Make a plan

You're on your way to a new career and new financial challenges. It's time to update your budget based on your post-school life. Make sure you include the following items in your new budget:

• Your salary
• New expenses (rent, groceries, utilities, etc.)
• Old expenses (cell phone, memberships, entertainment)
• Transportation (bus fare, gas, maintenance, car insurance)
• Student loan repayment
• Retirement savings

Use College Answer^®'s Monthly Budget Calculator to identify key budget items to better understand your financial situation.

See if extended repayment is what you need

Extended repayment means you make monthly payments of principal and interest or payments that are as low as interest-only for two or up to four years.

With extended repayment, you have up to 25 years to repay your federal student loans and up to 30 years to repay your private loans. You'll have more money left over to pay other bills.

Build good credit

Your credit report details your credit habits from the day you began purchasing items on credit to the present. To ensure a good credit history, do the following:

• Pay your bills on time. If you don't have a long credit history, this is the most important thing you can do to get a high credit score.
• Don’t have too many open lines of credit, particularly revolving credit such as credit cards.
• Pay credit card balances completely each month.
• If you must keep balances on your credit cards, don't max out one card while maintaining smaller balances on others. Try to keep a small balance on each card.
• Avoid bankruptcy and tax problems.
• Regularly monitor your credit report for identity theft and reporting errors. You can get one free copy of your credit report per year. Visit AnnualCreditReport.com for details.

Deduct interest payments

Get federal income tax relief and take advantage of education-related tax credits and deductions. These benefits can significantly reduce your tax liabilities, by thousands of dollars in some cases