unfortunate epidemic” but
said he wouldn’t recommend that
paying off student loans should be
the top priority for a college grad-
uate due to the current interest
rates of student loans, interest that
is often tax-deductible.
Ott said there are far worse
types of debt these individuals can
become buried in when they focus
all of their attention on paying off
student loans, which can create a
downward spiral of “bad debt.”
“You put all of your extra funds
into student loans and then your
car breaks down and that spins
you into a spiral of bad debt where
you are using credit cards and
things like that, or higher interest
loans, because you basically just
bulldozed all of your free cash
into the student loans because it
was a big number and it felt like
that’s what you should do,” Ott
said.
To avoid falling into this spiral,
many financial professionals ad-
vise their clients to create an
emergency fund for when life’s
unforeseen obstacles arise, which
can only be done by adopting
See MONEY, Page 16
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