Student loans, private loans, PLUS loans (a loan that eligible parents can apply for to help pay their dependent’s education expenses)... How do you choose the right option for your budget?

So you’re not independently wealthy? You don’t have tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars laying around for that flashy new car or home of your own? Welcome to the club — the “I need a loan to make a big purchase” club.

Your phone won’t stop ringing and you’re having nightmares about the nasally voice of the debt collector. You want to discuss charges you’re seeing on a loan that you have no memory of agreeing to, but the customer service agents just put you on hold until you hang up. Or you paid in full but the bill keeps coming every month with more late charges tacked on.

The unexpected car repair. The phone bill for texting a little (or a lot) more than you thought you did. The rent that came due before you were ready. We’ve all experienced a financial moment or two we weren’t prepared for and had to think about our options.

We’d all like to be debt-free, but for most of us that would take a very long time and a lot of discipline. But even while we continue to diligently pay the bills each month, we can change the way we pay off each of our different debts.

For many of us, owning a home can be a dream come true — and being at risk of losing a home can be a nightmare. But if you find yourself struggling to make mortgage payments for any reason, the worst thing you can do is go back to sleep and ignore the problem.

As much as we might like to, we can’t just head to the nearest bank with a loan figure in mind and come out with rolls of cash — and that’s the way it should be. Who’s to say what kind of trouble we would get into with no forethought about paying back a loan?