Personal Finance and Investing

Health careers are the best career options for people who wish to do something to help mankind. Not only are doctoring and nursing health careers, there are many behind the scenes career options that are more than helpful and important in saving many a lives. Here is a list of the various types of health careers you can choose from.

1. Independent living lifestyles has lead to an increase in the demand of home health aides. People inflicted with diseases, old age and suffering from accidents need help at home which is available through these aides. Though the pay here is barely above minimum wages, the benefit of this health career is that it is widely in demand and there are no college degree requirements to become a home health aide.

2. Another health profession option that does not require any college degree is a medical assistant. As a medical assistant, you have to help nurses and doctors with basic tasks like giving injections, drawing of blood, getting exam rooms ready and helping with minor procedures. Though it is possible to get a certification as a medical assistant, most people get trained while working.

3. Working as a registered nurse is another health profession option that pays more than medical assistants and home aides as it requires some college level education. You need at least an associate’s degree or a bachelor’s degree to work as a registered nurse.

4. Physicians and surgeons are one of the highest paying health careers today because of its high level of educational requirements. Today, this is a job that is high in demand where one out of ten openings gets unfilled.

5. Licensed practical nurses and licensed vocational nurses don’t need as much college education as an RN, and thus offers a lower pay. However they pay better than medical assistants and home aides.

6. While home health aides help at home, nursing aids, attendants and orderlies work mostly in nursing homes, long term care homes and even hospitals.

7. While all these career options offer more of service to patients, medical technologists, phlebotomists and medical billers also play an important part in the health care industry. They concentrate more on the secondary issues of health care like drawing of blood, diagnosing a health condition and deciding on the best treatment and take care of all billing and insurance claims made to a hospital.

There are so many health careers for you to choose from; based on your preferences, educational qualifications and the urge you have for doing your part in serving mankind. No matter which career you choose, you have to remember that all health careers offer a great job growth potential because of the never ending demand and requirements for healthcare.

With a health career, you make an impact to many lives by not only saving lives, but also by making life much more appeasing to the sick and invalid. Health careers also offer a competitive earning potential where you stand to earn more with the more experience you acquire. Moreover, you can never expect a dull moment in a health career considering the varied numbers and types of patients you get to meet and serve everyday.

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College loan corporations are companies that provide financial aid to college students. The corporations have their own websites on the Internet that list very detailed explanations of what the companies offer, from college-planning guidelines and loan programs, to access to their loan consultants.

One of the most common services offered on college loan corporations? websites is the so-called college loan calculator. However, there are also other independent companies or websites that focus generally on loans and budgeting strategies that offer this service as well.

Calculators

College loan calculators are basically a set of criteria aimed at computing and evaluating a specific category of college education financing. It aims to help students and parents analyze how much needs to be invested in education, how much financial aid they can take advantage of, how much the student will eventually earn after getting a college degree, and which repayment program will help the student save money in the long run. There are no general standards for what the criteria should be, as each company?s website has a different approach in its method of evaluation.

There are similarities, though, in general regarding how these calculators help users or clients to make their decisions.

College Cost Calculator

College cost is one of the more standard criterion found in calculators. This takes into consideration a lot of different inputs like annual college costs, college cost inflation rate, years of attendance, percent of costs you plan to cover from savings, and years before college. Basically, this calculator helps parents and students analyze how much they have to save and pay for college and whether or not the student shoulder on his/her own finances.

Savings Calculator

Savings calculators help students and parents determine if they are on the right track regarding how they budget and save money for college. This calculator takes into consideration the following: years until college, family?s current savings for college, expected annual interest earnings, and monthly savings for college.

Others

Other calculators include student loan calculator, parent debt calculator, and parent loan repayment calculator. Student loan calculators compute how much students would have to pay monthly or annually after they graduate. Parent debt calculators basically analyze parents? capacity to take on more debt to finance their child?s education. Lastly, a parent loan repayment calculator computes how much of the loan parents have to repay monthly or annually.

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If you have read this book by Robert Kiyosaki, “Rich dad, Poor Dad”, you will realize that getting a college education, securing a 9-5 job and then climbing the corporate ladder is not the most effective way to get rich.

However, this doesn’t mean college education is getting cheaper, just because the rat race is no longer in vogue among the younger generation. In fact, it cost a decent amount of money which requires financial planning right from the child’s birth.

Between the costs of tuition, books, room and board and school service fees, the total bill can add up fast. However there are ways to get reduced or even free tuition for your college education.

Aim For Scholarships

This is obvious but you will be surprised that many students don’t apply for scholarships. There are many scholarships available and while good grades are a must, you don’t need to be the valedictorian of your class. Check with your high school counselor or college academic adviser for application criteria.

Get Free Tuition

Some states offer free tuition for bright students from lower income families so that they can attend college. In New Jersey, you may be eligible for free tuition at your community college if you are in the top twenty percent of your high school class. Just do some research online and see what is available.

As of 2008, Stanford University will no longer charge tuition fees to students whose parents earn less than $100,000 a year. In addition, all room and board fees will be waived for students whose families earn less than $60,000 a year. The program also eliminates the need for student loans.

In 2008, MIT also announced plans to offer free tuition for those whose families are earning less than $75,000 a year.

Other ways to get free tuition include:

1. Employee Benefits

Human resource is one of the most important assets in a company, hence, a lot of employers are focused on retraining and upgrading the skills of their workers to become more productive and gain a competitive edge.

If you want to advance your education, there are usually partial to full reimbursement, especially for tuition classes related to your job description.

To qualify, you will usually need to get a passing grade of no less than a “C”. Check with your employer for the terms regarding any tuition reimbursement policy.

For school employees (in colleges and universities), there are usually perks like reduced or free tuition. In some cases this extends to immediate family members. This could be one more incentive for working as a college volunteer helper for the sake of your children.

2. GI Veterans

If you are a veteran of the United States military, you may be eligible for free tuition which includes college courses, job training, certification tests, and much more.

3. Test Out of A Class

This means you take a test out of the class which is usually cheaper (about one-third) than paying for the full class. However, you have to possess in-depth knowledge of the subject and it is up to the college discretion. You have to convince them with your resume and reasons.

Obtaining free tuition is not an impossible task. There are options available, but it is a matter of getting creative, pro-active and persevering. For saving the exorbitant cost of between $25,000 to $80,000, I think it is well the effort though.

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What is the difference between good and bad debt? Can they even exist this way? I thought debts were just debts, and nothing more. Debt is borrowed money. Everyone knows that. However, debts are essential in our lives. We all use them to our advantages. On the other side of the coin, use it too much, and it becomes a curse instead.

When we go to college, we might not have the large sum of money to dispose of. Therefore, the need for a loan is apparent. Loan, too, is a type of debt. In this case, debt is a good thing and it helps serve as the stepping stone in life. But what take a car for another example. Is it a good thing to get involved with a debt to obtain a car? As opposed to investing in yourself; an education, borrowing huge amount of money for buying a car can be a good or bad thing. It is a good thing if you are a salesman, needing mobility all the time. But it is a bad thing indeed, when you are buying that car just for satisfying your ego.

In a vacation, you would spend also, large sum of money. In financial terms, this is a huge waste. Yes, you will get nice and great memories, as well as unforgettable life experiences. But it is no asset in terms of business and money matters. This example can be an extreme case. Some will argue that having a holiday releases much stress and heals the mind.

In the end, the point is to do it when you can afford it. There is no use trying to splurge more than what you already spend or can afford. How is this relevant to debts? It is when you try to take a loan, or large portion of cash to go for a vacation or splurging moments. Enjoying on credit is definitely a bad debt, rather than a good debt. A good debt is like a college education. It serves you in the future.

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Getting a good college education is one of the most important things in a young person’s life. Making sure that college education gets paid for is one of the most important responsibilities of a parent’s life, yet most of us do an absolutely horrible job saving for our children’s college education.

Today I’d like to share a foolproof plan that every parent can follow to make sure there is money set aside when the time comes for your child to go away to college.

It’s hard to calculate an exact amount of how much money you’ll need because college education costs keep rising, seemingly higher than the rate of inflation. For instance, today Harvard cost about $60,000 a year, but how much will it cost 18 years from now? That’s anybody’s guess.

Plus, not everybody can go to Harvard or other elite private universities. State colleges cost substantially less money and community colleges don’t cost hardly anything at all. So there’s quite a range of options you need to be prepared for.

The first thing you should do is open a 529 college savings account with your state, that is, the state in which you live. These are free accounts to open that allow you to invest money that your children can use for college expenses tax-free when the time comes. They’re also very easy to open, just fill out a form that you can get online.

These plans are administered by the state and an investment adviser that the state has chosen themselves, usually a mutual fund company. You only have a few investment options but be sure to choose the one the most closely mimics a broad stock market index fund like an S&P 500 index fund because that way you will get to take advantage of the historic 7% to 8% returns that the stock market usually throw off as a whole.

Next, determine how much money you can afford to set aside each month into the 529 college savings account. Set it up to direct deposit that money directly into the account either from your paycheck at your job or through your checking account. The key is to set this up so that it does it automatically so that you can set it and forget about it.

It doesn’t matter how much money you set aside each month, five dollars, $20, $50, $100, whatever you can afford. The key is that you continue to make monthly contributions, month after month, automatically.

Finally, every year on your child’s birthday commit yourself to adding an additional $100 to the 529 college savings account. Also, especially when your child is very young and doesn’t know the difference, ask relatives to contribute money to the account on your child’s birthday as well instead of getting them a birthday present.

When your kid is two years old, they don’t know what a gift is so why give them one? Instead have people take the money they would’ve spent on a silly baby gift and put it in a college savings account. You’d be amazed how much money you can accumulate this way before your kid is even five years old!

Besides buying a house, college is the most expensive thing most of us will ever pay for in our lives. With this simple plan, now you can be sure that there will be a nice chunk of money waiting when your kid needs it.

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