Freeing yourself from payday loan debt – Smart steps that you can follow

This entry was posted in Bills & Income and tagged , , by bdelinsky.

Payday loans are extremely convenient financing options through which you can get immediate cash when you’ve been turned down by all other conventional loan lending lenders. All of us go through tough financial situations when we need immediate cash and this is when we require taking resort to payday loans. Payday loans are short term loans that are lent to people who are in need of cash and are not getting such loans from the conventional lenders. However, due to the extreme convenience of borrowing payday loans, there are too many people who are drowning in a payday loan debt hole as they’re not being able to make timely payments. If you’re someone who is going through such dire financial straits, you can either try to combine your payday loan obligations or try out some other options.

  • Calculate your total debt amount: The first step that you can take is to calculate or determine the total debt amount that you owe your payday loan lenders. Jot down the total principal balance and the interest rates that you’re paying on them. Unless you know the total amount, it would be impossible to take any further step.
  • Negotiate with your payday loan lenders: If you’re of the opinion that the payday loan lenders won’t help you when they know that you’re going through a hardship, you’re probably mistaken. As they’ve lent you the money, they will certainly help you in order to get back the money from you. Tell them about the hardship that you’re going through so that they might help you with a hardship plan through which you can get out of debt. You just have to cooperate with them.
  • Take out a debt consolidation loan: You can take out a debt consolidation loan and combine your multiple payday loans into a single monthly payment. The interest rates on the debt consolidation loan will be much lower than what you were paying on your multiple payday loans. With this loan, you can combine all your monthly payments into a single payment. Instead of making more than one payment, you can do with making a single payment towards the debt consolidation loan.
  • Opt for debt settlement: When you want to reduce the total debt amount, you can opt for debt settlement. Here a portion of the debt amount will be waived off by the lenders and this will reduce the total principal balance that you owe. You can repay with ease and according to the rule, you have to repay the remaining amount either in a lump sum or in single monthly payments stretched throughout a long period of time. This option hurts your credit score and hence you should take resort to this option only when you don’t have any other choice.

So, when you’re drowning in a sea of payday loan debt, you can take the above mentioned steps. The more you stay away from debt; the better will be the impact on your credit score. Hence choose any of the above mentioned options based on your present financial condition. Whichever option you choose, ensure repaying on time to avoid a bad hit on your credit score.

How To Be Kind To Your Finances

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When we think of money management, it calls to mind budgets and spread sheets and all sorts of boring things. But when you mention management in the real world, the image calls to mind human resources professionals and working to create a positive work environment. So whether you sit down solo or as a partnership to manage your finances, draw from the following list to make sure you are doing what you can do to create a positive money environment:

Set a time to talk about money

For some people, talking about money at night can be incredibly stressful. Others might prefer only to talk at night. The time of day, the time of week, and the clothes you wear can all affect how comfortable and relaxed you and your partner feel when you discuss money. To make sure you are as effective as possible, meet during the time of the week and time of the day that is agreeable to everyone involved.

Agree to certain words

If you know your partner gets territorial around the word “budget,” use the word “spending plan.” If you hate spreadsheets, write out your plan in fun colored markers on index cards. There is no required language when it comes to managing your finances — whatever it takes to get the job done is fine.

Agree to work together

Talking about money isn’t about making anyone feel bad, it’s about deciding what the best purpose for every dollar your household earns. And money mistakes are just that — mistakes that can be corrected the next time you give it a try. If you are budgeting with a partner or spouse, it is important to vocalize that you are both coming together for a common purpose, not calling into question each others decisions. And if you are budgeting solo, the same rules apply. Be kind to yourself, because you are on your own team!

Give meaning to your meetings

Few things are as rewarding as spending time working towards a goal and seeing progress. But when you invest time in a goal and nothing happens? Crushing. When you work to set a budget, do your best to stick to the plan so that the time you have invested in your plan has purpose.

What do you do to create a positive money environment?

Make the Most Out of Your Payday

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This entry was posted in Bills & Income and tagged , , , by sjgreesonbach.

Pay day is an exciting day no matter how you slice it. But even more exciting is saving a healthy chunk of your pay check for yourself. Your wants, your needs, and those little unexpected events that pop up.

The good news is that your can make the most out of your payday by paying yourself strategically. Whether your financial challenge is over-spending, hating spreadsheets, or you just can’t stand the details, read on for a few tips to tweak your income so that you can maximize your pay day.

Budget fix for the over-spender

For the over-spender who needs a little control in his life, scheduled self-payments can help you distance yourself from your own money. Look at your month’s expenses and schedule the payments for things like groceries, gas, food, and spending money. Use envelopes or a calendar system to “pay yourself” when it comes time to make that purchase, but otherwise limit your contact with your income. Bank your savings as you go, or see how much you can gather by the end of the month.

Budget fix for the spreadsheet-averse

Spreadsheets can be very intimidating, even when it is to track something as interesting as your own money. If you prefer simple math or lists, combining your monthly income into a bulk payment might be for you. “Pay yourself” at the beginning of the month in one chunk payment, then pay your bills and expenses by keeping a single list of subtractions as you pull from that sum.

Budget fix for those who can’t be hassled with the details

If you feel like your time is wasted when you spend it on budgeting, laissez-faire budgeting could be for you. First, assess your budget needs including utilities, rent, and spending and make sure the total amount is covered by the sum in your account. Then, set an account cushion of a few hundred dollars and stop watching. Check in every month to make sure you haven’t been incorrectly billed or missed a payment, but otherwise invest your saved time into other pursuits.

What style do you use to manage your money?

Lessons on Money for Children Require an Emotional Connection

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This entry was posted in General by jwallman.

There are many lessons out there that are designed to teach the K-12 set about money but fail most of the time as there is no real emotional connection made between the lesson and the student. We are all human which means that we are social by nature. That means we learn the fastest when our emotional system is impacted by an event. This includes academic instruction. So here are some suggestions on how to do this.

Introduce Work Early

The importance of work is less about the money than it is about emotional maturity. That emotional maturity comes from both learning responsibility and developing social skills as they work with both others like themselves that they did not know before and adults they did not know before. If this does not happen early (before age 10 or 12), the student is in danger of developing an introverted mindset and a major loss of self-confidence. This is hugely important to their self esteem. The job doesn’t have to be much but it does have to happen and it should involve taxes. A paper route qualifies here.

The Concept of Rent

With the job in hand, charge your child rent for living with you. You are obviously not going to keep it, but the idea is to introduce the concept of renting versus ownership. The rent you charge can be divided into an investment in college and later rewards or holiday gift money. The options are numerous but the lesson and emotional investment by the child in its understanding is enormous. Their schoolwork will improve as the math concepts will become real to them and they will likely accelerate to the point of overachieving.

Budgeting

Since the child is now earning money and incurring expenses, it is time to help them set up a budget. You are essentially creating a young adult when they are still a child, but that is the current pace of our culture so it will help them immensely. They will learn how to budget their accounts and hopefully save for the future.

 

What the Better Paying Jobs Require

Once they start making money and accustomed to paying rent, they will start asking about higher salaries. That is exactly what you as a parent want because it is an easy segue into the purpose of a high school and college education. The child will recognize their value and their emotional commitment to their academic success will increase dramatically. This is when grades normally go up because they now understand why they are in school in the first place.

How to Make their Money Work Harder

With all the above going on, they will naturally ask of other ways they can secure more income. This will be a natural segue into investing, what it is and how to do it. A child who reaches this point will likely end up very successful and possibly leader of the country.

Conclusion

Teaching children about money often fails because the lessons often only involve showing them the currency and how much something costs. Those lesson automatically become abstract because the child has not ‘skin’ in them. They are not using their own money or care much about their own money because the tasks required of them to get it are often very simple. For children to learn properly about money, they need skin in the game which means an emotional connection to the money they are earning and paying. With that put in place, a leader can be born.

College or Work. Which to Choose?

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This entry was posted in Education and tagged , , by jwallman.

How to Make the Decision?

Deciding which path to choose after high school can be a hard one to make if your grades are good enough to enroll you into a college.  Having that option is considered a good thing most of the time as the adventure of choosing one is very attractive.  However, when one doesn’t feel ready for the academic requirements that college courses demand, the choice is not as simple.

The best way to determine if college is the right option is to evaluate your academic skills honestly.   Since, most students are required to take the same basic English, Math, and Science courses in their freshmen years, evaluating one’s skills in those areas in high school is a good place to determine whether college is the right choice at that time.

The Checklist

The checklist of items to use for this decision are as follows:

1)High School Grades

2)Aptitude for Learning

3)Fundamental Skill Set

4)Financial Status

Grades

If a student is receiving Cs or less in these core course in 8th grade and 9th grade with no discernible improvement even into 10th grade, college is likely the wrong choice for the year immediately following high school.  For students with Bs and higher in these courses, college can be considered an option with the higher the academic grade, the greater the probability of that option.  College Board exams must also be taken by students in this category and they must be planned and scheduled.   For students expecting to take the college boards, start practice as early as 8th grade.  The sooner one starts, the more practice one gets and practice always make perfect.

Aptitude

Learning from books and lecture is not for everyone, but if your student has the right aptitude for it, is engaged, and enjoys learning that way, that would indicate a high probability of success at the next level.   If they do not like to read or simply do not function well in a classroom with rigorous rules, show talents in a less structured environment or one that uses skills not taught in a traditional academic setting, then college is likely not the right choice.  At least, not right away.

Fundamental Skill Set

What is the student’s fundamental skill set?  Are they academically inclined meaning that they enjoy sitting at desks for extended periods of time doing homework or do they resist that?  Or are they more interesting in building something than opening their books?  If they exhibit tendencies of the former, then they should be in good stead for the next level.  However, if they are more inclined to be in the garage building or fixing something, a purely academic institution may not be the best environment for them to succeed as quickly as they should.

Finances

Finally, the family finances must come into play as someone has to pay for the education.  If the finances require loans to be taken out, the loans have to be researched to determine the one with the smallest interest rate, but so does the intended major as job prospects based on the choice of major should indicate how quickly the loan can be repaid.  If the finances are not available and the loans look too onerous, work or vocational school may be the better option.

Work

Work does two things that can be a huge benefit to a student.  The first is that it pays of course, which generates income rather than the education creating an expense hole in your budget.  The income is nice, but to a young person, it may not mean that much because they may spend it all.  This is where a budget is necessary to develop.

However, there are other lessons to be learned here.  One is that there is an emotional education taking place as the young person works.  They learn responsibility by doing rather than through lecture.  That tends to stick more.  The second is that with the income they make at whatever wage they are being paid, they can evaluate the cost of the education path they considered before.  This is another form of experiential education that is often taught in a classroom setting and fails miserably because the students see it abstractly rather than as reality.   The result of all this experience is that when they do realize the cost-benefit relationship of that education program, they perform far better in that environment because they recognize its value.

Vocational schools train for specific jobs that are in demand and these schools generally cost less than a traditional college.  They are also often far shorter in duration as the curriculum is based on the current employment needs.  They can be a terrific stepping stone for a young person.

Conclusion

Deciding on what to do after high school is never an easy decision considering everything that must go into it, but it is essential to start the decision process early enough for all paths to be considered fully and plans to be made.

Teaching Personal Finance to Children

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This entry was posted in Education and tagged , , by sjgreesonbach.

The best way to make personal finance real for children is to make personal finance real.

Sound strange? Consider this: we all know that the only way to gain experience is to experience the thing for yourself. Therefore, the best way to teach children about personal finance is to give them money in a controlled environment and help them learn how to use and save it properly.

Personal finance for children in a classroom
Using actual money may not be appropriate for a classroom. Instead, create your own form of currency in the way of a points system, using time, coupons or bonuses. All children value something: maybe in your classroom that would look like more silent reading time, more time on the classroom computer, or perhaps points that can be stored up and used to “purchase” classroom items such as pencils, erasers, or homework passes.

Create a classroom system or budget around students earning points by completing homework or scoring a certain score on a test or quiz. You could also add to that list performing basic tasks around the room, such as cleaning the board or helping the teacher in some way. Create lessons around tracking, “spending” and “saving” those points to teach the core principles of personal finance: earning, spending, and saving one’s resources.

Personal finance for children at home
Even if money is tight at home, you can still use small amounts of money to teach children how to earn money, save money, and spend money wisely. Besides the usual chores that a child does to help pitch in around the house, consider putting up a “hiring board” that features above-and-beyond chores that a child can do to earn twenty-five cents, fifty cents, or a dollar. This is money that a child would earn upon completing the chore satisfactorily and money that would be his to do with as he likes (within the rules of the home, of course!).

When a child can pick and choose when to work and when to not work, the connection between working and money deepens and lays an excellent foundation for later in life.

More resources for teaching personal finance to children can be found on websites such as the National Financial Educators Council website and the Jump$tart.Org website.

What tips and tricks have you used to teach children about personal finance?

When to Start Your Own Business

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Over the course of a lifetime, many people have one or two great ideas. But the distance between a great idea and a great business is a very large one. So, how do you know when your idea is just a good idea, and when your idea is your next entrepreneurial business? Here are five questions to ask yourself before taking the plunge:

Do other people think it is a good idea? Start talking up your idea. Do people stop what they’re doing and seem interested? Is this meeting a need that a number of people have? While a better gauge would be a full market survey, you can get a decent idea of your brainstorming efforts by pitching it to the people around you.

Would other people pay money for this item? More importantly, is your idea something that people would pay money for.? Or, is it something interesting enough to draw enough attention that advertisers would get behind it? Even if something is a good idea, the unfortunate truth is that to start your own business you need to be able to profit from it. Make sure there is a need and a want for your product before you take that leap.

Do you have 8-12 months of savings and a reasonable level of financial security? In the best case scenario, your idea will get attention and start to make sales. But even if you meet your sales goals, that’s no guarantee that you will turn a profit because of your initial investment! Make sure that you have eight to twelve months of savings and a general feeling of financial security (for example, perhaps a spouse who works full time or a fully-funded retirement account) before you risk your future on starting your own business.

Do you have good credit? While it is commendable to begin a business without the help of a bank loan, most entrepreneurs need seed funding, or alternative funding, to start their business. So, you need to make sure that your credit score is good enough to warrant a bank’s trust. This means a long history of paying your bills on time and managing your credit wisely.

Do you need a lot of sleep? This question is a little tongue-in-cheek, but it is a fact that entrepreneurs and risk-takers end up working overtime on their companies. Sometimes  that means performing so many roles in a given day that you end up with a schedule more like twelve hours per day than the standard eight hours per day. Be sure that you are willing to make the sacrifice of time to get your business off the ground. Because nothing is worse than working late nights and early mornings on something that you are not passionate about!

Are you ready to start your own business? Share your story below!

Rein in your finances and control your credit card debt – Tips for young adults

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This entry was posted in Bills & Income and tagged , , by bdelinsky.

Most credit card companies market their products and services heavily in the college campuses with the hope of targeting the vulnerable students. Students are often the best targets for all credit card companies as they make the blunders of giving up to the multiple credit card offers and this is the reason behind the soaring student credit card debt level. The financial experts usually advise the young adults to rein in their finances so that they don’t incur debt while they’re already living on fixed income. Although getting a credit card and using it wisely might be a good idea for the college students to establish credit history, but very few students are actually able to do so. They end up misusing their credit cards and amassing a huge amount of debt that can only be repaid through the professional companies and this is the way in which they tarnish their credit score. Here are some financial tips for the young adults that can help you exercise control over your debts.

  • Don’t succumb to the temptation of taking multiple cards: The biggest blunder that is committed by the students is to succumb to the temptation of handling multiple credit cards. With the present economic state within the nation, it is rather foolishness to carry multiple cards and use it while shopping. Since you’re a student and you’re living on fixed income, don’t make the mistake of choosing all the credit card offers that arrive at your mailbox.
  • Credit cards are not grant money: Using your credit cards while shopping is not the way to adopt in this economy. Remember that credit cards don’t offer grant money that need not be repaid. They’re more like loans that have to be repaid with the interest rates and the penalty fees. Therefore, incurring debt on multiple credit cards will mean incurring huge amount of balance and when you fail to repay the balance, you start incurring debt. The interest rates will also rise due to late payments and this should strictly be avoided.
  • Purposely set a low credit limit: You should purposely set a low credit limit so that you’re not bound to spend more and incur hefty balance on your credit cards. Although you might find it difficult to restrict yourself from spending, this should be a habit that you have to adopt in order to avoid incurring huge amount of debt.
  • Get immediate help when you face debt: Even after following the above mentioned steps, if you still incur debt, you should immediately get debt help from the professionals. You can get help from a credit counseling agency where the credit counselor will offer you expert help with your debts. They will help you with a budget and effective personal finance management techniques through which you might help yourself recover from the financial plight.

Therefore, being a young adult, you’re even more responsible to manage your finances effectively so that you don’t hurt your credit score. Protect your credit score so that you don’t get denied by the lenders in the near future. Your insurance lenders, employers, loan lending institutions and student loan lenders will all check your score before transacting with you. In order to crack the best deal, take care of your finances.

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