Thursday, April 12, 2007

Prepaid Credit Cards: Instant Relief from Past Credit Problems!

"Are you kidding me? You really never buy online?" Asks your friend.

Your friend continues his pursuit of the truth oblivious to your
discomfort. In the meantime, you fidget around while trying to find a graceful way out of this situation without revealing the truth.

You don’t want to tell him that you cannot buy online not because you are worried about identity theft. You can't rent a car not because you are underage. The limitations you face are entirely related to the requirements of our credit based society. You simply don't have a credit card. Your past credit
problems haunt you like a relentless dog in pursuit of a game. There may be a solution: Prepaid Credit Cards.

What are prepaid credit cards?

Prepaid MasterCard cards and/or prepaid Visa cards look exactly like a regular credit card. Neither you and your friends, nor the merchant who accepts MasterCard and Visa will be able to identify it as a prepaid credit card.

You obtain these prepaid credit cards by "pre-loading" them, which means you deposit cash into your account up-front, similar to a pre-paid calling card. Then you use your prepaid MasterCard or Visa anywhere these cards are accepted.

Prepaid Credit Cards are more practical than cash for many with
previous credit problems since you pay for your purchases before you even buy anything. This helps you plan your purchases better and avoid impulse buying.
Prepaid credit cards offer other advantages:

They are easy to get since they do not require stringent credit check or income verification.

They can be purchased online and at many retail stores.

They have very short credit card application.

They do not have any interest charges since you are not borrowing money.

They cannot lead into credit problems due to inability to pay borrowed funds. Again, you are not borrowing money.

Prepaid MasterCard or VISA have world wide acceptability virtually any anywhere VISA and MasterCard are accepted.

Don't forget the downside of prepaid credit cards:

They are costly to get with set-up fees of $5-$50.

They are costly to maintain - "Loading" fee of $5 or more every time you deposit money into them.

They requires up front cash.

Some prepaid credit cards cannot be used for recurring payments like monthly subscriptions.

After all said and done, prepaid credit cards may be your only
solution to carry and use a credit card. With prepaid credit cards you no longer have to carry your past credit problems like a sign on your forehead. Instead you can reach into your pocket and pullout that prepaid credit card.

They may be a blessing that helps you take care of day to day needs and make personal changes to help you get on track to a disciplined attitude toward money and spending. If you decide to get a prepaid credit card, compare several offers and select the one that most closely matches your needs and special circumstances.

Don’t rush it.

And while you go about your struggles with this and other of life’s ups and downs, remember Robert Johnson who said, “Measure yourself by your best moments, not by your worst.”

Friday, April 06, 2007

Restructure Your Debt Before Buying a Home

The enticement of getting into the runaway lodging market is understandable. Simple nest egg accounts are returning less than 2% per year. CDs and chemical bonds are not much better. "Safe" finances are yielding 5% pre-tax. And existent estate is surging, offering both equity grasp and tax protection. However, if you are in debt, it's important to do certain you reconstitute it and consolidate it before pickings the leaping into the lodging market.

So many see the hazard of taking on a house that is beyond their agency as deserving taking in order to make value and construct a financially secure future. The problem is that the lenders, once predominantly banks prostrate to conservative lending standards, now include pension funds, insurance companies and other investing physical things eager to put loans to maintain their money working.

It is not the lenders who will be hurt. They will travel swiftly to foreclosure, retrieve the house, and resell it. It is the borrower who gets burned. Bankruptcy laws are changing in October and it will no longer be convenient to register bankruptcy to avoid creditors. Individuals, once protected from forced liquidations, will happen that to be the norm rather than the exception. So it is more than of import than ever to learn how to renegociate or restructure debt before one is forced into bankruptcy court.

Renegotiating debt is best done before you are too delinquent. With a solid payment history with your lenders you are more than likely to happen them willing to work with you when you near them. Debt can be restructured a number of ways but there are some cardinal regulations to detect so that you continue your ability to command the restructuring of your debt.

1. Bash not wait until the debt have been turned over to a aggregation agency. By then it is too late to deal with the original issuers of the debt who might have got an interest in helping you. They have got discounted and sold off your debt when it is turned over to collections. That agency they have got got written off what they would have conceded to you to a 3rd party. The 3rd party's lone motive is to do money off your bad situation.

2. Before you seek debt relief, develop a personal budget that is feasible and a program which you can handle. Now you are ready to raise the telephone and phone call for help.

3. Don't be afraid to inquire for help. Advising the lender of a looming problem allows them to assist you avoid it becoming a major issue.

4. Be persistent. "No" is easy for creditors to say. You will hear it a lot. Call back and seek to get to person else. Talk to the same individual repeatedly until they get to get to cognize you and start wanting to assist you.

6. Be pleasant. You need to develop a resonance with the other individual so they desire to assist you. Getting huffy often do things worse.

Debt restructuring is a basic word form of negotiation. You have got a need. The lender also have a need. You have got a solution to offer. They have got to be convinced to listen to you. You have got to convert them of your earnestness and why they should chance with your plan. Don't inquire for a manus out. Ask for approval of a specific plan.

A program that plant for you should give them something as well. The two primary trade goodss are clip and money. If you have got money, but not enough, explicate your state of affairs and offer to pay off the debt at a discount. If they sell off your debt they will be lucky to get 50 cents on the dollar. You should be able to settle down between 50% and 100%. If you offer to pay the full amount, but over time, you will be economy a batch in money and maintain you credit evaluation from being impacted. But be certain to negociate both the interest rate and a committedness not to report the problem to any credit reporting agency. It makes you no good to widen your payment time period if you are also going to be paying a higher interest rate. Interest rates are negotiable.

The most of import facet of personal debt restructuring is to inquire before you get in too deep and before they begin chasing you to pay. A good customer's lawsuit always sounds better than a supplication from a habitual problem customer.

By successfully restructuring your debt and reducing it to something you can manage, you will have got protected your credit for future raids into the lodging market or any other venture.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Your Money Or Your Life

Have you stopped to recognize that although you travel to school to learn about of import subjects, no 1 learns you how to manage your money?


 


Money is an indispensable portion of life in our chase of happiness, yet very rarely will a parent sit down down and technical school their kid how to manage their money.


 


This is true in class school, high school and worst college.  So what happens?  Many of us halt up in an extremely large amount of debt.  We can’t look to get it together even if we do more than money.


 


I establish myself in this trap about 13 old age ago.  I had an all right job, a car, and an apartment.  Nice Iodine thought soon Iodine would purchase a house and unrecorded the “American dream”.  Wrong!  I could never salvage adequate to purchase a house.  I had plenty of credit cards, so many that Iodine never had enough money owed to many payments to set aside for my dreaming home.


 


What was happening to my paychecks?  Well, Iodine was over drawn-out in credit card debt for one.  The bargain now pay later syndrome was well embedded in my head.  That outlook had to stop!  Since, Iodine wasn’t terribly behind in my payments Iodine was able to get some aid from the creditors.  I simply asked for a lower interest rate and/or the ability to jump a payment.  After that call, Iodine had to cut up and dispose of the cards.  No! Iodine didn’t call off my cards but Iodine got quit of them just the same. 


 


Next I bought a tablet just for my budget information and bills.  I also purchased a software programme to maintain path of my expenses.  I believe it is of import to maintain something manual that you can carry as well as a computing machine software tool.


 


Next, as measures came in, I wrote them down with the name, address, phone number of the creditor, my sum balance, interest rate, and minimum payment due, the owed date, and if there were any annual fees acquired with the card.


 


Review the card with the highest interest rate and pay more than then the minimum due.  Always inquire if they can reduce your rate or seek the possibility of debt consolidation bargain applying for a low interest rate loan or credit card.  If you haven’t cut up your credit cards make not get a consolidation loan.  Because most likely once your payments are manageable you’ll begin using your cards again.


 


Minimizing your disbursement is the cardinal to financial freedom.  Make certain to start a nest egg program after you’ve gotten your debt under control.

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Small Business Credit Cards Advantages

A batch of people associate credit cards with just personal credit card which an individual posses and usages for shopping etc. However, there is another class of credit cards and that is called small business credit cards. As suggested by the name itself, the small business credit cards are meant for small businesses or people running small businesses.

So how makes the small business credit card differ from the other credit cards in general?

The very obvious difference is that small business credit cards have got the credit account in the name of the small business and not any individual, though the benefits indirectly accrue to the business owner. The other difference is with the terms and statuses that come up with the small business credit cards. Finally, there are some elusive benefits with small business credit cards which would not be applicable to personal credit cards. Let’s check all these things 1 by one.

We cognize that the credit cards supply a batch of convenience and security for an individual and a batch of other benefits too. Most of the benefits related to personal credit cards apply here too. What is interesting here is the indirect benefits that result from using a small business credit card.

The indirect benefits associated with small business credit cards are so great that it do them almost indispensable. The most of import benefit is that you can easily segregate your business and personal expenses. So if you have got been cachexia a batch of clip keeping path of your business measures and trying to maintain them separate from personal bills, small business credit cards could help. You just need to guarantee that you always do all your business payments using your small business credit card. When the credit card measure come ups at the calendar month end, you will have got itemized account of all the business disbursals as a single document. Thus small business cards reduce (and in some cases completely remove) the need for clerking for a small business. The credit card company makes that for you for free, although indirectly.

Another of import benefit come ups from rolling credit. If you have got to pay for your purchases upfront and still invoice your clients later (a state of affairs faced very often with small businesses), you can revolve the credit, you are providing your client with, to your credit card. Moreover, since these purchases are mostly urgent, arranging for money immediately can sometimes be a problem. In such as cases, the small business credit card is the 1 which can bail you out. Well, if you are thinking that your personal credit card could make the same for you, you are a spot off the path on two fronts. Firstly, you desire to maintain your business disbursals separate from your personal disbursals and secondly, the APR on business cards is generally lower as compared to personal credit cards. A batch of the small business credit cards don’t necessitate you to pay an annual fee even.

So if you run a small business but haven’t got a small business credit card yet, it’s about clip that you considered this fantastic option.