We all enjoy the holidays. It’s a great time to get together with family and friends you don’t see very often. You get to enjoy good food together, watch holiday movies, catch-up, go snowboarding/skiing and best of all, take a necessary break from your hectic work or school life. I remember as a child, I lived for the breaks. The mere idea that a break was coming got me through most of my school life. This comes with a price-tag, though, cause holidays can be a very expensive experience. Gifts, even small ones, will add up quickly. Snowboard trips including gear, clothes, lift tickets, accommodations and food will leave a pretty sizable dent in your savings. There was one Christmas that my brother and I took to the local mall to get gifts for our close friends. We swept through the mall, quickly found gifts we figured to be perfect for our friends, then busted out our credit cards and swiped-swiped-swiped. By the next pay cycle, we realized what a hole we dug ourselves in; unfortunately, it would be years before we would shed our spendthrift ways. Here are some good ways to enjoy your holidays and still stay afloat financially:

1. Prioritize your gift giving. There’s a famous twitter user that made this relevant tweet last week: “Everybody’s broke, so here’s the rule for Christmas this year; if you still &$#@ your pants, you get a present. Otherwise, tough &$#@.” Crude as that sounds, I found wisdom in it. A lot of us aren’t at a place to be dishing out gifts left and right even though that might feel good. Consider who makes the cut. Significant others, parents and children make it. Everyone else needs to get in line. Making your bills and paying your mortgage takes precedence over you being a pseudo-Santa Claus. I’m sure everyone else will understand because they’re probably in the same boat.

2. Embrace Secret Santa. If you must give gifts to your friends, then embrace the Secret Santa. Secret Santa works like this. You get together your group of friends (office buddies, bowling buddies, church group, fraternity etc.), write down everyone’s name on a slip of paper and everyone pulls a name one by one. You become the Secret Santa for that one person. You just have to get one decent gift for that one person. If you don’t know that person that well, you can use this as an opportunity to investigate them. Learn their likes and dislikes. Send spies to find out what they might want. At the Christmas party, everyone opens up their gifts and tries to guess who their Secret Santa was. It’s a fun way to spice up the Christmas gift giving experience and the best part about it is that you only have to buy ONE gift. Yes, it may feel a bit impersonal, but in these tough economic times, you’ve gotta do what you gotta do. See it this way; you’re giving one gift but you’re helping everyone else out by giving them (and yourself) the gift of financial responsibility! Try Elfster, an online gift exchange service; it’s great, especially the part where you get to ask anonymous questions!

3. Be creative. If you’re artsy, make gifts for your friends and save yourself a bundle of cash. If you plan on going snowboarding, forgo that cushy cabin experience and max out the square feet of a cheap motel with your friends. Bring instant noodles to slurp down between runs. Powdered hot cocoa and canned soup are a much cheaper alternative to the prices for cocoa and soup you’ll get in an isolated ski lodge. If you’re looking to just get a winter snow experience (quite a trek for us Californians), then jump in a car for a day trip with your friends. Grab a sled, hike up the mountain and you’ll be having yourself a ball in no time. The point is that there’s always a different means to an end. Learn to enjoy the holidays for the experiences you’ll get from the quality time you get to spend with close friends and family, not for the gifts that you may or may not be able to give one another this year!

After graduating college, most of us have piled up a considerable amount of debt. Some of us were lucky to have parents who could cover the costs of college education. Most of us, however, were not so fortunate. Pulling out loans definitely seems harmless enough, but 4 years of college (and even more if you’re a super senior or decide to go to grad school afterwards) is a hefty amount of money to pay back.

One option that is available to postgraduates everywhere is that of debt consolidation. Debt consolidation, for those who do not know, is the act of pulling out one large loan to cover all your school loans. That way, your debt is centralized (consolidated) into one easier to manage payment. If you’re like me, you pulled out multiple loans from multiple different sources. You have school loans, Sallie Mae loans, Bank of America loans, Private Loans—sometimes it’s very difficult to remember how many people you have to pay back! Here are 5 reasons why Debt Consolidation may be a good choice for you.

1. Debt Consolidation makes loans easier to manage. Instead of having to track down 5 different loan payments, debt consolidation provides one simple payment that you can take care of more easily. If you have debt from multiple sources, it’s hard to remember to pay them all back sometimes. Debt consolidation helps ensure you don’t forget to pay back your loan.
2. Debt Consolidation ensures smaller payments. Because you are paying back only one loan and not five loans, you can arrange for smaller payments through consolidation. This is not always necessarily a good thing, because it will take you longer to pay off your loan. However, immediately after you graduate you usually make less money than you will be making in the future (in theory). Consolidating your debts can save you up to 54% a month in how much you have to pay back.
3. Debt Consolidation may provide a lower fixed interest rate than your current loans. This could potentially save you thousands of dollars in paying back money. Interest sucks—minimizing how much you have to pay back in interest is definitely something worth considering. You should compare the interest rates and see if debt consolidation makes sense for you.
4. Debt Consolidation provides flexibility in paying back loans. There are tons of different ways that you can go about paying back your debt. You can extend the payment plan, shorten it, pay it all back at once—debt consolidation gives you a lot of flexibility in deciding how much time you want to take to pay off your debt. Remember, however, the longer you take to pay off your loans, the more interest you will have to pay in the end.
5. Debt Consolidation is easy to obtain. Basically every student is eligible for consolidation. There are no prepayment fees, no credit checks, and no co-signers required. The site www.loanconsolidation.ed.gov is a government site that will help students easily consolidate their debt.  

The average amount of money that a student has to pay back after graduating college has risen significantly in the past year. If you have loads of debt, and are having a hard time managing it once you graduate, you should seriously consider consolidating your debt. I have personally consolidated mine, and am very happy that I did so.

A recent graduate is no stranger to debt.  It’s not a good feeling to have a mountain of debt (literally, hundreds of thousands of dollars) hanging ominously over you right out of college. A lot of the time, that is exactly what drives us to settle for some dead end job in the first place — the bills aren’t gonna pay themselves!  If you’re like me, you’ve probably made some regrettable financial decisions during your college years that still have some lingering consequences.  One of those consequences might have occurred after partnering with a group of enterprising Nigerian businessmen in need of your off-shore bank account.  Another consequence is bad credit.

There is no quick fix for creditworthiness.  Companies out there promising to remove outstanding liens, judgments or bankruptcies are run by scam artists and the truth is, they can’t do anything you can’t do yourself.  The allure of getting that home and car loan, or securing that equity line of credit for your business, can be overwhelming but like losing weight, nothing bears fruit without a little elbow grease and a lifestyle change.  Here are some practical steps to get you out of your credit funk:

1. Get a copy of your credit report.  You are entitled (by law) to one free credit report from each credit agency each year (Equifax, Experian and Trans Union).  Look over the reports and take note of any inaccuracies. With identity theft so prevalent and even human error a factor, you never know what might show up on your reports!

If you do come across any anomalies, draft a letter to the consumer reporting company to make your case.  Clearly identify items in question and include copies of documents that support your position. Send your letter by certified mail and make sure you keep copies of everything.  The best start to fixing your credit is clearing items that don’t belong!

2. Create a budget.  Learn to track where you’re spending your money.  In this day and age, it’s too easy to defer responsibility by swiping your trusty credit card and choosing to forget about the money you’ve just spent.  The “little things” that you think you have the money to charge quickly pile up and make it even more impossible to get out of the hole you’re already in. Use free websites like Mint.com to visually aggregate your expenditures to show you how you can slim down your budget on things like leisure and going out to eat.  Learn to prioritize what’s extraneous from what’s necessary.

3. Build a relationship with your creditors.  Contrary to popular opinion, creditors don’t want to go through the hassle of having to send you to collections.  Try to contact them before you’re in over your head.  If you can talk to a live person and put together a payment schedule that is within your budget, everybody wins in the end.  If you end up having to go to bankruptcy court, they might not see a penny so a genial relationship with your creditors can only help you.

4. Get everything in writing.  Say you work out a payment plan over the phone with Steve the Creditor. If Steve loses his job and Ellen takes over your account, your payment schedule might get lost in the shuffle. Ask for paperwork so you don’t have to go back to square one and haggle with a more aggressive agent.  Once you’ve paid off your debt, ask for a settlement letter to send to the credit bureaus so your credit report can be updated.

5. Stop charging your cards!  Cut them up, lock them in a safe deposit box,  or bury them underground. Do whatever you need to do.  Just avoid swiping your credit cards!  They are the bane of your credit-building existence.  Make sure every month you pay the minimums on any outstanding balances you have until they are no longer a blemish on your record.

6. Faithfully make your payments.  Once you’ve worked out lower payments within your budget, pay them faithfully (in full and on time!).  Make a calendar to help organize yourself if you have to.  The creditors are lowering your payments as a favor to you so don’t break faith.  Stick to your budget and you’ll get out of your credit mire in no time!