Interest can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Make your interest work for you by paying off loans as soon as possible and by saving as much as possible. If possible, you want to choose an account that will have interest that compounds daily or monthly instead of yearly The more often your interest compounds, the more money you will make.
Compound interest is applied every certain period of time (daily, monthly, yearly, etc.) while continous interest compounds using natural log and e. Continuous interest compound that the time between compounds is so small that it can be considered mathematically equal to zero.
Think of it this way: If you get 1% interest on $100 daily for a year after one day you will have $101, after two days you will have $102.01, notice that that is one cent more than if you had chosen to get your interest every two days, this doesn't seem like a lot of money but over time and with larger amounts this will really add up, day 3 you will have $103.0301. After a year you will have about $3778.34 which if you compunded yearly at 36.5% interest it seems like it would be the same but you only have $3750, but compounded daily you have about $28 more!
Loans use interest too, but with loans, you are the one losing money. Always pay attention to the amount of interest you are paying on loans, it may not seem like a lot but if you are paying 24% interest yearly on a $1000 loan, you will have to pay back $1240. It's even worse if you interest compounds monthly. Say there's only a 2% interest rate monthly, that doesn't seem like a lot but after a year you will have paid about $1268.24. So always make sure to pay back your loans as soon as possible to avoid paying way more than you should.