The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide

Appeals court decides in favor of student loan borrowers

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit issued an unanimous decision Thursday that opens the door for student loan borrowers to sue their servicer when they’re misled or mistreated. The three-judge panel ruled in the case Nelson v. Great Lakes Education Loan Services Inc. that federal law doesn’t prevent the plaintiff Nicole Nelson, and the class that she seeks to represent from suing their student loan servicer under state law.

U.S. PIRG and the Center for Responsible Lending had filed an amicus brief in support of the student loan borrower.

“Careless and often expensive mistakes from loan service providers exacerbate the student loan crisis, deepening the financial hole for cash-strapped students through no fault of their own,” said Kaitlyn Vitez, U.S. PIRG’s higher education campaign director. “State attorneys general and private attorneys should take the Nelson decision as a green light to defend student loan borrowers in the absence of federal action.”

Where are baby boomer living now?

By Florentina Sarac, Guest Blogger

Researcher for RENTCafé

As a generation that values individual choice and can easily adapt to change, baby boomers are known to favor certain parts of the country when it comes to retiring.

No longer tied to a particular city, many prefer to pack up their bags and leave for sunnier places. But while some only take a nice climate and entertainment options into consideration when choosing their next destination, others might want to move closer to family. Affordability also plays a big part in their decision as choosing a city with lower taxes can help them save money.

A study by the apartment search website RENTCafé shows that along with popular retirement zip codes in warm states such as Florida and California, baby boomers also prefer living in lively zip codes in New York or Las Vegas.

Baby boomers dive into summer with topics ranging from sex to hearing aids

It’s summer, with some areas of the country roasting while we in the Seattle area are keeping our cool – mostly.

Here are the topics for this week’s Best of Boomer Blogs:

• How anxiety attacks are sending you a message.
• How traveling is a lot like sex.
• Report on the Brown and Out Fest to celebrate the Latino LGBTQ community in Los Angeles for PRIDE month.
• Advice on switching to a new career in your fifties.
• The experiences of a first-time hearing aid wearer.
• What you as a consumer need to know to get the best deal to pay back your student loan.

Rebecca Forstadt Olkowski of BabyBoomster writes about these articles on the Best of Boomer Blogs 601. Click here to get the links to the articles. And, be sure to let us know your thoughts. Boomer bloggers appreciate conversations with readers.

Copyright 2019, Rita R. Robison, Personal Finance Writer

Sloppy practices by student loan servicers create obstacles to repayment, consumer group says

U.S. Department of Education data show that nearly a quarter of the more than 43 million federal student loan borrowers are in trouble with their loan payments. These borrowers need high-quality, timely assistance, but, unfortunately, the student loan servicing industry has long been rife with misconduct, said Joanna K. Darcus, attorney for the National Consumer Law Center.

The consequences of servicers’ misconduct are significant and, at times, catastrophic for borrowers’ financial lives, Darcus said. Sloppy practices by servicers created obstacles to repayment, raised the costs of debt, caused distress, and ultimately contributed to driving struggling borrowers to default, according to an April 2017 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau report based on student loan borrower complaints.

Specifically, many eligible borrowers aren’t enrolled in income-driven repayment or IDR plans despite clear benefits to the financial health of borrowers and their families. Instead, servicers steer many borrowers into forbearances and deferments, which are profitable for the servicer and costly to the borrower.

51 attorneys general ask for automatic cancellation of student debt for disabled veterans

Fifty-one attorneys general are urging the U.S. Department of Education to forgive the student loans of veterans who are permanently disabled due to their military service. The bipartisan coalition issued a letter Friday.   

Last year, the department identified more than 42,000 veterans as eligible for student loan relief due to a service-related total disability, the attorneys generals said in their letter to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. About 9,000 of those veterans applied to have their loans discharged by April 2018. However, more than 25,000 have defaulted on their student.  

The letter calls on the department to develop a process to automatically discharge the student loans of veterans determined by the Department of Veterans Affairs to be eligible for it. While the automatic discharge process is underway, the letter proposes the department should stop debt collection efforts targeting disabled veterans, and clear their credit reports of any negative reporting related to their student loans.

New York Times editorial rips Trump administration for failing to protect borrowers

With the Trump administration proposing to reduce federal oversight of mortgage lending, perhaps the most obvious lesson from the 2008 financial crisis, the need for stricter supervision of mortgage lending, has been lost, the New York Times editorial board said in an editorial Thursday.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was created in 2010 to protect borrowers, and it increased the reports mortgage lenders are required to file each year. The new information makes it easier to identify predatory lending and discrimination.

The Trump administration is proposing to increase the number of small lenders exempt from the requirements and has announced it won’t penalize lenders who don’t comply with the requirements this year, the first year the new reporting requirements went into effect.

What should adults and kids do for Earth Day 2019?

Today is the 49^th anniversary of Earth Day. What are things we can do to help the earth?

Top 10 tips for adults.

They include using less pesticides, buying organic food, and using non-toxic cleaners.

Environmental organizations that help the earth.

You’ll find links to groups such as the Environmental Working Group, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Washington Toxics Council.

Earth Day books.

“The Great Bear Sea: Exploring the Marine Life of a Pacific Paradise,” “Earth (Elemental Journey, #1),” and “No Place Like Earth” top the list.

How to improve your finances during Financial Literacy Month

It’s a good time during April’s Financial Literacy Month to take a look at how you handle your finances.

What is financial literacy? It’s knowing how to manage your personal finances.

How are Americans doing with financial literacy? In a survey of 1,500 people, respondents estimated that lacking knowledge about personal finances cost them an average of $1,230 in 2018, according to a study by the National Financial Educators Council.

What can you do to improve your financial literacy?

Take a look at your finances.

If you don’t have one, you need a budget. It’s a financial plan that will help you reach your goals. To develop a budget, you’ll need to keep track of your spending. Write down what your fixed monthly expenses are such as car payments and rent or mortgage payments. Determine what your periodic expenses are. They include items such as vacations and tax payments. Then you’ll need to track your variable expenses – food, clothing, transportation, and entertainment, costs that probably change every month.

April is Financial Literacy Month

Financial Literacy Month has been recognized in United States in April since 2003. Its purpose is to advance financial literacy through promoting and supporting effectiveness in financial education.

Dozens of organizations offer activities during Financial Literacy Month to call attention to the need for financial literacy and the work they are doing on it.

The Jump$tart Coalition is the original promoter of April as Financial Literacy Month. It’s a coalition of more than 100 organizations from business, finance, academia, education, and government, as well as a network of 51 state organizations, which share a commitment to “financial smarts for students.”

Here are organizations that provide basic financial literacy, according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency:

How is Trump’s tax act affecting you?

On Saturday afternoon, I mailed in my income taxes for 2018. Instead of getting a refund of around $1,000 like I do most years, my refund was $170.

The TurboTax representative I spoke to said deductions that were helpful to me in the past, such as for my small business and charitable donations, have been eliminated.

So while Trump’s tax revisions are helping the rich, they have no benefit for me. That huge corporations pay little or nothing in income taxes and I’m paying more is discouraging. I don’t mind paying my fair share of taxes. I support good schools, roads, and bridges. But Trump’s tax law is making the rich even richer.