SoFi Blog

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.

Earlier this month, we shared results from our 2017 Millennials and Financial Resolutions survey. We discovered several trends and recent events that impact how millennials are thinking about forward-thinking financial topics. This week, we review the results of a second survey we conducted to learn why these young professionals aren’t reaching their financial goals, and how they compare to other generations.

One of the best things about earning a degree in the United States is that students can borrow money to go to school. One of the worst things about borrowing that money? Paying it back—with interest. And now, with the news that the Federal Reserve has increased the target range of the Federal Funds rate by 25 basis points, you’re probably starting to sweat over whether the student loan payments that already tax your budget every month will go even higher.

But instead of simply stressing and hoping for the best, you can make an informed decision about what’s right for your financial future—and we want to help., Below, we’ve identified four steps you can take to get centered and make the right move on the heels of the announcement.

In our latest SoFi member spotlight, we celebrate National Pharmacist Day with member Ashley Holmes, who explains how a teenage passion for chemistry led her to work as a Walmart pharmacist. After seven years of college, which left her with $120,000 of student loan debt, Ashley today successfully balances the professional demands of the only employer she’s ever known with the challenges of paying off her student loans, owning a home, and starting a family.

So far the world is living up to the hype of a post-election economic expansion. Economies are large, inertial systems and there is little doubt that the seeds of the current uptick in activity were laid several months ago. Regardless, the upward revisions in expected growth and inflation after the election of Donald Trump continue to be vindicated as the data fits the narrative. We are beginning to hear more about increased uncertainty surrounding Trump’s economic policies but our experience is that economic forecasters always view the world as “unusually” uncertain.