SoFi Blog

I left college with about $35-$45K in student loan debt. But my biggest loan—which was originally around $18K—had accrued so much interest, that even after paying the minimum for five years, it was actually at a little more than $20K. By the time it hit that amount, my husband and I realized we had to do something drastic to pay it off once and for all.

You’ve been offered a fantastic new job with the company of your dreams—and, on top of that, it’s thousands of miles away. Along with the excitement and anticipation that comes from uprooting your life and starting over, you’ve got to think about how this will affect you financially.

Should you accept the position, you’ll need to make some major financial decisions and changes. So you can breathe easy while working on the other aspects of the move that will keep you busy—like packing away your whole kitchen into a few boxes—try these four money moves to help you avoid any financial bumps on your road to relocation.

Joe Mihalic is a changed man. In 2011, he led the typical the Harvard-MBA lifestyle, with a lucrative job at a big tech company, a house in the suburbs, two cars and a motorcycle, and frequent travel—but he felt trapped. “I wasn’t working at a company I loved or in a job I loved. I wasn’t living a life I loved,” Joe says. So he changed his life drastically, becoming a minimalist. And that decision led him to pay off $90,000 in student loan debt in just seven months.

Joe, who lives in Austin, Texas, chronicled his journey to payoff success in his blog No More Harvard Debt. His posts resonated with many young grads, and his blog went viral in 2012. Now debt-free and an operations manager at a company he loves, Joe says he’s found inner peace. But he hasn’t let go of his frugal lifestyle— his work shoes attest to that. While paying down his loans, he wore the same shoes, even as holes appeared in them. Today, he won’t buy a new pair of shoes until the soles wear out.

Joe didn’t take every possible road to pay off his student loans—for example, he didn’t refinance, or take advantage of a student loan forgiveness program. But his “all in” approach offers many takeaways for MBA grads facing mortgage-sized loan debt.

Far and away, money issues are the leading cause of stress in relationships. It makes sense when you consider that nearly 13 million Americans withhold financial information—including bank accounts and credit cards—from the people they love.

Obviously, that’s not exactly a healthy way to engage in a relationship. That’s why, instead of allowing money issues to balloon into financial infidelity, or to become even a minor source of tension between you and your partner, it’s important to talk about how the two of you plan to manage your money as a couple.

SoFi members Jennifer Nichols and Anthony Latta learned over time what it takes to successfully combine their individual financial lives with that of their partner’s through trial-and-error in their own relationships. Here’s their advice for merging money in a relationship, from what works well to what definitely doesn’t.

Editor’s Note: The following article on home renovation and budgeting originally appeared on our web partner Houzz’s website. It is the second part to Houzz’s Dream to Done series – home renovation advice on a budget. Some of the content has been slightly edited from its original version.

Matching your renovation dreams and dollars can sometimes feel like a challenge. But there’s a lot you can do to get the look you want at the right price. In the first story in this series, we laid out the steps in choosing the pros you will work with and setting an initial budget.