Archive for March, 2010

Bankruptcy The Effects Of Bad Credit

Monday, March 29th, 2010

There was a time when bankruptcy was probably the biggest stigma that could be attached to anyone in business. Thankfully those days are long gone. Today, bankruptcies are fast, efficient and frequent court procedures designed not as a punishment for the creditor, but as a means of drawing a line under un-payable debts and allowing everyone to move on. While most people would not exactly like to be made bankrupt, in most cases where it becomes necessary, it is seen as a welcome release rather than a humiliating penalty.

When You Become Bankrupt

Bankruptcy is what happens when you simply cannot repay your debts. How it comes about is one of your debtors, someone who you owe more than 1,500 to, will ask the court to make you bankrupt. A trustee will be appointed to carry out the task and then all your creditors will inform him of how much you owe them. He will gather up all of your assets, and use them to pay off the debts. Creditors will be paid proportionately, which means that if your assets are not enough to pay off the debts in full, they will each get the same proportion of their debt repaid.

What Are Bankruptcys Disadvantages?

The disadvantages of this are obvious. By gathering up all your assets, the trustee will essentially leave you with nothing. Your home, your car, your savings, everything that he considers a worthwhile asset will be gathered up and sold. If you have a family, it can be quite traumatic, as they have to leave their home. If you rent your home then this will not affect you, as there is nothing there for the trustee to take. Your personal effects such as clothes and most furniture, will not be taken by the trustee, as they are considered too personal and insignificant to take.

And The Advantages?

The advantage of going bankrupt however is that it gives you a clean slate. Regardless of how much you owe, and how much you can afford to pay back, at the end of the process, you will emerge with a completely clean slate and will not owe anybody anything. Even if someone forgot to make a claim to the trustee, you will no longer owe them anything.

The Future After Bankruptcy

After your bankruptcy has been finalised and you have moved on you will be able to start rebuilding your financial, and probably personal, life again. Bad credit ratings will ensue, but rebuilding your credit is possible. Just like a child, baby steps are all that is required. Step by step, more credit options will become available and after several years your credit rating will become average if you keep focused and dont fall into any quick fix traps.

While the process of bankruptcy may take a while, during which you will not be able to control your finances and may have to give part of your income to the trustee, it is generally seen as worth it, and you will emerge ready to make a new start.

You may freely reprint this article as long as the author bio and live links are left intact.

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Does Paying Points on a Mortgage Make Sense?

Saturday, March 27th, 2010

You’ve found your dream home and are now ready to start shopping for a mortgage. Several lenders have talked about points. You’ve heard that paying points is the only way to get a low interest rate. But is increasing your initial costs worth getting a lower rate?

For most people, paying points doesn’t make sense. Points, also called discount points or origination fees, are each worth one percent of the loan amount. They are paid to the lender at closing.

Paying points basically allows the borrower to buy down the interest rate.

Points became popular in the early 1980s when mortgage rates were in excess of 15%. Most people could not afford the monthly payments that come with such high interest rates. Lenders began offering discounted rates at a certain fee. Sellers often paid the points in order to sell their properties. This gave buyers affordable mortgages and owners were able to sell their homes.

Times are different now. Interest rates are reasonable. There isn’t a large need to pay a lot of money up front in order to get a lower rate.

Let’s look at the numbers. You have contracted to purchase a home for $240,000. You have the 20% down, which leaves you with a mortgage of $192,000.

You find a 30-year fixed rate mortgage at 6.5% with two points. For closing, you will need to pay $3,840 ($192,000 x 2%) for the points.

The lender can also offer you a rate of 7% with no points.

What do you choose? The lower rate or the lower closing?

At 6.5% you will have a monthly principal and interest payment of $1,207. At 7% your payment increases to $1,270 each month. That’s a difference of $63 per month. If you are looking for a monthly payment reduction, it’s not really a significant one.

It will take you 61 months ($3,840 divided by $63) to recoup your points payment in the form of a lower payment. This is your payback period. But if you had the $3,840 still, it could be earning interest in the bank. If it gets 3% interest in the bank, it would earn about $10 per month. If you pay points, this is interest lost, so subtract $10 from your $63 per month savings. Now divide $53 into $3,840, and your payback period increases to 72 months — six years.

So you have to live in your home for at least six years in order to take advantage of the savings that paying points gives you. Most people don’t keep a mortgage for six years. Unless you are absolutely sure you will live in the home for the time period necessary to recoup your points, you should probably invest your money instead of putting towards points.

If you are looking at paying points in order to reduce your monthly housing payment, you may want to look at a less expensive property. Sixty dollars worth of savings isn’t a lot if you have a tight budget. Chances are that if you have a tight budget to start with, finding extra money for closing would be difficult. And don’t forget, taking out a side loan to get the money to pay points with is defeating the purpose.

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Do you have good posture?

Friday, March 19th, 2010

When I started saving, I wasnt saving much. However, I developed an important habit. Whether youve wisely saved money or received a good tax return, dont go out and blow it on more stuff. You can have anything you want, you just cant have everything you want. A.F. Bannerman once shared wise advice worth mentioning here that Ive come to agree with and respect:

Your savings affect the way you stand, the way you walk, the tone of your voice. In short, your physical well being and self confidence. A person without savings is always running. You must take the first job offer. You sit nervously on lifes chairs because any of lifes emergencies throws you into the hands of others. Without savings, a person is often fearful of the present and the future. Being in a state of constant fear is a horrible place to live. A person with savings can walk tall. You can appraise opportunities in a relaxed way, have time for judicious estimates and decisions. You need not be rushed by lifes problems or economic necessity. The person with savings can resign from his work if his principles tell him this is not the place to be. ”

The person who is always worried about rent, food, bills, etc. cant concentrate on long-range career goals. The person with savings can focus on family and service to shape personality and develop character.

2 practical tips to get started:
Track everything you spend. When you keep a log of everything you spend (gum, gas, latte, groceries, everything), you cant help but see patterns in your spending. Youll think twice before buying that next Starbucks. If you live on a budget for every category of expenses you have, youll be amazed at the control you gain over spending.

Savings is actually delayed spending. I didnt understand the expression pay yourself first, until my mid-30s. It means you should set aside a portion of everything you make, save it, then invest it. You should do this regardless of whether or not you have your own business (hopefully you do).

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Do You Bank Online?

Saturday, March 13th, 2010

If you havent made it to the world of options offered in bank-online fields, the fact is that you should be. Yes, there are many opportunities for you to walk into a teller and get your information taken care of. But when do you pay bills? Do you do it in the middle of the night, usually the night before it is due? If this is the case, you may want to consider the options of bank-online to simply give you the opportunity to make those payments on time. Why should you bank-online?

There are many reasons but most of them have to do with the ease of use. You can find yourself saving time and money by getting your work done on the web. You can bank whenever you like. You can check your balance well before the bank opens. You can actually see it as well, not just hear the information but see who is taking money from your account. It is quite simple to use and that too adds to the ease and convenience of bank-online options.

What is also great about it is that it can help you to set up bill payments on the web as well. This means that you go into your account, tell it the day you need to pay the bill, the amount and who to send it to and it takes care of the rest. If nothing else, it saves you the postage stamp! Likewise, you will find that it also provides you with a way to automatically handle those bills so that you are not late anymore. And, it can help you to track your spending and savings because most of the banks that off bank-online options do so by providing you with a way to connect to your banking software as well. This means organization! See what opportunities you have in bank-online through your financial institution.

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Balance Transfer Credit Card – Debt Consolidation

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

Balance transfer credit cards can provide an excellent option for debt consolidation. Many Americans are currently in debt and struggling for a way out. Some choose to use a home equity loan to help get themselves out of debt, but not everyone has a home with built up equity to use for this purpose. In addition, putting your home up as collateral for debt consolidation can be a bit nerve-wracking and many banks enforce annual maintenance fees and monetary penalties if you try to close the equity line before a specified period of time.

Rising Interest Rates

Anyone that has been a credit card holder for some time or who pays attention to the financial marketplace knows that credit card rates on many cards have been on the rise. Often, credit card companies are more than happy to increase interest rates when the prime rate is raised, but they are not so quick to bring the rates down when the prime rate decreases. By consolidating your debt with a balance transfer credit card, you can remove your debt from your high interest cards and place it on your card with a lower interest rate. The best balance transfer credit cards offer low introductory rates or low fixed rates on balance transfers, making them a great option for debt consolidation.

What to Look For

When looking for a balance transfer card for debt consolidation, you generally want to find the card with the lowest long-term rate. More than likely, you will be consolidating a debt that you will be unable to pay in a short period of time. If this is the case, your low interest introductory period may be over long before you are done paying off the debt.

You also need to be cautious about fees when looking to consolidate debt with a balance transfer credit card. Many credit cards charge a fee for transferring balances from another card onto theirs. The best balance transfer credit cards will not charge an additional fee. In addition, some balance transfer credit cards require transferred balances to be requested at the time of application for the card in order to be eligible for the special introductory offer. While this may be fine for some people, you might want to have the flexibility to transfer balances. In this case, you will want to select a card that allows you to transfer balances any time throughout the introductory period.

For the very best balance transfer credit cards, you will want to find one that maintains the low APR throughout the life of the balance you have transferred. In other words, a balance you transfer on a card may have a 0.00% APR for the first six months, but then rocket to 19.99% when the period is over. On the best balance transfer credit cards, however, the low introductory offer remains in place until you pay off the entire amount you have transferred.

Self-Discipline

Obviously, a balance transfer credit card cannot do all of the work for you. While you can consolidate all of your bills onto just one card, you will need to be disciplined enough to pay the balance off. If your introductory period expires after so many months, you should create a budgetary plan that will have the balance paid off by the time the period is over. You might need to cut out some of the extras, such as the cup of fancy coffee you grab every morning, to help create a little extra cash flow. It will be well worth it when you find yourself out of debt. In addition, the money you are saving in finance charges should be paid toward your credit card debt

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Bad Credit Loan — How to Get the Best Interest

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

Bad Credit Loan — How to Get the Best Interest Rate

Bad credit loans are in high demand. And if you do any research on bad credit loan, youll find plenty of advice on how to get the lowest interest rate. Youll also find plenty of people willing to give you a bad credit loan, but youd be making a mistake to accept it.

Unfortunately, most of what youll find approaches the problem from the wrong direction. The way to get the VERY best interest rate on a bad credit loan is usually overlooked or concealed altogether.

But before we continue, lets digress briefly and look at how significantly the higher rate for a bad credit loan affects the borrower.

Lets say you want to buy a house, but have bad credit. No matter how diligently you shop for a lender, youre still be charged a higher interest rate for a bad credit loan than if you had good credit.

With good credit, you might get a mortgage loan at 6% interest. But a bad credit loan will cost you closer to 12%. Assuming you get a $100,000 mortgage over 30 years, the difference youd pay in interest amounts to a monstrous $154,461.60 MORE because you have bad credit. Thats over 1 times the loan itself!

Now getting back to our original problem, how can you get a better interest rate for a bad credit loan? The answer is probably not what you were expecting.

The solution is to think outside the box. The way to get a bad credit loan with the best interest rate is to NOT get one! Instead, spend a couple of months fixing your bad credit, and then look for a good credit loan instead.

This answer probably comes as something of a shock to you. More than likely, several objections to this approach will come to mind.

1. I need a loan NOW or Its not worth my while to wait until I repair my credit.

Oh really? Well, is it worth a savings of $150,000 or more? Granted you may not be looking for a $100,000 loan. But even if you want to borrow only $10,000 or so, the better rates youll enjoy with good credit will still save you several thousand dollars.

2. Fixing my credit will take too long, or it just isnt possible.

Its often possible to make very a significant improvement in your credit rating in just a few months, and in some cases as little as 30 days.

3. I dont know how to repair my credit and cant afford to hire a credit repair agency

For a fraction of the cost of a professional agency, you can purchase a good book on credit repair that will walk you through the whole process.

4. Do-it-yourself credit repair is too difficult or I dont think I can repair my own credit

Dont be intimidated by the idea of fixing your own credit. If you can write a few letters, address, stamp, and mail them you can repair your own credit.

Your decision comes down to this; you have two choices.

1. You can spend some time (maybe a LOT of time) shopping for a bad credit loan with the lowest possible rate, and still end up paying thousands (even tens of thousands) more in interest.

2. You can spend some time fixing your credit and spend those thousands on your familys needs, instead of paying them to your lender.

Do you really think your lender needs your hard earned money more than you and your family need it? Anybody can work on fixing their own credit. Thats right, anybody!

Get a good book on credit repair and get started TODAY!

(c) 2005 eBusiness Power

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