Personal Finance Blog

Tips And Stories To Help You With Managing Money

Tips to Identify Debt Settlement Scam

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Like many other individuals, if you are drowning under the sea of outstanding debt and looking for a way to come out of it, it is advisable to enroll into a debt relief program, like debt consolidation and debt settlement. When you enroll into a debt consolidation program, a consolidation company negotiates with your creditors to reduce the interest rate on each debt. On the other hand, when you enroll into a debt settlement program, a settlement firm negotiates with creditors to reduce the pay-off amount. However, no matter whichever program you choose, you must be aware of the debt settlement scams. There are many companies who charge high front fees making alluring promises to settle the debt by up to 50 to 70 percent, but ultimately do nothing. To avoid such situation, you must be careful while hiring a settlement or consolidation company.

Let us here discuss how to identify a debt settlement fraud.

If a settlement company calls you too many times and asks you for services, ask for their contact information. If the company does not want to disclose its name and address, and insists you to enroll into their program, then you must understand it is a fraud. Legitimate companies will never contact you over phone and beg you to hire their services.

If you are thinking to hire the services of a debt settlement company, contact the Better Business Bureau to check its credential. The Better Business Bureau can tell you if there has been any complaint against the company you are considering. To know more about the company, you can also approach your state attorney general’s office that can provide with information about the reputation and experience of the firm.

Before signing up for a settlement company, ensure whether or not the company is a member of the Association of Settlement Companies. This association is a trade group that promotes good industry practices. If the company claims to be a member of the association, check the association’s website to ensure its membership.

Ask the company about the effects of debt settlement on credit ratings. If the company is legitimate, it will be honest about the fact that debt settlement affects the credit rating negatively. But if the company is questionable, it will assure you that no negative effect will occur.

Before you start working with a company, make sure you get everything in writing. Fraudulent firms will never put their terms in writing in a legally binding document, and will ask for hefty fees for services. Fraudulent companies will never cooperate with you and entertain your doubts and queries; they will only hurry you for signing on the paper work and enroll in their program.

In conclusion, consider the above mentioned tips in order identify fraudulent debt settlement companies.

Home Buying On The Upswing

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After years of near-moribund status fueled by a prolonged recession and problems in federal assistance programs, America’s housing market trend appears to be up, at least in the Beehive state.

Get The Best Mortgage Loan For Your Home

Alan Blood of Capital Financial Group, based in Bountiful, Utah, says that figures for the population-heavy Wasatch Front area of Utah show that there is reason to hope the market is stabilizing. Although there has been a 30% decrease in the number of homes on the market however there has been a 5 percent increase in loan applications in recent months. Good prices and quicker sales are evidence of a reviving market.

“At least in Utah, where $200,000 is the median price for a home, that’s good news for everybody,” said Blood. He talks about housing market realities every Friday from 9 to 10 a.m. on local K-TALK Radio, AM 630. (Visit K-TALK.com for details.)

A graduate in economics from BYU,  Blood became a mortgage broker. He also received a degree in Law by attending Brigham Young University’s Law School. With the law degree under his belt, he re-examined his career goals. He found the study of law useful to continue his career in mortgage brokering which he really enjoys.

Based on long experience, Blood can offer some suggestions to those who are in the throes of buying a home or considering it in the near future:

Don’t Buy Too Small

It’s probably the most common mistake first-time buyers make, he says. Especially if the buyers are a new family with potential for growth, a small home can quickly become inadequate, calling for a new purchase in only a few years, before the initial costs of home-buying are recouped. There is little equity accrued, so too much of the new purchase goes into the front-end process, he says. If possible, it is wiser to look ahead at least ten years to allow for equity growth before taking the plunge again. The average time a family stays in a new home, according to Fannie Mae figures, is 4.2 years. And, also on average, the typical family makes six moves in a lifetime.

Don’t Focus Only On The Interest Rate

It’s understandable that with a long-term loan, the tendency would be to consider the interest rate to be the most pertinent consideration the buyer needs to look at.

In reality, the advantage of a very low interest rate can quickly be cancelled by higher closing costs. Spread over 30 years, for instance, the difference between an interest rate of 3.5 percent and 3.75 percent is just $3,250 —approximately $27 per month. “It takes your about 10 years to break even,” Blood says. Looking at every element of the purchase costs is essential to get the best deal overall.

Mortgage Brokers Can Help Get The Best Deals

“No bank will always have the best deal every day. Mortgage brokers work with as many as 18 banks in any given day,” Blood notes. Interest rates and other variables involved in a home purchase change frequently, often within a day’s time. In addition, federal law requires that mortgage brokers give the best rate a buyer can qualify for, a standard that banks and credit unions are not obliged to observe.

Gather Facts

In general, Blood advises that home buyers go into the search armed with as many facts as possible. It’s one of the most complex and demanding purchases a family is likely to make and it deserves some study and research. Begin the process educated and enlist a good broker to make recommendations. As the market continues to improve over the next few years, these are the buyers who will benefit from the rebound, he says. Contact him for more information about mortgage loans.

Tips For New Business Startups and Entrepreneurs

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New entrepreneurs are developing new business ideas in record time. With Internet coding hackathons, some business plans and products are created within a 48 hour window of time. The chances of new businesses succeeding on the Internet increase as time goes by. You may be in this group of new entrepreneurs out of necessity, choice or pure passion for having control of your financial lives.

Embarking on an entrepreneurial adventure is more likely to be both successful and satisfying if you examine your reasons to start a new business and be sure that you are on course to pursue what you really want.

Noam Wasserman, associate professor at Harvard Business School, says “If you’re starting a new company, you probably already know that a crazy variety of land mines await you.” In his new book, “The Founder’s Dilemma: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup,” which will be published later this year, he gives pointers and tips to identifying the potential problems involved in starting a new business. He borrows from his Harvard classes on entrepreneurship for the compelling content.

Wasserman collaborated with Timothy Butler, a senior fellow and director of career development programs at Harvard to survey some 2,000 founders relative to motivation. They divided the participants by gender and age. The data was compared with non-entrepreneurs who also ranked the possible motivations. Those with an entrepreneurial spirit tended to focus on autonomy and power, while those in the non-entrepreneurial group say to a greater degree that they valued security and a congenial work environment above other motivators.

He lists the seven most common motivators entrepreneurs have for starting a new business. The results of a survey (which vary between men and women) suggest common reasons people pursue business startups.

AUTONOMY: If this is your first objective, don’t take on partners or significant investors. The downside could be slower growth or a smaller business initially, but the upside is that you have ultimate control. This advice is for those who want independence above all, including financial gain.

POWER AND INFLUENCE: If this is your motivation you may want to examine some problems associated with bringing on partners. Two like-minded partners can quickly find themselves in headlocks if each aims to be CEO. Money and hiring practices can also lead to logger-heads if there is no clear definition of who does what. Founders in this category may have trouble letting others do their jobs.

MANAGING PEOPLE: This motivation can lead to frustration if there is a disconnect between yourself as manager and those you want to manage. It takes some adjusting as the manager learns to let the doer do what he is hired to do. If you are bent on hiring, counseling, evaluating and rewarding, Wasserman advises keeping the business small.

FINANCIAL GAIN: If gain comes first, the entrepreneur may have to give up some control when seeking partners or professional investors. In studying the problem, Wasserman said, those who demanded full control of a board and CEO realized an equity stake 52 percent less valuable, on average, than those who shared significant decision-making authority with others. He calls the push-and-pull between autonomy/power and influence/financial gain as the “rich versus king” dilemma.

ALTRUISM: Nonprofit or socially responsible companies best fit this motivation. It requires that you make decisions based on what’s best for others, rather than what’s best for your bottom line. There may be other ways to accomplish what you envision besides creating a traditional company.

VARIETY: You can accomplish this by starting new companies or by exploring new product lines and markets. Employees may have ideas on developing new ideas in-house. Studies indicate that variety becomes more important to entrepreneurs as they age, so strong support by a partner is important.

INTELLECTUAL CHALLENGE: To satisfy this craving, the answer is to diversify. This, too, is a motivator that may carry more weight as you get on in life. Consider starting special projects that relate to your next line of products or extension of the company. Devise projects that exercise your curiosity.

Wasserman suggests that “people problems are responsible for a significant portion of startup failures, and that entrepreneurs tend to underestimate their potentially dangerous long-term effects.” When starting a new business keep in mind what your long term goals are and how to best achieve those goals.

Keep your business accounting simple by using QuickBooks from the beginning of your new business.

How To Control Your Privacy On Facebook

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When you have over 500 friends on Facebook, you may think that you are stuck with reading news feeds from everyone. Save yourself some time by organizing your streaming updates. Facebook has made it very easy to read news feeds from only those you are interested in following.

Facebook Lists

How do you do filter out your stream of updates? Through Facebook Lists. Facebook lists make it possible for you to organize your friends into groups. You decide the group names and you pick the people you want in your groups. You might organize by family members, close friends, friends in the geographic area you live, work friends, high school friends or special interests like hobbies.

You will notice on the left side of the page a column called lists. If you hover over the word “lists” you can the word “more” to the right of the lists. Click on more. You will see a list of any current lists you have created. You can click on “create lists” to add new lists. There you will be asked to choose people you want to assign to the new list.

When you want to see the updates from each list, you just click on list name which is located on the left side of your Facebook account. You will save hours of reading through posts by people you really have little interest in following.

Smart Lists

What is a smart list? Facebook has created a function that will create lists automatically for you based on your profile. If you have listed a school you have attended, the list will appear automatically. Work, school, family and city are common auto created lists.

Control Who Sees Your Updates

Probably the most important privacy feature you should learn to use is choosing the audience of your status updates. When you make an update, there is now a drop down list in the bottom right corner of the status update box. This is where you can select which list you want to post your updates to. This allows you to choose who sees and reads your posts. Gone are the days where everybody sees all your posts. Finally a decent way to reclaim your privacy.

Using these features of Facebook can really help you enjoy the social experience much more. So if you have been hesitant to post because you are concerned about who sees and reads your posts, that problem is now solved. Share your private posts with those you actually want to share with.

Find out more about the author at the popular Personal Finance Blog, where you can share success stories about business start ups or get outstanding deals on business checks.

The 80-20 Rule Of Personal Finance

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Although history has shown us that there are many practical applications for the 80-20 rule, it has rarely been used in the field of personal finance.

Yes, there is the concept that the richest 20% of the world’s population controls 80% of the world’s income. And yes, the original use of the 80-20 rule comes from the notion that 80% of the “results” come from 20% of the “efforts.”

However, the question is, how can the 80-20 rule be applied to personal finance? The basics of personal finance can be summarized with two verbs: spending and earning. How well you do each one of those activities determines your personal wealth.

The mind-set of many people when it comes to spending is rather disastrous. Their spending goals may be just to spend a little less than they earn to cover their monthly expenses. When they ask themselves if they can afford something, they usually do the simple math. Does my monthly income cover the  amount of money this item will cost me? If the answer is yes, they give themselves permission to spend.

When considering the earning part of the equation, many think  they are stuck with decisions they made for themselves when they were in their early 20’s. College and job-training plans were made then and hopefully carried out as well. However, in retrospect how many people really know what they want at that age? So people get trained  for careers. Then get comfortable performing their jobs. It doesn’t take too long before buyer’s remorse sets in and they realize their choice of profession did not meet their needs.

The personal finance decisions they now make are mostly centered around budgeting and living within their means. Maybe 80% of their personal finance planning is spent doing this. How can I make my dollars stretch further? How can I enjoy life the most on what I have?

Maybe 20% of their personal finance attention is spent on increasing their earning potential. They may have these thoughts: How can they work harder to get the next job promotion? What will it take to impress the supervisor or boss? Would another job pay more money?

That type of split-thinking – 80% on budgeting and 20% on increasing income – is almost a boiling frog syndrome. You get used to living a certain way and it becomes comfortable. Before long you are slowly killing your drive.

What if you reversed the equation? Let’s say that you spent 20% of your personal-finance planning and thinking time being budget conscious, spending when necessary and covering your monthly bills. Then spending 80% of your time thinking of additional ways you can earn money. This gives your creative brain, more time to do what it was meant to do. Enjoy life and create pleasure.

When this happens, you become more passionate about your life because you are thinking on a higher level than you were used to thinking. Hope starts seeping into your thoughts, and you begin to picture more for yourself and your loved ones.

Spend 80% of your time thinking of ways to increase your income and 20% of your time budgeting what you currently have. It is the simplest 80-20 rule of personal finance around and the most productive. Try it for a few months. See if it checks out.