If you managed to get yourself a college degree then you've no doubt picked up some experience in independent personal finance. Even if it was a weekly grocery budget or saving up for a summer road trip you probably acquired an understanding of money management you hadn't previously had. But when college ends things get a little more serious. The average American college graduate carries an estimated $4100 in credit card debt and $21000 in student loan debt. With an estimated 85% of current college graduates anticipated to move back in with parents and an unmoving high unemployment rate for those ages 20-25, the introduction of massive debt into young adult lives is happening at the worst possible time. In order to make sure you don't let the rough start hinder your potential to succeed, college graduates must take charge of their debt as soon as possible no matter what.
Student Loans: Take Charge and Consolidate
The six month grace period is a lot of time where forgetting about student loans can get easy. Trust me, when those six months are up your loan providers will be reminding you. Chances are you took mostly federal loans out with some private ones thrown into the mix. While it's easier and cheaper to consolidate federal student loans via the Federal Direct Consolidation Program, private loans can be consolidated through one of four major lenders: Chase, Wells Fargo, NextStudent, and Student Loan Network. Even if your borrowing history was simple and didn't stray from one or two lenders, initiating the dialogue between you and the lender is vital. You want to have all the information made available to you about your rights and responsibilities before those six months are up.
Screen Calls but Don't Ignore Them
Hopefully you already have a handle on credit cards and any other unsecured debts you've accumulated over your college career, but you never know when a phone call out-of-state is someone trying to notify you about an outstanding unpaid $50.00 balance on a mall store card you thought you paid off two years ago. Something as trivial as that can give you a bad credit rating if you don't take care of it quick enough. Run strange numbers through reverse phone lookup if you missed the call and the voicemail is a collector's poorly timed automated response, which can be the case. If the number originates from a credit card company, student loan lender, collector, or who knows - even a potential employer, a reverse lookup should be able to tell you.
Start Saving
Being forced to move back in with mom and dad isn't exactly that bad if you consider that the average cost of even the most modest of one-bedroom rentals when utilities and living expenses are included can be as much as $1000 a month. If you're dishing about almost half that amount to pay back loans and pay down credit cards, sticking to the childhood bedroom allows you to not only do that more successfully with a part-time job, you can also conceivably save money too. I can't begin to tell you how important it is to be putting money away at this age. It won't necessarily be the start of a massive savings but instead be your ticket out of sleeping next to the old man's tool bench for the next decade. If a job offer comes in from the other side of the country, you want to have a few thousand in the bank ready to spend on the transition. Or if you do eventually move out even if it's just across town, you can bankroll some furniture purchases without sacrificing the money you allotted for loans.
Student loans and other debts can snowball fast in the months after graduation if you allow the unpredictable period of time to distract you from taking charge. In six months after graduation, are you going to be having a bad day, or are you going to be on your way? That's only for you to decide.