Take Control Of Your Finances – With Our Help!

What do you do with gift cards you don’t want? You could always spend them on things you don’t really want or need…or recycle your gift – give it to someone else and – voila – problem solved!

But if you don’t have anyone else to give it to, you can always sell it (for less than face value) or TRADE it for equal value gift cards to other stores!

Buy, sell and trade unwanted gift cards at PlasticJungle.com. Pay as low as $60 for a $100 gift card or sell your unwanted gift cards for cash!

AnnualCreditReport.com: Featuring the top 3 credit reporting bureaus, Experian, Equifax and TransUnion, visiting AnnualCreditReport.com is a yearly MUST for everyone. It is the only website where you can get all 3 credit reports for free with no strings attached.

Why should you check your credit?

1. You need to know this information! We should all be aware of our credit rating, how good our chances are of opening a credit card or getting approved for a loan, and our overall financial standing. This better prepares us for major decisions in our lives. And if we need to improve our credit, this gives us a heads up to start making changes in order to improve our financial picture.

2. Errors. The people running the credit bureaus are not perfect and they can make mistakes. You don’t want to find out at the last minute before you purchase a car or home that you are being turned down for a loan because of a mistake on your credit report. Errors can be removed by contacting the credit bureaus individually, but you can’t remove errors if you’re not aware of them! Also, it is a must to check all 3 reports because one report may have an error that the other two do not.

3. Identity theft. (Listed as #3 but this is really #1! We save the best for last.) Someone may have stolen your identity and may be in the process of ruining your credit, driving you deep into debt or bankruptcy. Checking your credit report every year allows you to check up on the information that allows you to use credit or be denied for credit. Finding out about errors and fraud lets you take care of a problem before it gets out of hand. Once someone ruins your credit, you can spend the rest of your life paying for it.

If you have been a victim of identity theft, or you are worried about the potential of it happening to you, since it is the fastest growing crime today, you can purchase credit monitoring from the credit bureaus for a small fee each year that gives you regular updates throughout the year of all activity regarding your credit. You can find out when someone tries to open a credit card under your name or any other attempts to ruin your credit.

Many companies offer credit monitoring, and some offer free credit reports along with a free trial of their credit monitoring service.

Checking your own credit won’t lower your score. Here are some of your options:

Equifax.com – One of the 3 major credit reporting bureaus, Equifax offers you the opportunity to monitor all 3 major bureau credit reports. 3-in-1 Monitoring makes it easy for you to monitor all 3 of your nationwide credit reports by alerting you within 24 hours of key changes, all for $14.95 a month. They also offer Score Watch: Monitoring your credit score can lead to big savings and more purchasing power. A higher credit score typically means lower interest rates which will reduce your monthly payments – and that could mean saving thousands of dollars over the life of a loan, all for $12.95 a month.

TrustedID.com – The top name in identity theft protection. Protect yourself in less than 2 minutes: 30-day risk-free trial. After 30 days, plans range from $8.25 to $19.99 a month.

TrueCredit.com – Run by TransUnion, one of the 3 major credit reporting bureaus, TrueCredit offers 3-bureau credit monitoring that updates all 3 of your credit reports and scores every 30 days for $14.95 a month, plus up to $25,000 in indentity theft insurance at no additional cost. You can also get a free 30-day trial of TransUnion credit monitoring, which costs $11.95 a month thereafter.

LifeLock.com – LifeLock’s industry-leading protection works to help stop identity theft before it happens. They search the web for the illegal selling of your personal information, verify change of address requests, help replace the contents of a lost or stolen wallet, and take proactive steps to help put you in greater control of who has access to your credit. As a LifeLock member, if you become a victim of identity theft because of a failure in their service, they’ll help fix it at their expense, up to $1,000,000. (Restrictions apply.) Just $9.00 a month. Sign up for a whole year and save $9.00!

One of the best ways to keep on top of your finances is to set up automatic payments or online bill pay. If you have a credit card and you’re still paying each bill with a check, you may fall in the trap of forgetting a payment or not paying the amount you really should.

If you haven’t set up automatic payments for all your bills just yet, there is no better time than now. You can set the payment to automatically pay the full balance on your statement or another amount. Of course I recommend paying the full balance all the time every time, but if you can’t afford to, you can also pay an amount that is either equal to or more than the minimum. Always pay the bill in full, and if you cannot, then at least pay more than the minimum. (If this is a problem for you, you may need to read about lesson #1).

If you are afraid that setting up automatic payments will make you forget how much you owe, and then subsequently leave you with less in your bank account than you need to make that automatic payment, you should take this one step further and keep a calendar (either on your wall, in a planner, on your phone or on your computer) and keep track of the day of the month the automatic payment typically gets deducted from your bank account.

Also set yourself up with your credit card account’s email reminders for when a payment is due, or how much you owe, so each month you can prepare for the day the amount is deducted from your checking account balance. This way you can ensure there is always enough money in your bank account for payment day!

A bank/direct deposit alternative to the millions of people who are tired of paying overdraft fees or do not have a bank account.

ONLY to be used by the people who:

• Can’t get credit
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Credit card companies have always tracked their cardholders’ spending for three main reasons: to be able to market relevant goods and services to you (beneficial to you and them), to detect fraud (beneficial to you), and to assist law enforcement agencies (beneficial to all of us).

But now credit card companies have now found a fourth, and very scary thing to do with this information…determine your creditworthiness!

4 Ways Your Spending Could Lower Your Credit Score & Reduce Your Credit Card Limits:

1) Shopping at discount & thrift stores (so unfair, especially when you’re trying to shop responsibly!)
2) Purchasing generic brands (crazy, since you are just avoiding unnecessarily paying for product advertising)
3) Shopping at stores that other people who have defaulted on their credit card debt shop at (guilt by association? come on!)
4) Using your credit cards for the vices…cigarettes, alcohol, massages, casino gambling, online gambling, bail bond services

What to do: Adhering to my motto “only purchase what you can afford in your current bank account balance,” when shopping at discount stores and for these products, try sticking to paying in cash. That way, the credit card companies won’t be able to track you or your supposedly “bad” habits.

One way to make spending with your credit cards help you, and not hurt you, is to join UPromise and turn everyday spending into college savings!

The last thing you want to do when you’re in debt is get to a point where you need to file for bankruptcy. Sometimes to avoid this, people in debt jump at the first fix that comes their way without thinking about the consequences. All 5 of these things can hurt you badly and keep you under the thumb of debt for longer than you would imagine.

5 Things to Avoid When in Debt

1. Only Paying The Minimum on Your Credit Cards: This seems like an acceptable option at first, since the allow you to pay such a tiny amount on a much bigger amount owed, but what really happens is with interest accruing, your total debt will grow to such a massive amount, whatever price you originally paid for the item will become several times MORE than you actually paid. Say you bought a pair of boots for $125 but you only pay $10 minimums on the bill. If you do that, your boots could theoretically cost you $500 or more based on the interest on your remaining balance when you don’t pay it off in time. Try to avoid making only the minimum payment. Like I’ve said before, only purchase something you can pay for in full out of your bank account. Once you get that first bill, you should be able to and actually pay for the item in full. No buts about it!

2. Borrowing money from friends and family – Taking a loan from someone you trust may sound like a great idea. But using a friend or a family member to ease your financial situation can severely strain your relationships. With friends and family, you may not feel the same pressure to pay the money back, especially without a legal agreement, and your important relationships could be damaged easily if the other person doesn’t get their money back when they think they should. If you must borrow money from someone you know, put it in writing, with a date to pay it back by, and both of your should sign it and date it.

Try our Free Fill-In Excel Budget Sheet and manage your expenses more efficiently!

3. Cash Advance Payday Loans – They may seem tempting to someone in desperate need of cash but cash advance or “payday” loans have exorbitant fees that are along the lines of what loan sharks would charge; in other words, it’s basically illegal for banks to charge these rates on regular loans. Paying 25% interest or more on a loan that will cover a short-term need for cash is recklessly irresponsible. You could pay $250 or more in interest for a loan that you pay off in a week, once you get paid from your employer. This is a nasty habit to break, so whatever you do, don’t start using these. They’re like financial heroin – once you start using, it is very difficult to stop, due to the deeper and deeper in debt you become.

4. Debt Consolidation Companies/Credit Counselors with High Fees – Only try credit counseling if you are being constantly hounded by collection agencies, you can’t even pay the minimums on your bills, you’re consistently late on payments, and any efforts to negotiate lower rates or a reasonable payment plan have failed. Be wary of huge upfront fees – some credit counseling companies put off paying your debts for an entire month, as they take your first payment to them as their fee, putting you in deeper trouble with your creditors and hurting your credit rating even more – most legitimate companies won’t take more than a $10 set-up fee. Don’t fall for unrealistic promises; if the company tells you your debt can be settled for a fraction of what you owe, trust your suspicions, many of these offers are made by companies that take your money and run, never actually paying off your creditors. You should not even TRY debt consolidation/credit counseling if you have less than $10,000 in debt; there are other ways to pay it off and the effect on your credit history is not worth it.  And do your research on the company you give your business to, before even taking on their services.

5. Bankruptcy – Bankruptcy may solve your current debt problem, but it should really be your last resort. While bankruptcy can erase some of your debt, it can’t always save you from all of it. You could lose your car, your home and other property in the process and it will hurt your credit report for 7 or more years to come. If you’re planning to buy a house, car or take out any type loan [personal, business or otherwise] in the next 10 years, I’d avoid bankruptcy like the plague, because you will surely be denied if bankruptcy is on your record.

Find out if you’d qualify for credit. Get your FREE credit score and more!

US banks are expected to receive a record $38.5 billion in overdraft fees this year. With overdraft fees averaging $26 a pop, that’s almost 1.5 billion overdrafts for the entire country this year. That’s a LOT of people spending more than they’ve got!

As unfair as they seem, especially since they tend to affect those who are the least well-off of all of us, look at overdraft fees as a punishment for treating your finances badly. When a child is punished, it is for doing something bad. The bank is treating you like a badly behaving child. How do you stop it? Be good to your money!

Look at avoiding overdraft charges as a reward for spending wisely. Always spend less than what you have in your account. Even if you buy something with a credit card; if your current bank account balance does not cover the full purchase (along with any other purchases you’ve made recently) do not make that purchase, period.

Consumers cut debt by a record $21.6 billion in July 2009. Unfortunately this was only after a crashing economy, unobtainable credit and job losses forced them to stop spending and borrowing.

Of course, borrowing within their realistic means, and spending less than they had would have avoided this mess altogether. Why does it take such a bad situation to make us change our habits?

It’s a relatively simple idea, but apparently difficult for many to execute: Spending within your means.

With debt consolidation company commercials tempting you to avoid repaying your full debts (somehow this is supposed to really fix the bigger picture?) and tax debt negotiator commercials boasting their success in helping people avoid paying 75% of the tax debt they owe, no wonder there is a lack of a sense of personal responsibility when it comes to our finances. I mean really, how does an economy function when you don’t pay what you owe in full? It may seem tempting for someone in a dire financial situation to legally avoid repaying their debt, but as you can see in this recession, when many people have that attitude, it can hurt us all.

Stop spending what you can’t afford. Take responsibility for what you owe. Change your bad habits before they hurt you.

Saving and budgeting make sense when it comes to organizing and maximizing your finances – you’re working with what you already HAVE. But doing things the way most people do, the 9-5 daily grind, working in your cubicle or behind a counter is not going to propel your finances above and beyond. Most millionaires didn’t get where they are by sitting back and doing the same old routine. It’s hard work and perseverance that drives them to the top.

Find little ways to make extra money. Have a hobby? Is it something you can turn into a little money-making endeavor?

Is there something you’re passionate about? Politics, food, music, travel, sports, art, the outdoors? If there is a subject that you’re interested in, and you have an opinion, there are ways to make money just by giving your opinion. You don’t have to be a journalist (but it doesn’t hurt if you are one). Regular folks are writing – blogging – about their daily lives and topics that they like. Some become so popular, with so many readers, that they can make money from placing advertisements on their blog.

But you don’t even have to have your own blog. Regular people, just like you, are writing for The Examiner online. Writers for The Examiner earn money generated by their articles. You can write about topics affecting your local area or issues that everyone deals with across the country.

They are seeking people like you, who have in-depth knowledge about a particular topic, a passion about that topic and a desire to share related insights with others.

Join others across the country who provide local area info, insider perspectives, helpful resources, and updates about events and activities within their cities.

There are thousands of subjects to write about. Writers come from all walks of life and contribute unique and original articles to entertain, inform & inspire their readers. Become a credible, passionate and knowledgeable local influencer. Write about:

You might just find a niche of your own, and be able to say goodbye to that 9-5 routine, once and for all.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve made all the mistakes in the book up until this point. The reality is you’re here now because you want to change your circumstances or you want to get started on the right foot.

First things first. Lesson #1:  Don’t spend what you don’t have.

It sounds a little simple but for some it is harder than it seems. If you have no self control, you won’t make the right decisions, period. No matter what you think about yourself, you CAN exert self control. Stop thinking and start doing. Or in this case, STOP doing.

If you are somewhere about to spend your money, ask yourself: “Do I have the full amount in my bank account to cover this entire purchase?” If the answer is “No” put away your credit card and walk away. No one gets rich spending money they don’t have. No one.

If impulse control is difficult for you, cut off all sources of temptation. Don’t go to the mall. Immediately throw away catalogs when they arrive in the mail. And delete promotional emails as soon as you see them. If you are in a real financial crisis, unsubscribe from all store email promotions and newsletters with the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email.

Be proactive! You can take this one step further and start selling YOUR stuff on eBay. You will always get more for your belongings at online auction sites than you would at a garage sale. Save garage sales for the stuff that’s not worth selling on eBay. But definitely do put together a garage sale if you have lots of junk sitting around the house.