Easy Tips For Reaching Individual Finance Goals
Sometimes you just have to start building new habits. They don’t have to be difficult, start small and let the everyday little things add up to more money in your bank or investments. Here are some things you can do now, even when your budget is tight.
Get as Much as You Can From Your Employer
If your employer offers “free money” by way of cafeteria plans, profit sharing or matching retirement funds, use them to the maximum if possible. If you can’t manage that amount now, then start small and let every raise you get go toward building that amount until you get the largest amount you can from your employer. It may be years before you feel the true benefits of this action, but you’ll be grateful when you do.
Likewise, use any cafeteria plan, these allow pre-tax dollars to pay for necessary items like health care co-pays, child care, or other benefits. If you can pay for those with pre-tax dollars, it will decrease your overall tax bill and leave more money in your pocket … hopefully headed towards savings or investments for the future.
Start the Savings Habit
Your goal should be to save at least 10% of your gross income every month for retirement and investments. You may not be in a place that you can do that now, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get started now with what you can do. Consider having funds taken from your paycheck before you get it, that might be funds through an employer plan as mentioned above, or for direct deposit paychecks, see if the funds can be split, so a portion goes to a savings account or IRA.
Care and Maintenance
You know those warranty plans that stores want to sell you when you make a bigger purchase, generally, they are a waste of money. The store and sales person push them because for them, it’s free money. Usually, the item you buy has a warranty for the first year, or so, if you bought a lemon, it will make itself known long before the year is up. If it isn’t a lemon, it will likely last well beyond the year with no need for further intervention. Pass on those offers.
But, when it comes to taking care of what you have, know what is needed to keep those items in good working order. Regular oil changes on your car will extend its life by a couple of years or more, especially if you do them when the car is new. If you can keep a car long enough to pay it off and for another couple of years after that, you can be saving that car payment amount for the next down payment, ultimately you may get to the point when you can buy a car outright, and it’s all gravy from there.
And while we’re discussing the purchase of a car, don’t buy new. Buy one that is a one to three years old, maybe a used fleet car or from a car rental agency. When you buy a new car, the minute you drive it off the lot, you’ll lose substantial value on the car, meaning you’ll be paying the costs for a new car, but that new car has the value of a used one almost immediately.
What is some individual finance advice that you find useful?
Protecting Your Financial Information
Your financial information is all your credit card and account numbers, passwords, balances, debts, and even your family and personal details factor into this category since so much of that may be used in either passwords or secondary ways to identify it as you the other party is speaking with. Since we live in a hacker’s paradise, at least that’s what they think, it’s important to protect yourself and your financial information. Here are some things to keep in mind.
Time for Change
Changing your passwords, that is. If you use the same password(s) for almost everything, it makes it easy to remember, but also easy to discover. If you use a password that is easily identified (think – birthdate or name/date attached to your spouse, child, or pet), think of something different.
Make up a random word and then switch out some letters with numbers – you pick. At least then, it won’t be easy for someone who knows you to guess your password(s). Other than that, if you believe your information has been hacked through a financial institution you use, go in and reset your passwords immediately.
“Act Immediately” Messages
If you get one of these, no matter where it shows up, close out of it or delete it. Any reputable company will allow you to take the necessary time to make a decision. If you get an email asking you to verify your information, don’t use the link in the email. Instead go directly to the site (if you have an account there) and check to see if they need something. Usually, it is a spam email wanting you to divulge your password.
Use Secure Websites
Especially when you intend to do some shopping online, make sure your information will be secure when you give them your credit or debit card details. One easy way to check this is to look at the web address line at the top of your screen when you go to a site. If it begins https://, the “s” at the end stands for secure. If there is no “s,” there is no security guarantee on the site.
Use Credit Cards First
Most places will take a debit card just like a credit card, and the joy in using the debit card is that you don’t have to worry about interest charges afterward. If you are certain the place you are making a payment to is safe, then use the debit card. But you should know that debit cards do not come with as much or as complete of protection as credit cards.
Also, don’t use the ATM machines at places other than a bank if at all possible. Bank ATMs are less likely for someone to add a “skimmer” to the device than those at other places such as gas stations and convenience stores.
A final point to make sure your financial information remains safe is to check your credit scores and history frequently. You can sign up for a service to do that, or some credit card companies, such as Discover, will list your current credit score on your monthly bill. Also, sign up with a free credit score site that will notify you every couple of months or so that it is time to check your history for any fraudulent activity.
Some Finance Advice About Unsecured Debt
When it comes to what you owe, debt is debt. But there are at least two major types of debt you should be aware of – secured and unsecured. Secured debt means that the lender attached the right to take something back when they issued you credit. The classic example of secured debt is when a real property is purchased. Usually, it is done with a considerable amount of debt attached. Securing the payment of that debt is a mortgage or lien. That is the way the lender guarantees they will receive value for what they loaned.
Unsecured debt does not have anything that is directly “mortgaged” for the lender to attach if the payment is not made. The classic example of unsecured debt comes in the form of a credit card. The lender does not have the ability to attach the debt to any tangible asset. The only “security” offered is usually a signature and the good word of the borrower.
Paying Your Debts
As you make up your monthly budget and plan for payments, there are a few things to consider – and the order depends more on your circumstances than anything else.
- Interest rate being assessed.
- Secured or unsecured debt.
- Amount owed.
- Are you on the verge of bankruptcy?
Pay-off Options
There are other factors, but these are major ones. If you are on the verge of bankruptcy, then unsecured debts probably should go to the bottom of the pile. That’s because if debts are going to be forgiven, the ones without security are less likely to have any consequences beyond the negative credit issues to be faced. Examples of unsecured debt other than credit cards include student loans, payday loans, medical bills, and the like.
If, on the other hand, your finances are reasonably stable, then you might want to get the smaller debts paid off quickly to free more cash per month that can then be used to start paying off the bigger debts. In this scenario, you also want to consider what debts carry the highest interest rates.
My personal preference is to pay off any debts that are under $1,000 first. After that, attack the one with the highest interest rate, while making minimum payments on the rest. Once you pay off a debt, then add the money you’ve been using toward that debt and add it to the next one on your list. By the time you are down to the secured debts, often at much lower interest rates, you have enough to make a real difference in the amount of time it will take to pay off the mortgage or auto loan.
Keep It Going
Unless bankruptcy is an immediate possibility, you should continue to make minimum payments on all of your debts. Not paying unsecured debts without bankruptcy could include the lender getting a judgment against you and your wages being garnished. That means your employer gets involved in your personal financial business – and nobody ever wants that to happen.
Of course, the best thing for all of us would be to have no secured or unsecured debts, but very few people seem to get to that point. It’s a worthy goal though, one you should be working to accomplish.
Credit Repair Agencies with Good Reputations and Services
There are so many unscrupulous credit repair companies; it’s difficult to know which ones to trust. Will a credit repair company actually improve credit scores and give you sound finance advice, or will they simply end up charging the debtor a lot of money for doing very little, if anything at all?
Here is a list of companies with good reputations and equally good services available to consumers who want to clean up their credit situation:
- Sky Blue
- Sign up: Call Sky Blue at (888) 534-1510 so they will walk a debtor through the steps
- Price: Sky Blue is one of the lower prices among credit repair services. The initial fee is only $59, and it’s $59 monthly after that
- Features: Sky Blue is one of the better services; they give straightforward repair services, including fixing mistakes on a credit report, sending good faith letters to lenders, and looking for loopholes to get credit scores back to where it should be
- Cancellation: Sky Blue’s services are month-to-month, so a person can cancel at any time
- Reputation: Sky Blue is regarded as one of the top credit repair services, with an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau, and top ranking across many sites with reviews
- Guarantee: Sky Blue offers a full 90-day refund no matter what the reason
- Customer service: Consumers often say how helpful and nice the Sky Blue’s customer service is, which can be unusual for a credit repair service
- The Credit People
- Sign up: Call The Credit People at (844) 528-2246 so they can walk a debtor through the steps.
- Price: The Credit People offer a seven-day trial for only $19, so someone can try it out before buying. They also have an option of the lump-sum price of $299 for six months of service, or pay monthly for $69
- Features: The Credit People is like Sky Blue in that they only offer straightforward repair services, including fixing mistakes on a credit report, sending good faith letters to lenders and looking for loopholes to get credit scores back to where it should be
- Cancellation: If going with the lump-sum option, a person can still cancel at any time if dissatisfied, or go with the month-to-month option which also allows a person to cancel at any time.
- Reputation: Reviews tend to be somewhat mixed for The Credit People. It has many reviews on the BBB website, which average to about an A- rating. Some online reviews rave about services, some were quite disappointed, but people seem to agree that the money-back guarantee is great
- Guarantee: The Credit People has the best guarantee. A customer will get 100 percent money back at any point during the six months if are not completely satisfied
- Customer service: There is limited customer service, phone hours are only between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Then only email customer service is offered otherwise, but The Credit People respond within 24 hours.
Other credit repair companies with good reviews are Pyramid, CreditRepair.com, and Lexington Law.
