The average college student that graduates a 4 year university generally has over $20,000 in college debts.  That’s a lot of money when you think about it!  If you factor in the average salary of $30,000, it’s going to take awhile to knock down those debts.

Instead of going out and celebrating with you new jobs by buying new cars, new homes and racking up even more debt, there are a few things you need to remember before you actually get yourself into even more debt down the long run.

Debt is an important thing and you need to take it seriously because if you have a lot of debt, it’s not only going to cause a lot of stress in your life, it’s going to kill your credit score as well as give you high interest rates on home mortgages, etc.

Now is the perfect time to fight out your college debt.  Why you might ask?  You’re going to have no kids (hopefully), no mortgage and very few bills making it very easy to put all your money toward your college debts.  Once you realize how important fighting your college debt is, I’ll show you some tricks on how you can attack it as soon as possible.

Build an emergency fund – Before you go out and throw 99% of your money toward your debts, you’re going to want to build up an emergency fund.  With this fund, you’ll want to have at least 6 months of living expenses in it.  If it takes you $1,500 to live every month, then you better have $9,000 in that account.  Once you have your emergency fund, you’ll be safe to hit your debt.  The reason you’ll want this emergency fund is just in case you lose your job, etc.

Try to transfer – Before you start paying off your student loans, see if you can find a 0% balance transfer credit card that will allow you to transfer the balance for 12 months or so.  This way, you can pay off your debts with no interest at all.  Once the 12 months are up, you can simply attach it to another credit card.  The less interest you have to pay, the easier it is.

Start big – When you’re ready to pay off the college debt, you’re going to want to pay off the highest interest loan first and work your way to the bottom while paying the minimums on the low interest cards.  This way you can get rid of the higher interest rate loans first.  Continue this as a ladder basically working your way down until all of the debt is paid off.

Paying off your college debt isn’t that hard if you take action.  Make sure that you save money for yourself to eat and entertain yourself each and every month.  While it’s good to put every dollar toward your debt, you have to remember to save a few dollars for yourself.  Focus is key here.  If you can do that, you’ll have no debt in no time.