Career training is all about investing in yourself. It's a way to improve your employment prospects, increase your earning power, and enrich your quality of life.

We at SLM Financial are proud to be part of your journey. Proud to help you seize opportunities. Proud to help you finance your goals.

You have financial questions. We have the answers.

• How much can I expect to earn?
• How much loan payment can I afford?
• How can I stay on financial track?
• Why is it important to repay on schedule?
• What's wrong with a poor credit score?
• How can I check my credit report and learn about my score?

How much can I expect to earn?

It is important to estimate how much you'll earn with your certificate or degree before figuring out how much of a loan payment you can comfortably afford. Admittedly, you won’t know that precisely. But you can get a realistic estimate by learning the average starting salary for an employee in your chosen career and location.

According to salary.com, following are the median salaries for various occupations for someone relatively new to their field:

Your career: Your chosen field and town probably aren't listed here. You can get an idea of what you can expect to earn with the salary calculator on Sallie Mae's TrueCareers site. There you can find out salaries for various jobs based on length of experience and location.

How much loan payment can I afford?

Financial professionals recommend that monthly student loan payments be no more than 8%–10% of your monthly income (before taxes). The more you earn, the more you can borrow. Let's look at a couple of examples:

• Susan is about to enroll in a computer programming school. She finds that that the average entry-level salary for someone in Albany, NY (where she lives) with her credentials is around $46,000. Based on the above recommendation, her monthly payments should be no more than $383. (That's $46,000 divided by 12, for a monthly income of $3,833. $383 is 10% of that.)
  
  
• John is training to become a certified nursing assistant and expects to earn about $26,000 in the early years of his career (near Boston, where he plans to move). In this case, his monthly student loan payment should be $216 or less (since $26,000 divided by 12 is $2,160, and 10% of that is $216).

What student loan payment can you afford?

Other debt

It's likely that your student loan debt isn't the only one you have. Don't forget to factor payments for other debt—car loans, credit cards, and mortgage, etc. —that experts recommend should total no more than 36% of your monthly income.

How can I stay on financial track?

It sounds simple enough, doesn't it? Don't spend—or borrow!—more than you can afford, and you won’t run into financial problems. But it's often easier said than done, especially when you're starting a new job. That’s why you need to develop and stick with a budget.

But let’s face it: Mention "budget" to many people, and they think of a restrictive, penny-pinching plan that keeps you on a diet of macaroni and cheese with watered-down soup. (OK, we exaggerate.) But believe us, budget is not a dirty word.

Think of it as a personal spending plan: a way to see where your money goes, to make changes to fill in any gaps, and to be prepared for predictable and not-so-predictable expenses.

After running some numbers through the budget calculator, you might find that you’re running a deficit (in other words, you have "too much month at the end of the money"). If so, it's time to consider some money-saving tips that will let you cover your expenses and, possibly, have a little extra to save:

Money-saving tips

If you often—or sometimes—have "too much month at the end of the money," it's probably time to reduce spending. Use your imagination, and the possibilities are endless. Here are just a few suggestions:

• Join a wholesale superstore and buy in bulk.
• Purchase your clothes at end-of-season sales.
• Don’t overlook the 15% and 20% off coupons from department stores.
• Buy generic: An aspirin is an aspirin.
• Don't smoke. (Save your health and your money.)
• Join a 2-for-1 dining club.
• Have coffee at home instead of a $3 coffee shop creation on the way to work.
• Buy the lowest grade gasoline suited to your car.
• Take the bus instead of a taxi whenever possible.

The list goes on. With a little ingenuity and planning, you'll find that it's not difficult to cut your expenses and improve your budget's "bottom line."

The magic of compound interest

Even if you don't have to reduce expenses, the "magic of compound interest" might give you reason to reconsider. Even a small change in your spending behavior can add up to tens of thousands of dollars if saved in an interest-bearing account. Take a closer look:

Let's say you spend $3 on a trendy coffee every workday. With 240 workdays, you'll spend $720 each year. Skip that cup for 30 years and you will save $21,600 ($720 x 30). If that money is put in an interest-bearing account, it will be worth more than $88,000.

Why is it important to repay on schedule?

You know you have to pay back your loan; you made a deal. But what happens if you can't make the monthly payments?

There are consequences. Your record of repaying loans—good, bad, or somewhere in between—becomes part of your credit report.

Just like in school, you get a grade—often called a FICO score. (Named after the Fair Isaac Corp. that invented it, FICO scores range from 300 to 850.) The higher your score, the better.

Other names you might hear are BEACON score, PLUS score, and EMPIRICA score. Read more about the three major credit bureaus at Credit reporting.

What's in a credit score?

FICO scores are figured by calculating credit behavior in five basic categories, each carrying a different degree of importance or "weight." The chart below shows the breakdown:

Source: www.myfico.com.

What's wrong with a poor credit score?

Lenders use the score to judge how likely you are to repay a loan. A low score can put your application in the "reject" pile quickly. But that's just the start.

• Many lenders charge different interest rates depending on your score, so even though you might get approved with a mediocre score, you'll pay a higher interest rate than someone with a superior one.
  
  
• Your credit score affects other types of financial arrangements, such as renting an apartment or getting cell phone service.
  
  
• A poor score can even cost you an employment opportunity. Prospective employers may check your credit rating to judge your degree of responsibility.

A good score is money in your pocket

Two examples of how your score affects your future:

• Househunter A has a FICO score of 720 and qualifies for a 5.5% loan. The monthly principal and interest payment is $1,135.
  
  
• Househunter B has a FICO score of 580 and qualifies for a 8.5% loan. The monthly principal and interest payment is $1,537.

On a $200,000 mortgage, that difference will be over $402 a month—$4,824 a year—adding up to $144,720 over a 30-year mortgage.

How can I check my credit report and learn about my score?

There are many resources that provide information on credit reports: everything from what's in a report, to how to check it for errors, to ways to improve your score.

For starters, you can see a sample report on the SUCCESS^SM portion Sallie Mae's site. On the SUCCESS site, you can get guidance on everything from rebuilding your credit, to steps to protect against credit fraud (or identity theft), to ways to dispute errors on your report.

Check your credit report

There's more to a credit report than your payment history and account information. Other information includes your name, current and previous addresses, telephone number, Social Security number, birth date, current and previous employers, unpaid tax liens, and court judgments.

And guess what? Mistakes happen. In fact, it's been estimated that one out of every four credit reports contains serious errors. A few common mistakes are:

• Mixing you up with someone who has a similar name or Social Security number.
• Including incorrect or outdated credit information
• Failing to remove an erroneous entry after the issue has been resolved.