Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

Paying Down Student Loans with Smarterbank

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There’s little question that student loans can be one of the more difficult debt burdens that a person can have.  The cost of tuition is rising each year, and the rates seem to be following suit.  Many college graduates are finding themselves with a degree that cost as much as their first house is likely to.  It goes to reason, then, that finding any means available to help pay that debt off is probably a good idea.

What is Smarterbank?

I was recently introduced to a product offering called Smarterbank.  It’s an online checking account that’s run by The Bancorp Bank.  It’s fully FDIC insured to $250,000 and, for most purposes, operates just like any other online checking account.  Much like some other online banks, Smarterbank has some perks attached to their accounts.

In the case of Smarterbank, they give a “cashback” that goes directly to your student loans.  For purchases under $100, they apply .5% of the purchase to your Smarterbucks account.  For purchases over $100, the first $100 gets you the same .5%, and everything over $100 gets you 1%.

Smarterbank Fees

One of the nice perks of Smarterbank is that it’s a relatively fee free account.  There’s a monthly “inactivity” fee if you don’t use the account at least once in a month of $4.50, otherwise, if you’re a smart user, you’ll never hit a fee.  And, by smart user, I mean you don’t overdraft, or do something else silly.  They’ve got fees that are associated with things like statement research, etc, but those are pretty standard and you’re pretty unlikely to ever use those services.  You also get access to over 40,000 ATMs in the STAR ATM network.

The Smarterbucks Program

As I mentioned above, the “cashback” goes into your Smarterbucks account.  So, you’re probably wondering what the heck that is.  Smarterbucks is a rewards program.  Not unlike programs like Swagbucks, it rewards you for certain actions.  Things like shopping through their portal (“Smarterbucks Marketplace”) earn you cash back that is credited to your account.  You can also ask others to contribute to your account.  That option could be pretty cool to use as an alternative for people to give to you for birthdays, Christmas, or special events.

Once your Smarterbucks account reaches $15, they send a payment for that amount to your student loan.  At first, that might not seem like much, and, really, it isn’t.  But, every little bit helps.  And every $1 you pay off early is $1 that you aren’t accruing interest on for the life of the loan.  And that can add up in a hurry.

Would you switch to an account like Smarterbank for an offer like this?  Is the offer strong enough to make it worth the time?  What other offers have you seen that help with student loan payback?

See all the details on Smarterbank.

Lending Club Return Update 1Q13

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If this is the first of my Lending Club return updates that you’ve read, let me catch you up a bit.  It all started with a little Lending Club / Sharebuilder experiment.  It’s moved on past that, to an ongoing series here at Beating Broke where I share, on a quarterly basis, how the account is doing, the things I’ve done with the account recently, and the things that I might be thinking about trying over the next quarter.

How I invest in Lending Club

Because of where I live (North Dakota), I’m not able to directly invest in fresh loans.  I’m forced to use the FolioFN trading platform to buy (and occasionally sell) the notes that I’m investing in.  But, based on my returns, I don’t think I’ll be complaining anytime soon.  If you’d like to read more about how I select my Lending Club notes, you can read my post on that subject here.

Beating Broke Lending Club UpdateLazy Lending Club Investing

While I consider investing in peer-to-peer investing to be a nearly passive income source, it isn’t a pure passive income source.  What I mean by that is that it does require some active management in order to keep the money invested in loans, and not just sitting fallow in your account.  Without meaning to, I put that to the test this last quarter.  In February, I don’t even know if I logged into the account.  I certainly didn’t buy any new notes.  What that means is that for the better part of February, the money that I had coming in just sat in the cash account not doing a darn thing.  By the end of February, the cash account was nearly 10% of my Lending Club portfolio.  I invested all of that back into notes in March, but it was a lesson in needing to log in and check the account once in a while.

Lending Club Loan Analysis

Analysis might be a bit too strong of a word.  At the end of the quarter, I had invested in a total of 62 notes.  Of those 62 notes, 19 had been paid off, and there have been no written off loans.  There is one that has slipped into the delinquent status column, however, and is showing signs of ending up in the written off column. The balance on principle of the loan is less than 1% of my total portfolio.  I might be able to sell it, but it’s far enough delinquent that I’d have to sell it at a significant discount.  Honestly, I haven’t decided if I’ll do that or not.  I’d rather it just came back around and was paid off, but I’m more of a realist than that.  Maybe we’ll be talking about the written off loan effect at the end of next quarter.

Lending Club Return

So this is the part that everyone’s been reading for, right?  If you look back at the 4Q12 update, you’ll see that my rate of return (displayed as NAR in the account dashboard) was 14.48%.  I screwed up a bit and didn’t record the NAR displayed at the end of March.  As of 4/24/2013, it’s being displayed as 14.63.  That still includes the one delinquent loan, so it’s likely to go down some if that loan is sold at a significant discount, or if it is written off.  The spreadsheet I use to keep track of the numbers shows a a return of 15.86% and 13.26% (adjusted with inflation, which may or may not be necessary).

The cash flow in the account remains pretty good.  I had several loans paid off in the last quarter that was reinvested.  All told, the portfolio of active (principle remaining) loans grew by 2 over the first quarter.  The average amount of money churning back into the account each month is averaging well over $30 a month now allowing me to invest in one new note (at $25/each) each month and then another when the balance grows beyond $25 again.  Monthly interest received is teetering around the $10 a month line.  I think my next goal might be to get the interest income up to $25 a month.  That would be pretty sweet.  I’d be investing in a new note each month on just the interest along.  If I want to do that anytime soon, however, it means I’ll have to start putting money into the account again.  I haven’t put anything into it since November of last year, and I haven’t yet decided when I’ll start putting money into it again, but it will likely be soon.

Embracing Risk, and Increasing Returns

I suppose that somewhere along the way, here, I should mention risk.  The notes that I’m investing in all carry a risk of potential default.  If they all were to default, I’d lose every penny in my account.  The odds of that happening are pretty small.  But, the odds of having one or two loans default out of a couple hundred is significantly higher.  If you’re going to invest in Lending Club notes, or any investment, you need to know and understand the risks.  That’s your warning, and my disclaimer.

Now, take a minute and go look to see what your bank or credit union of choice pays on their savings account.  How about their best rate on a CD?  Now, even if I were to invest my portfolio into loans with a better credit rating (and, supposedly lesser risk), I could easily be making 6-9% if there weren’t any defaults.  It beats the heck out of the rates at my credit union.

One last disclaimer.  Please don’t put your liquid (or, emergency) savings into risky investments.  You need those readily available, and relatively risk free.  Even at a paltry 0.25% in a savings account, it’s in the best place.  Every other drop of savings is fair game though.  Your money needs to be working for you, not the bank.

If you think Lending Club (or Prosper) is something you want to give a look (maybe you’ll want to try an experiment like I have?) you can sign up at the following links: (Lending Club | Prosper)

Are Personal Loans Ever Right For You?

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Is a personal loan ever the right choice for you?  I’m not talking about payday loans, or those fun (or not) personal loans that happen in the back alley of a pawn shop, but honest to goodness personal loans from a bank.  Maybe you’ve heard them referred to as an unsecured loan.

A personal loan is usually called an unsecured loan because it has no property securing its repayment.  Unlike a car loan, mortgage, or other secured loan, there is nothing for the bank to come and repossess if you should default on the loan.  It’s a loan based on your credit alone, and your personal ability to repay it.  Because of the unsecured nature of the loan, the interest rate is usually a bit higher than a secured loan.

And, because of that higher interest rate, personal loans are generally frowned upon.  The only way to get a “loan” at a higher rate is to use a credit card.  Credit cards, actually, are a form of personal loan.  Think of them as a personal line of credit.

Are there good reasons to get a personal loan?

The answer, much like most other things related to personal finance, is that it depends.  Some people will tell you that they are an absolute no-no.  Don’t do it, under any circumstances.  I tend to lean a little bit more towards the middle.  I don’t think you should use them every single time you need a little bit of money.  That can get a bit cumbersome, and can lead to bad credit practices.  But, I also think that there are times when a personal loan can be beneficial.

Personal LoansWhen I used a personal loan.

I’ve borrowed money from a bank in the form of a personal loan.  Once.  It was the only time I really needed to do it.  It was near the beginning of our journey towards getting out of debt.  A journey we are still on, mind you.  After several years of very slowly building credit, we were on the right track.  And then stuff happened.  We needed some money to help pay for some bills.  Without anything to secure a loan, I was able to get a small loan from my local credit union.  It helped bridge the gap between what we needed to keep our bills current, and save our credit, and getting behind on stuff.  It wasn’t a huge loan, and it wasn’t any more than we needed.

Our usage is one way that I think that a personal loan can be a good thing.  There are other ways that I think they can be helpful.  Using them smartly, and only taking what you need is always the rule, though.  Using them to help bridge gaps in funding for capital investments in your company, paying off a higher interest rate credit card, and even for a little bit more to help pay for home improvements.  Obviously, using them for things that can be considered an investment.  Either an investment in the traditional sense in that it returns some amount to you, or investment in that it saves you an amount.

What about you?  Have you ever borrowed on a personal loan?  Do you think people should?

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