Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

Sell! Sell! Sell!

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Goodness!  Did you see what the markets did yesterday?  Down almost 400 points!  If you haven’t already, you had better join the rest of the world in getting out while you still can.  The era of easy gains in the stock market and guaranteed returns has officially ended, and it isn’t pretty.  It’s time to let go of the bull market ideals.  Do you know what happens to a bull in a room full of bears?  Here.  Let me show you.

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Seriously. Those bears are going to eat you alive! Sell everything you got now. Take it out in gold, and head for the hills. Don’t forget the canned supplies and vegetable seeds for after the apocalypse that will follow!  Quit your job, pack your family up, and head for North Dakota.  We’ve got plenty of oil field jobs available. (see: Bakken formation) And with a bunch of liquid black gold running over your fingers, you won’t need to worry about the crashing stock market anyways!

Ok, obviously, this whole post is a little bit tongue-in-cheek, with the exception of the North Dakota part.  We really do have plenty of oil field jobs available.  Best economy in the U.S.A., in fact.   And, even if the post weren’t tongue-in-cheek, and you took it seriously, you really, really, should talk to a financial professional before making any thing resembling a sell everything move.  The whole post was all for the enjoyment of myself, MoneyMamba, and others who felt that there would be a whole plethora of posts by our colleagues touting the benefits of dollar cost averaging and long term views on the stock market.  They may be right, but sometimes you just have to poke a little fun. 😉

Despite my best efforts, I don’t know everything about finances, stock markets in particular, so please don’t construe this as advice.  It isn’t.

photo credit: VirtualErn

North Dakota STEM Loan Forgiveness

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For the past three years, I have participated in the ND Technology Occupations Student Loan Forgiveness program.  The rules were pretty simple.  You had to have a College Degree in a technology related field, and have a job in North Dakota in a technology related field.  If you met the rules and got your application in before they ran out of money for the year, you got a $1000 student loan forgiveness payment on your student loans.  Yippee!  In those three years, I got the payment every time.  They pay it directly to my loan and I now have $3000 less in student loans to pay for.  Considering that I got away from college with a degree and only about $30,000 in loans, I’ll take a 10% reduction in principle.  I’ve also got my interest locked in at a nice low 3.75%, so I can’t complain about my student loan situation.

The one dim spot was that you could only claim the student loan forgiveness payment for three years and then you were done.  Today, however, I got a letter in the mail from the North Dakota University System (the administrators of the program) telling me that the ND Legislature extended the program in the 2009 session.  Yippee!  But wait!  There’s More!  Not only did they extend it so you could claim it for four years, but they upped it from $1000 to $1500!  WoooHooo!  Oh, and they changed the name of it as well.  Now it’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Loan forgiveness program (S.T.E.M).  All I’ve got to do is fill out some paperwork and send it in on time (May to June) and, if approved, they’ll pay $1500 of my student loan off for me.  That’s another 5% of my original principle.  For a total of 15% of the principle overall.

I knew there was a reason I stayed in North Dakota!

P.S. if you live here too (tell me) and you think you might meet the requirements, you can get information on the program at www.ndus.edu ; (Or you can click the STEM link in the next sentence.) click on Student & Parent Information and then Financial Aid.  There’s a link there for the STEM program.