(Top 100 wealth advisors) Maintain Or Achieve Good Credit
No commentsBy Alisdair Cosgrove
Your credit file and rating have always been very important to your financial future, but never more so than now, when credit conditions are tight and all lenders are focusing on consumers with good credit when it comes to handing out finance. This is why it is so important to ensure that you keep your credit in check. However, in the current financial climate this is easier said than done, and many people have found themselves in a situation where their credit rating has fallen because of their financial circumstances. It is far easier to damage your credit than to repair it. However, if your credit rating has been damaged there are ways to improve it.
Whether you are looking for a mortgage, car loan, credit card, loan, or any other type of finance you will find that having good credit is of the utmost importance if you want to get an affordable finance deal. Without a decent credit rating you will find that your financial future may look very bleak, and you could experience severe difficulties in getting any sort of finance which can in turn affect your chances of getting a home, buying a car, and leading a normal life.
Of course you will find some lenders that do cater for people that have damaged credit, but the downside to this is that firstly you have little choice because of the limited number of lenders that cater for those with damaged credit, and secondly you will pay very high rates on interest on this type of finance, which means that you will pay far more on your borrowing than someone with good credit.
Whilst there are lenders that cater for people with damaged credit even they have their limits, and those with severely damaged credit may find that they are not even able to get this sort of finance. You will also find that lenders that offer finance to those with bad credit will charge very high rates of interest, and this means that you end up paying way over the odds on your borrowing simply because of the state of your credit history and rating.
If your credit rating is already damaged it is important to take steps to try and get it back on track, and this means paying your bills on time, making debt repayment on time, not missing any payments, keeping on top of all financial obligation, and being responsible and sensible with your borrowing and repayments. You should also make sure that you do not make lots of finance applications in short periods of time, as this will all be logged on your credit file and will go against you, particularly if you are continuously rejected.
Whether you are trying to maintain your good credit or improve your bad credit you can really help yourself by regularly checking your credit file. This will allow you to see what your credit score is as well as to pick up on data that could be damaging your credit, such as suspicious activity or out of date information.
Alisdair Cosgrove is a freelance writer specializing in personal finance. You can read more of his work at www.JSNet.org for credit card comparisons including credit cards with cash back and also offers a comprehensive list of gas credit cards. You can read more about credit cards from his on site article, ‘common credit card terms‘.
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Be In the NOW, Not In the DOW
By Colin Tipping
Understandably, people everywhere are feeling that the old paradigm has let them down. They worked hard for years and years in order to create some security for their senior years and for their children and now they see it melting away. They are losing their jobs, their homes, their pensions and savings. They feel angry and betrayed about the American Dream having been shown to be just that - a dream.
Is this how you are feeling? I don’t blame you. You are entitled to be angry and, as usual, I encourage you to feel it. There is no doubt that the future looks very bleak for many of us. That is, unless we begin to see it differently. How?
Well, how about putting a new paradigm to the test? After all, what better time than now to try embracing the possibility that you can attract money to you through the Law of Attraction using the technology of Radical Manifestation?
In previous articles I have said that you can either stay transfixed by the apparent reality of the situation and remain a victim of it, or you can see it differently and rise above it using Radical Forgiveness. Well, now that it’s come down to issues of everyday financial survival, you have a similar choice. You can either struggle with whatever financial misfortune strikes, if it should happen, and do the best you can in the circumstances, or you can once again rise above it by shifting your belief system.
The easiest and most immediate way to do this is by using the tools of Radical Manifestation. If you spend some time using these tools you can either avert a financial crisis that might otherwise be in the making, or get yourself out of one if it has already happened. These tools are so powerful in themselves; you don’t even have to believe in the idea that you can attract abundance simply through activating the Law of Attraction. They work in spite of you.
I argued in my book, Radical Manifestation, The Fine Art of Creating the Life You Want, that money has no inherent value. It only has value if it represents something of actual worth that people can and want to buy. Banks around the world have just woken up to this fact and they have been utterly humbled by the experience. Investors who bought instruments of debt from these banks have also just realized that there was no real value attached to them, and they are livid about it. So much for the old paradigm!
I also argue that money is energy. Since energy doesn’t die, we could argue that there is just as much energy (money) in the system today as there was a few weeks ago. I mean real money, not the funny money the ‘too-clever by-half’ boys on Wall Street concocted with their computers in the giant Ponzi scheme that fooled the world and has just unraveled like a sweater made of overcooked spaghetti. No, I mean money that represents something of actual value.
That money is still there, in the system somewhere just sloshing around with nowhere to go. No one quite knows what to do with it at the moment, that’s all. So perhaps we don’t really have a crisis, except in our minds. The money just needs to be moved around the system in a different way now, that’s all. But not by conventional means, by which I mean taking us into recession and creating the necessary balance that way. No, my argument is that if money is just energy, then let’s use an energetically-based system like Radical Manifestation to move it where it needs to go. The best way to move money in your direction is to use the energy of mind to attract it to you. Like attracts like.
It’s like electricity running through a wire. It moves only when there is a difference in polarity between the two ends of the wire. One end is positive and the other is negative. Electrons are negatively charged so they are attracted to the negative pole and repelled from the positive pole. That immediately puts them in motion, moving in accordance with the Law of Attraction. Using that analogy we can say that if money is simply the manifestation of Universal Energy, it too will move towards that which attracts it. Why not let it be YOU?
My advice then, as far as surviving and prospering through what looks like being a major breakdown worldwide (perfect, of course, in the spiritual sense as explained last month) is to continue using the tools of Radical Forgiveness to stay out of the blame game and going to Victimland, PLUS making good use of the tools of Radical Manifestation to bring you all that you need. Remember the formula:
Radical Forgiveness + Radical Manifestation = Radical Empowerment.
Copyright 2008 Colin Tipping
Colin Tipping is the acknowledged authority on the application of this technology to the “healing” of individuals, families, races, corporations, and communities. Please go to The Institute for Radical Forgiveness to learn more about Colin and other Radical Forgiveness strategies.
Personal Finance Software to Help You Survive Financial Crisis
By Alex Shirokov
Do you know how to avoid getting caught in the financial crisis? This question addresses one of the biggest fears most everyone has today. If giants like Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers get shaken to their foundations, how can an average person resist getting caught? The answer is simple: spend less than you earn. The era of blithe consumerism is coming to an end, and we should prepare for lean times. It’s time to keep track of all income and expenses and cut down unnecessary expenditures. These simple things will help you to stand bad times.
Part of the survival strategy is organizing your financial life using a good personal finance manager. It will help you to see where your money goes without the hassle of doing everything manually. There are many money management tools out on the market today. One of them is Personal Finances.
Overview
Personal Finances is a personal finance manager that will help you to control your budget better than ever. With a glance at its summary view and reports, you will understand where your money goes, pinpoint areas of excessive expenditure and cut down unnecessary expenses. The program also provides future planning you can project expected spending and income and find out how much money you will have at a future date.
The program is ideal for beginners as it keeps budget management simple and intuitive. The program has a simple, uncluttered interface and a lack of advanced features, which are rarely used by ordinary users. For example, Personal Finances has no college or retirement planner. However, when it comes to managing financial accounts, designing and tracking a family budget, the program outshines many others.
Getting started with Personal Finances is a matter of a few minutes. Simply click around to familiarize yourself with the functionality and refer to the program help file if there’s anything you do not understand at first glance.
You’ll also be pleased to discover no advertising “bells and whistles” that could be found in other money management software. Personal Finances is calm and keeps you that way as you focus on organizing your budget.
Getting Around the Interface
When you run the program, it opens into the main window that puts the financial details, tools and options that matter most to you up front. At the top of the window you can see the main commands. A list of transactions - income and expenses - is displayed in the central area of the window and all accounts are in the left area. The icons at the top of the main window let you quickly go to any part of the program, create an account, category, view calendar and create reports. In the left area, there are buttons that let you add, edit or delete transactions.
There are two views for transactions - Account and Summary. By default, the program opens into the Account tab where you can see the transactions associated with a particular account. However you can click on the Summary tab and see all the transactions, regardless of the account they are associated with.
Setting Up Accounts
Accounts in Personal Finances describe where money comes from. The program supports different accounts, such as real bank account, credit card, cash and pocket money. Setting up an account is a breeze to do. Click on the Accounts icon at the top of the main window, click the Add button, then enter the properties of a new account - name, currency, comment. Personal Finances also allows you to set up an account budget for any period of time, so that the user doesn’t overspend. Existing accounts can be edited or deleted.
Entering Transactions
Entering transactions is just as easy. It requires a click on the Add button in the right area of the main window. In the dialog that opens, you need to select the type of transaction - income, expense or transfer between accounts, then enter all details associated with this transaction such as the account, amount of money, and date that will appear on the calendar or in the list of transactions that are due. Transactions can be defined with categories, family members, and tags. Tags provide a way to differentiate between similar transactions that fall into the same category. Categorization by family members will tell you about spending habits of each member of your family.
Transactions can be scheduled, which makes Personal Finances very handy for repeating transactions - tax payments, electricity bills, etc. The frequency for which you can set up a scheduled transaction is weekly, monthly, and annually. When the due date for the scheduled transaction comes, you should select the transaction in the scheduler list, right-click its record and select the Apply Now option to enter the scheduled transaction into the account used to pay the bill. You should also remember to make this payment in the physical world.
Reporting
Personal Finances helps you to understand the flow of your money and control expenditures with handy graphs and reports. You can see the reports generated by categories, family members and tags. Clicking on any item in the report you can drill down to transactions associated with the item. You can generate reports that cover any period of time. Results can be printed out or saved to HTML, CHM, or TXT.
Security
For your peace of mind, Personal Finances allows you to protect the budget database with a password so that no one will get access to your confidential financial information except you.
Portability
If you want to keep tabs on your budget on the move, you can get a portable version of Personal Finances that will run from a USB flash drive. The program can be run from any computer, without leaving any tracks behind.
Personal Finances has a free version and a full-featured commercial version with a 30-day free trial, so you can download the program to see if it will meet your personal finance management needs.
Keeping a budget with Personal Finances provides big benefits in the form of savings and elimination of unnecessary expenses. This will definitely help you to survive the financial crisis and step into better times.
CEO and founder of ALZEX software - company producing software for home use. Our current products are Personal Finances, a complete financial solution for home users and Visual clipboard - handy clipboard history manager.
Monday, November 10th, 2008 at 2:41 pm and is filed under finance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
