Talking About Finance

Congratulations on making the decision of taking control of your own financial planning. On this page, you will find many helpful tools to ensure that you are always on top of your finances. Eduloan will help you to compile a monthly budget, setting out your income and expenses (a budget is a money plan, outlining your financial goals). Making use of our easy to use Budget Calculator will help you to establish and regulate funds, set and achieve your financial objectives, as well as make advanced decisions as to how you want your finances to optimally function for you. Once you have completed your budget, and have a surplus (your income exceeds your expenses) Eduloan will show you how to keep record of your savings with our Savings Estimator. Working with this tool, you can set aside and reach goals or financial targets set.

Not yet decided what career path to follow? Make use of Eduloan’s free Career Aptitude Test to assess your skills and interests, which will give you an indication of the type of career that you are best fitted for. We cannot guarantee that this fun assessment will match you with your perfect career, but it is a wonderful tool to narrow down your choices and open avenues that you might never have thought to explore! Remember, Eduloan is on hand to provide the finance for your study loan once you have chosen your tertiary study course.

Budgeting and Savings Tools

The Budget Calculator is designed to help you create and manage your budget on a monthly basis, all within a single document. Creating a monthly budget is one of the keys to financial security. And the calculator simplifies the process for you – all you need on hand is details of your current expenses and income. Start by itemising your income (disclosing all income) and then listing all your monthly expenses, not forgetting those once-off payments as well (i.e. Annual subscriptions, annual insurances etc).

Once you have completed your budget, save it so that you can review it later or update it month by month. Click here to begin.

Budget Calculator

If your budget calculator results show that you are spending more money than you are earning each month, you need to cut back on your spending or increase your income to avoid debt problems. If you have a surplus, click here to advance to our Savings Estimator, where you can keep track of your savings each month.

Savings Estimator

There has never been a better time to learn new skill set. Everybody must arm themselves with as many skills as possible, particularly personal financial planning skills and entrepreneurial skills. Study further if possible and continually enrol for courses (if you can do this without overstraining your budget). Use your budget to make provision for your studies, without making use of your savings. Eduloan offer tailor made educational loans to fit in with any budget. You can apply online, by following these easy steps: click here to register or for more information.

Aptitude Test

This Career Aptitude consists of a series of questions, simply requiring a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. By concentrating on your dominant preferences, intelligence and abilities, your answers are submitted and calculated, and a pre-set response is sent back to you. You will then be able to print your results, or save them onto your own PC. Click here to proceed.

Let’s talk more about finance or Let’s talk about finance some more

Eduloan is committed to uplifting the nation through education and making it accessible to all South Africans. Once you sign up with Eduloan, you have more than just a finance company on your side – you have a partner in education with your best interests at heart. Not only does Eduloan ease the administrative burden of study loan repayments by facilitating timeous payment directly to the institution in question, they also provide sound financial advice and financial management tools for students. Eduloan will be featuring new ‘financial literacy’ articles monthly, which should shed some light on subjects not often discussed online.

This month we look at the ‘Ins and Outs of Debt’, explaining what debt is and the advantages of ‘good debt’. We will also be discussing interest rates: what they are, and the different types of interest rates available.

Click on link to read more. Click here to access this article, and other articles of interest.

Budgeting
A budget is a spending plan that includes everything you will spend your money on in a projected month. A good budget should not exceed your monthly income, and should declare every expense individually. The key to spending within your means is to know your expenses and to spend less than you make. The goal of a good monthly budget is to help ensure that you pay your bills on time, have funds to cover unexpected emergencies, and reach your financial goals. Click here to read more.

The ins and outs of debt
For many South Africans, creating unnecessary, out-of-control debt spells trouble and they are right: creating debt that you cannot afford to pay back can result in major financial problems. But, debt – the good, controlled and sensible kind – does not have to result in the crisis situation that you imagine it to be. In fact, creating good debt can set you up for the future, giving you a lump sum of money when you need it most. Ultimately, debt will have a substantial impact on your financial life – the impact can be positive or negative, depending on how you plan to manage it. Click here to read more.

For Interest’s Sake
In a previous editorial feature, we looked at the ins and outs of debt. What debt is (the fine line between good and evil), the advantages of incurring good debt and the measures that are in place to protect you from getting yourself into a financial pitfall. Two words that are synonymous with debt are interest rates, and as it goes with everything in life, nothing comes for free. There has to be a small price to pay – depending on how well you manage your debt – for the amount that you borrowed. As it is in the case of debt, interest rates need not be a terrifying or intimidating concept. It all boils down to being diligent with paying your debt and ensuring that you stay on top of interest rates. Click here to read more.