What Simply Works!

These days, the media is helping out with the credit crisis by campaigning against bad credit credit cards. One news feature reported that even the elderly are lured by the “buy now, worry about payments later” message that these credit card companies promote over and over.

An old lady, who receives pension a little over 200 dollars per week, is paying about 200 dollars a month for credit card dues. A big chunk of the installment payment is for the interest alone. How horrible is that? What’s an old lady to do with a portion of her meager pension going to these huge credit card companies?

As they say, education is the key. There are websites that give information on interest rates, rankings and other data related to major credit card issuers. Check out badcreditoffers.com to find out more.

I have heard one too many times that the latest US financial crisis is unmatched since the Great Depression. Sounds really scary, isn’t it? Some homeowners sold their homes for fear of fluctuating interests that would be difficult to manage. Some pensioners want to pull out their investments to hold on to their cash.

Although we feel the effect on the prices of oils, commodities and services, the impact is still softened as we are without major loans to take care of. In the future, when we are ready to buy our own home, we will be very careful with the whole process starting from getting mortgage quotes. We will make sure that we will not be buried paying very high interests that will eat up chunks of our finances.

It’s in yesterday’s entertainment headline news that the group The Wiggles is the top money grossing entertainers in Australia.* They earned an estimated 45MIL AUD from last year alone! Wow! Kylie Minogue, Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe were a bit behind the “colorful” group.

With their year-round world tour and concerts in Australia plus their TV shows, DVDs and other merchandise, it’s not surprising that they’re making huge money! Kudos, to you guys!

*Rated by Business Review Weekly

Many people are easily tempted to collect credit cards. It doesn’t help that nowadays, almost all credit companies send pre-approved cards often with high credit limits. Unless the recipient has good sense of control over his/her spending, the risk starts once the credit card is made ready for use.

There is a company called Comparecards.com that helps to check for suitable credit cards depending on the financial standing and spending needs of a person. There are a lot of different types out there but what I would look out for is a low interest credit card.

Ideally though, the safest of all to use are pre-paid debit cards. Having to set a spending limit is easier than working to pay for credit interests alone.

One of our parental obligations is to send our kids to school. However, with many other financial responsibilities like home or car mortgage to take care of, it becomes a challenge to prioritize setting aside money for our children’s education, particularly, college education.

This is where options for student loans are available for students not having enough financial backing to reach their dreams to complete tertiary education. These college loans, offered by many schools, let the students study and pay later. If I’m not wrong, the loans extend to providing stipends or allowance other than the tuition.

There are so many people I know who have taken up private student loans. Most of them did for graduate school. At least, my kid will always have this as an option for a worse case scenario.

Wouldn’t it be easy to do car loan transactions online? At the comforts of home, potential buyers simply need to register and fill-in the required information using the forms and from there, the applicants will be assessed right away. Many loan companies worldwide offer this type of service.

Imagine not going through the hassles of queuing to speak to loan consultants and filling-up lots of forms? When applying for car loans, for example, a quote will be prepared for the applicant as soon as he/she lodges his application online. That way, there is no time wasted. Access to the car of your dreams will just be a few clicks away.

With interest rates rising these days as fast as our eyes blink, people are seeking ways and means to cope with the financial stress it brings. Some sell their properties and move to smaller spaces, others leave the city and settle in the outskirts and many maintain tighter budgets to get by.

Then there are companies offering Personal Loans for various credit situations. In this case, it’s a matter of determining the urgency to get a loan and recognizing the ability to pay. If the latter is a potential issue, then taking up a Payday Advances will only make the financial standing worse.

For sure, loan companies have rules and standards in place to ensure that their business offers a win-win situation.

I have heard about loan companies extending salary loans to eligible applicants. As any other kind of loans, this is both good and bad. These days when there are talks about the big “R” (recession as they call it) and companies folding up, many employees can benefit from payday loans.

However, knowing that there is a fallback in the form of loans can also be a negative thing. Instead of taking measures to manage the finances better, there is that temptation to simply pick up a loan and wait for the next payday to cover for it.

There are companies out there, which limit the borrower to take up loans for emergency cases only. I think this is a good idea to inject some form of discipline to the borrower. I’m sure that many companies out there do not care about the purpose of the loan. What’s important to them is that they charge interest and there are collaterals they can get a hold from the borrower later on.

An extreme case of this is what they call loan sharks in Singapore. These are lenders who extend money usually to gamblers. Once the gambler is neck-deep in debt, these loan sharks will do anything even as far as vandalizing your own home just to threaten the borrower to pay. But then again, this is an extreme case.

From time to time, my husband and I talk about our daughter’s college education. Although it is still far-off, this topic is very important to us (or any parent for that matter) that we build our initial plans this early so that they will form as a guide when the time comes for our child to enter the tertiary level. We usually discuss about education plans, possible schools of choice and our means to assist her needs by then.

Usually, at the tail end of our conversation, both of us will let out a sigh and somehow feel the fears of “letting go” of our child. She would have learned to do certain things on her own. She should be driving her own car and owning one if not two college student credit cards that will be her backup for emergency expenses.

It will be a happy and sad time for us, as a family I’m sure. Planning for the financial aspect of sending our child to school is just one side of the coin, I should say. But dealing with the major changes, the separation, the typical worries, the adjustments, will all be part of yet another major phase in a family’s life.

In the news just the other day, the popular coffee chain, Starbucks is closing a lot of its branches here in Australia. It comes as no surprise to us, with the expected economic slowdown. However, what comes to mind are those people who will soon lose their jobs.

It’s as if it’s not enough that many of them are working hard to survive day to day along with paying-off existing loans or already working on credit repair schemes. Although the employment rate remains stable, it is still no guarantee that these people will soon be out of credit.

No one knows how long this economic downturn will be. Companies offering credit repair services should be very busy these days assisting more people ease out of the financial crunch through bad credit repair programs.

I think all of us should be more proactive when it comes to managing our finances. We may have different priorities in life and different standards of living, but the bottom line is, we should live according to our means. It is very tempting to brush aside the future and enjoy what we have now but with our family in mind, the fear of another recession coming wakes us up to reality.

Not so long ago, I thought of delving into the property market. It was and still is an inviting industry in Singapore with the property prices reaching unbelievable heights. The agent whom we worked with encouraged me, albeit unintentionally, to consider getting into sales. What’s inviting is the working hours flexibility apart from the commission that is relative to the sale one makes.

I didn’t ask the agent though whether she went through sales training or a formal real estate investment school like Nouveau Riche University. This school specializes in teaching the ins and outs of property sales and investment. Their curriculum, listed on their website is very extensive and promises attractive careers to its students.

Seems like a highly specialized school such as Nouveau Riche University can give an aspiring real estate agent or a potential investor a good foundation in the economics involving this type of investment. The school promises a follow-through after the course so that what they learned will be put into action. This is aside from the hands-on training they’ll get as part of their curriculum.

Even buyers can take advantage of selected courses from Nouveau Riche University. This can only equip them with more knowledge before making a life-changing investment.

It is a fact that many families are going through financial crisis today. Here in Sydney alone, many homes were foreclosed by banks and most of the families have left the city to settle in the country side. The increasing oil prices, weak US dollar value and even sickness or accidents in the family can all add up and result to financial setbacks to any family.

Also, along with it are the rising commodity prices that add to everyone’s worries. People are encouraged by the government through various media, to manage their finances, spend wisely and to make it a goal to save.

Even young couples are not spared. With the lures of credit cards, some have declared bankruptcy at their early age. With a combined household income that used to give them freedom to spend for both needs and wants (of course with the help of their credit cards), now they find themselves in major financial trouble.

Good for them, there are many credit consolidation companies that have sprung given the demands for such service. Debt Free 24 is one company that helps people achieve financial freedom by assisting them to manage their loans. All it takes is just a phone call and the company will be ready to provide debt assistance.

It is no doubt very tempting to spend for things and not worry about shelling out cash at that moment. I’m talking about the lures of credit cards. I heard of people go bankrupt because they max-out the credit limits oftentimes of not just one but several cards.

However, credit cards are not all that bad. In fact, we can make them work for us and not against us. If we do maintain timely payments in full and earn points in the process, we can even get airline mileage and receive gifts from the company’s rewards system.

In detail, we can achieve that by: One, spending within our means. Two, avoid paying on installments (because this is where we make those credit card companies rich). Third, keeping one or two credit cards at the most if you know having more than that can only drag you close to bankruptcy.

At one point in my career life, I started receiving pre-approved cards in the mail. If I remember correctly, there were at least five that were sent to me. At that time, I thought that maybe, just maybe, if I was much younger and less mature, I might have kept all those credit cards and used them to my heart’s content.

But knowing how hard it is to earn money, deciding on whether to live credit-free or otherwise was not a tough decision to make. Looking back, I have no regrets.

I wish I am an investment-savvy person. That way, our hard-earned savings will not be ‘sleeping’ in the bank. I have met a few financial consultants in Singapore and they helped a lot by way of explaining the ins and outs of making investments. It was enlightening to know that even for insurance policies there are programs that allow the insured to allot a portion of the premium to a choice investment.

One investment type that is very popular among our circle of friends is Forex. Well, they say that this is pretty high risk but it goes without saying that the gains have high potential, too.

A friend who participated in online foreign currency trading shared with me that one of the downsides is that she has to be up on US time (opposite time zone in Singapore). Despite this, when she got a feel of how online trading works, she immediately got hooked. Also, she had to be up to date with current events and latest business news and was therefore always on the internet day after day.

I think foreign currency trading is for high risk takers. I prefer to be on the ‘safe side’ when investing and therefore Forex trading is not for me.