Wednesday 20 February 2013

Faire de la marche des sociétés émettrices de cartes de crédit à votre rythme



Il jamais semble comme sociétés de carte de crédit semblent traiter leurs clients comme des esclaves sous contrat ? Les politiques que ces sociétés de crédit utilisent pour gérer vos comptes sont au mieux sans scrupules et, au pire, en bas à droite scandaleux et vol à main armée. Si aucune autre industrie a essayé de tromper leurs clients plus d'argent, comme les compagnies de carte de crédit font avec succès tous les jours de l'année, ils seraient étudiés et emprisonnés avec une vengeance. Mais notre gouvernement ne fait pas que pour les compagnies de carte de crédit ont littéralement une licence pour voler.




La façon dont ces entreprises de gérer vos comptes a beaucoup à voir avec pourquoi votre dette de carte de crédit est si difficile de s'en débarrasser. Lorsque vous devez quelques milliers de dollars à une société de carte de crédit et qu'ils sont constamment vous gifler avec frais, jack votre taux d'intérêt et ajout de frais à votre compte pour les « cotisations » et des choses fausses comme cela, il devient évident que, en plus de la dette, les transporteurs de la dette sont l'ennemi, pas votre ami en essayant de descendre de votre dette.




Vous pouvez les mettre sur avis et rendre la marche à votre rythme, mais vous allez avoir à « être le patron » pour que cela se produise. Mais si vous obtenez des dizaines d'offres de carte de crédit et peut-être une demi-douzaine des cartes de crédit de comptes déjà ouverte, vous pouvez avoir la souplesse nécessaire pour les mettre sur l'avis que leur carte de crédit ont un travail de vous servir, ne pas vous servir.




Pour faire de ces arrogants entreprises face à la musique, ils doivent savoir qu'ils peuvent être déclenchés. Afin de les mettre sur avis, tout d'abord s'assurer que vous savez ce qu'ils sont à. Obtenez un an d'une valeur de déclarations et de suivre les frais supplémentaires, les cotisations syndicales et chaque fois qu'ils ont surélevé leurs taux d'intérêt sur vous.




Puis armé avec que l'information, les appeler et demander à parler à quelqu'un qui peut apporter des modifications à votre compte. Si le greffier ne veut pas jouer la balle, de démarrer le processus de fermeture du compte. Qui recevront leur avis. Vous pouvez avoir fait fermer le compte, mais ne manquez pas la chance de faire des commentaires lorsqu'ils viennent à la partie du processus où ils demandent pourquoi vous clôturez le compte.




C'est où vous obtenez votre salifères. Vous pouvez laisser la raison, quelque chose comme ça. « Je suis clôture le compte parce que vous imposent des frais déraisonnables et droits d'adhésion et je veux le taux d'intérêt a chuté à un certain taux et plafonnés ». Qui auront une certaine attention. Vous allez obtenir tout de suite à un gestionnaire ou un vous appellera. Être préparé pour un tas d'excuses bancales et ne vous disputez pas. Ils peuvent dire qu'ils soulevé votre taux d'intérêt parce que vous étiez fin sur un paiement, c'est donc une peine. OK fine. Alors est une bonne réponse, « j'ai une politique de ne pas vous payer pour le travail que vous ne le faites pas. Donc ma politique dit que je supprimer le compte. » Tant que vous restez sur votre force, il n'y a pas de réponse qu'ils peuvent donner.




L'arme secrète que vous connaissez et qu'ils ne veulent pas que vous sachiez est que vous êtes un client de prime. Les compagnies de carte de crédit a savoir il y a un nombre limité de personnes qui peuvent transporter une dette et effectuer les paiements. Et chaque fois qu'ils perdent un client, cette piscine de victimes ou de clients, descend. Et ne pas nous laisser berner par tout discours qu'ils n'ont aucun effet de levier pour changer les règles du jeu. Ils peuvent et ils le feront. Vous pouvez exiger des ils de remboursement pour vous toutes les charges imposées depuis l'année dernière. Ils peuvent crier que vous soient tous déraisonnable qu'ils veulent. Vous êtes dans votre droit de répondre, « il est déraisonnable de vous imposer des amendes et des frais sur mon compte sans préavis et pour aucune valeur supplémentaire ou de travail que vous faites. Son usure et je suis dans mon droit de fermer ce compte et de déposer une plainte avec le Better Business Bureau et avec l'US Attorney général. »




Ce n'est pas juste effrayantes tactiques. Il s'agit de mots, les compagnies de carte de crédit vivent dans la peur de l'audience. Utilisez les outils que vous avez et mettre les compagnies de carte de crédit sur les avis qu'ils sont de marcher à votre rythme ou, pour reprendre un slogan de Donald Trump, « vous êtes licencié ».


Sunday 17 February 2013

Getting Everybody Into the Act




In most families, there is one person whose job it is to take care of the family budget. It usually is dad or mom and it is that adult’s job to make sure all the bills are paid and that the family budget is healthy so the family can afford the good things everyone needs to live a comfortable life. This is an important job because no family can continue to function without a viable and realistic budget. Many have said that if a lot of companies or even our country were to be run with the same sense of reality and making the books balance that the average mom uses, we would all be better off.





The only problem with this system is sometimes its easy to look at the family budget as “mom’s problem” or the problem of whoever it is that takes care of paying the bills. So when a serious problem comes up like an explosion of credit card bills, mom can get pretty overwhelmed especially if there is no way to curb credit card spending so there can always be enough on hand to pay those bills off.





This is where taking on the challenge of beating high credit card debt has to be everybody’s job. For starters, everyone needs to know the limits on spending. It does no good if the person who does the budget knows exactly how much everyone can spend on food, entertainment and new things but nobody else follows those rules. If the other spouse and the kids are out on the town on a spending spree, that is going to overwhelm the budget.





So if that is one of the sources of credit card abuse in your family, its time for the family to get together and have a discussion. Each member of the family must understand that there is such a thing as fiscal responsibility and if credit card abuse is done by any one member of the family, the privilege of that credit card is going to be taken away.





But the family unit can really become a powerful force for change when it comes to taking on a mountain sized credit card debt. It will take some skill to present the challenge to the family that defeating this foe must be a family job and everybody has to get into the act. But if you do get everybody in on the challenge and take it on as a big adventure, not only will it bring about a lot of family unity, it can be a lot of fun too.





The attack plan must be seen as just that, an aggressive attack on the credit card problem that can threaten the family’s financial safety. That is cutting costs. Have everyone in the family come up with one way to save money each week. It might be as simple as turning off their lights before leaving for school or as ambitious as giving up cable TV or cutting in half the amount of times they have to go to the movies. If each person can contribute one big cost savings a week, that sense of accomplishment and self esteem for pitching in to win this war with credit card debt will pay off.





In the same way, if each member can think of ways to increase income, that can really help the budget out. It might mean the kids picking up more chores so dad and mom can work second jobs for a little while. It might even mean that the kids will do some chores or take part time jobs and add a little to the budget from what they make. But whatever the contribution, if everybody gets into the act, the family can win against credit card debt. And that is a worthwhile family project.


Thursday 14 February 2013

Getting a Premium Interest Rate




The challenge of tackling a massive credit card debt can seem almost impossible at times. When you look at the many bills rushing in each month and then you start going through that credit card bill, the idea of actually starting to pay that bill down can be overwhelming. And part of the reason that uphill battle to win over debt seems so hard is those almost ridiculously high interest rates credit card companies are allowed to charge.





If you have a credit card debt in the thousands of dollars and that interest rate can get above 15%, that is going to mean that a large portion of your monthly payment is going to go toward the interest. And what that means is that your balance will go down slowly which is very discouraging especially if you are also using the credit card so your balance continues to go up and up and up.





How often have you looked at the average interest rate that the credit card companies are charging you and thought, “I sure wish there was some way I could but that interest rate in half or less”? If you could just get that interest rate down under 10% or even better, that step alone would help you put more of the payment money you pay out each month toward reducing the debt. And if that rate could be locked in so it isn’t constantly being jacked up by the credit card company, then you have a real path toward paying off what you owe once and for all.





There may be a way to actually get a credit card rate you can live with from the credit cards services you already are working with. It goes back to that old advice that your mom or dad might have given that goes – “You don’t know until you ask.” That’s right it is very likely that if you call the credit card company and explain to them the situation, they might have the resources to negotiate a rate with you that you can live with and offer you the same services a credit consolidation company would offer.





It’s good to take a moment and look at the world through the eyes of the credit card company. They are in business to keep good customers who pay their bills. For credit card company, the worst kind of customer is one who is constantly late on their payments or doesn’t pay at all so they have to go through the expense of nagging those customers for the money. And customers who have the resources to dump them because their rates are too high are also a big threat to their livelihood because they depend on you needing them and being willing to pay those interest rates and fees.





So rather than see you dump them or take your debt elsewhere like to a credit consolation service or a second mortgage, its better business for the credit card company to cut your rate and continue to make some money off of your debt. Competition is just as intense for the good customers in the credit card world as it is in any other business. So if you pay your bills and are the kind of customer these companies like, you have a bit of leverage with them that you may not have known you had.





Make sure when you call the credit card company to renegotiate your rate that you talk to someone who can actually change things. And bring some clout with you. Be prepared to cancel your credit cards or move your debt to another card or credit service. If you let that credit card company know you are unhappy because of the rate, they will have some kind of program to keep your business. They aren’t going to tell you about it but its there. And if you are persistent and want it bad enough, you can get the credit card companies to play ball your way and give you a premium interest rate you can live with.


Tuesday 12 February 2013

Hitting the 401K




There is sometimes a sense of panic that sets in when you see your credit card bills begin to spiral out of control. When you are fairly new to that sense of being trapped by credit, you may turn to a second mortgage. But then if the credit card bills continue to grow and grow, as they are designed to do, you suddenly realize you have put your home on the line and it might now be in danger if you default on those bills.





This is when that mountain of debt can begin to knock on the door of your last remaining resources to try to fight back and you have to make some important decisions. And one is whether it would be a good idea to cash in your retirement money or borrow on your 401K to get enough money to try to bring down your debt levels. So deciding whether this is a good idea is a huge gamble because if you win, you could eliminate debt entirely. But if you lose, there goes your protection for your senior years and maybe the little nest egg you wanted to pass along to the kids as an inheritance.





Hitting the 401K to pay off your credit card debt is a bad idea for a lot of reasons. The most obvious reason is that your retirement money is tax deferred so when you put it into that account, you didn’t pay any taxes on it. You don’t have to pay taxes on it until you take it out. On top of that, the money is intended to stay in reserve until you hit retirement age so in a lot of cases, if you take it out early, there is a big penalty you have to pay.





So right away if you cash out your retirement funds to pay down or pay off your credit card debt, you are losing a lot of money to those penalties and taxes. You might want to calculate how much that penalty is going to be compared to the interest you might save because it’s a big pay off just to get to those funds.





The prevailing logic of hitting the 401k is that in theory you will save more money from the interest than you would make from the investment. But there is some solid logic for leaving those retirement funds right where hey are. For one thing, debt will come and go but retirement funds have a tendency to going away and never coming back. Once you cash out those retirement funds and give the money over to credit card debt, your retirement is gone. But if you find ways to take care of that credit card debt and leave your retirement alone, it is there for you and you have that sense of ownership that the debt has not taken everything from you.





One possible alterative is to borrow against your 401K and use it as collateral. Now in this case you are still just swapping out debt for debt. But secured debt is often easier to get a favorable interest rate and you can cap it so the rate doesn’t float around like credit card debt. So there is some rational for going that route. But if that is an option, you are still putting a very important part of your financial future on the line so tread carefully.


Friday 8 February 2013

Divorce and Credit Card Debt




When a marriage comes to an end, it’s always a tragedy. Of course the rending of the family unit and the difficulty for the kids is the hardest thing about separating at divorce. But the difficulty of separating one house into two can be difficult and tedious to say the least. You have to go from one checking account to two, two homes instead of one and separate accounts for everything from credit cards to utilities.





The is an additional overhead to how to handle a divorce situation if in addition to splitting your assets, credit card debt that may have been a part of the shared family financial picture also must be split up. To the credit card company, that family credit card is the property of that shared entity which was the marriage. So when the union splits up, the transition from a financial point of view of your accounts separating is not over night.





So one of the many issues to be discussed and a plan made for is how to separate that credit card debt. Whoever continues to hold the family accounts will continue to get those bills and be expected to pay them. Now the least preferable way to handle the debt is to build the payments into any forced settlement agreement such as child support. So at the time the divorce is final, the amount of the debt and the payments that must be made could be calculated and half of that put into the amount that the income generating partner must provide.





But that leaves the management of those credit card debts to one partner and the other one just has to pay a set amount. And if the credit cards get used by either partner, that legal amount would have to constantly be changed and that would prove to be a constant headache of administration.





If the divorce is a shared responsibility so each spouse can work with the other to adjust the financial picture in an advantageous way, then how to separate the credit card debt should be part of that planning. Part of that planning is how to use shared assets to pay down that debt. You may have a home that will be sold, retirement accounts or other assets that were set aside for the future of the marriage. Before you sell those things, close those accounts and distribute the funds, look at using the outcome to retire that shared debt.





But it’s likely some of that debt load will live on past the divorce. In those cases splitting into two individual accounts may be the way to go. In that way, if the family was carrying $10,000 in debt, if each marriage partner walks away with $5000 of the debt, that is at least fair and equitable and how each individual handles that debt is up to them.





There are two ways you can go about splitting the credit card debt. If the debt is with a carrier with whom you can negotiate and conduct a dialog, getting a meeting or having a conference call with the managers there would be productive. The credit card company would far rather negotiate with you how to handle this debt load then deal with it chaotically after the fact. So they may be willing to set up separate individual accounts and split the debt for you.





But you can always use the method many of us have used to manage credit card debt up until now. Each of you can set up some new separate credit card accounts. You no doubt have dozens of credit card offers coming in that you can use to kick off this process. Almost always part of the set up offers for these accounts are balance transfers. So if you take out individual accounts and use the balance transfers to move each partners shared part of the debt to those accounts, that would be a clean way to split the debt up.





There may be adjustments to be made to the 50-50 split idea based on who is the primary bread winner and maybe who ran up the debt and on what. But by negotiating the terms of how you are going to separate the credit card debt when you separate the marriage, that will be one more than that you are handling in a mature and responsible manner in the middle of a very tough situation.


Thursday 7 February 2013

La cellule de la prison de la dette de carte de crédit



Il y a une chose que ce que les experts appellent « la résolution des problèmes de processus ». Il s'agit d'une méthode systématique pour résoudre les problèmes que vous utilisez toujours d'aller au point de départ où le problème est le point de fin où le problème est résolu. Il y a six étapes de base pour la résolution des problèmes de processus et aucun d'eux ne peut être ignorée. Ils sont...




1. Reconnaître le problème


2. Définir le problème


3. Proposer des solutions


4. Identifier les risques et les coûts


5. Sélectionnez la meilleure solution


6. Mise en œuvre de la solution.




Ce processus fonctionne toujours parce qu'il n'y a pas de place pour les émotions, les excuses ou les atermoiements. Vous l'étape de la première phase du dernier en mode rapide, et le problème est résolu.




Nombre de fois quand il s'agit de la dette de carte de crédit, personnes n'aiment à reconnaître le problème. 12 Programmes d'étape comme les Alcooliques anonymes, la première étape est toujours juste de reconnaître que vous avez un problème. Et c'est très souvent le plus grand obstacle pour une personne qui est de voir leur dette de carte de crédit commencent à prendre au cours de leur vie.




Les compagnies de carte de crédit sont sans aide. Ils n'aiment rien de plus qu'à faire tout que leur possible pour vous faire engager plus de dette. Il n'est pas nécessairement qu'ils sont mauvais mais c'est comment ils font une vie. L'argent de l'intérêt que vous payez votre dette de carte de crédit va payer pour les maisons, les repas, les études Collège et voitures de fantaisie de nombreux dirigeants d'entreprise de carte de crédit. Qui seul devrait faire vous souhaitez débrancher sur ce grand arnaque appelée dette de carte de crédit.




Appelons un chat un chat. Dette de carte de crédit est un prêt que vous n'avez pas à remplir toute paperasserie plus que juste pour obtenir la carte. Une fois que vous l'avez, les compagnies de carte de crédit sont ravis de jack jusqu'à votre limite de crédit où vous pouvez acheter de plus en plus et pendant tout ce temps, plus que votre taux d'intérêt rampe de trop. Avant longtemps, au niveau de la dette est énorme et que vous leur envoyez des centaines de dollars et une grande partie de ce paiement est l'intérêt.




Intérêt est l'argent qui n'est pas acheter quoi que ce soit. C'est d'argent à que la compagnie de carte de crédit obtient pour rien plus de logement de votre dette. Si nous pourrions perspective sur la dette de carte de crédit, nous verrions qu'il n'y a aucune explication rationnelle pourquoi une carte de crédit peuvent facturer 5 % et un autre intérêt de 25 % une accusation. Les compagnies de carte de crédit nous ne devons aucune explication de ce qui se passe cet argent.




Ce n'est pas comme lorsque vous achetez une miche de pain qui peut coûter un dollar pour un type de pain, mais trois dollars pour un autre type de pain. Dans ces cas, vous pouvez facilement voir que le pain à un prix plus élevé est de meilleure qualité, meilleur goût ou est plus nutritif que le pain à bon marché. Littéralement, vous obtenez plus pour votre argent. Quand une compagnie de carte de crédit vous facture un taux d'intérêt supérieur, il n'y a aucune augmentation de la valeur de ce qu'ils vous donnent. Ils ne donnent rien. Si une compagnie de carte de crédit augmente votre taux d'intérêt de 10 % à 20 %, vous ne soyez pas deux fois plus bon service ou tout type de produit pour cet argent supplémentaire qui sont hors de votre produit.




Alors comment peuvent ils faire avec elle ? Ils le font parce qu'ils peuvent sortir avec elle et il n'y a aucune indication que tout organisme gouvernemental va les faire arrêter. Ils s'enfuir avec elle parce que nous ne s'indigner et leur chute lorsqu'ils nous tromper comme ça. Et ils s'en tirer avec elle parce que la dette de carte de crédit est une cellule de prison, et nous ne pouvons pas sortir.




Le but de cette discussion est de nous rendre à la première étape de la procédure de résolution de problème. C'est à nous prendre conscience que nous avons eu et vous faire bonne et scandalisés. Si vous êtes scandalisé que vous avez un problème, alors vous pouvez passer à l'étape deux et il y a et quatre et recherchez une solution et puis faire quel que soit qu'il faut pour réaliser cette solution. Et quand vous le faites, vous êtes bien sur votre façon de voit ouvrir la porte de la cellule de la prison de la dette de carte de crédit et de walking away, un homme libre ou une femme, j'espère que jamais d'aller dans cette prison de nouveau.


Sunday 3 February 2013

Inside Out Credit Card Management




When the economy or personal issues and problems result in a high credit card debt, we often find our debt spread over three or four or more cards. So you may have a Visa, several MasterCards, a Discover card and a Capital One card and maybe many more each carrying several thousands of dollars of debt. The result is an ugly parade of bills from each company each needing a minimum payment that pays the interest and takes just a small amount off of your debt.





If it seems that the debt mountain never seems to go down, that’s not an illusion. The situation is not designed to help you get that debt down. It’s a cruel mixed message the credit industry sends us because if you have high credit card debt, your credit rating goes down. But even if you have too much debt, the credit card companies just keep raising your credit ceiling and sending more and more credit card offers to lure you into more debt.





The instinct is to keep taking out more accounts and transferring money to those deceptive zero percent offers that expire in a matter of months and leave you with yet another bill to pay that only makes managing that debt even more impossible. If you do get a little money ahead, the instinct is also to pay more down on the debts that have the highest interest rates to try to slow the erosion of your finances due to high rates.





But there is another approach to handling this debt that goes completely opposite your instincts and gives more control to you to begin seeing headway against those debts. But to use this approach, you will have to think with your head, not your emotions and not panic but think about how to get as much principle paid down as possible. This inside out approach to paying down your credit cards is simple and gives you a roadmap to freedom from debt.





First of all, stop taking out more accounts. That only gives another credit card company access to your money. They can charge you membership fees and try to lure you with credit insurance. If you have three or more credit resources already, that’s plenty.





Second, use short term offers wisely. If one of your existing accounts offers you a zero percent deal for a few months, take it but transfer a small amount to that account. Then you can focus on paying off that transferred amount and see 100% of your payment go against principle which is the fastest way out of debt.





Third, pick a card and pay it off. It might be the card with the lowest balance which is one you might give the least to so you can respond to the higher level debts. But if you pay that card off, that is one less bill coming in each month and it gives you a great feeling to know you are slowly killing off the monster of credit card debt one card at time.





That brings us to the cornerstone of the inside out method. Instead of paying on the card with the highest interest rate, pay them the minimum payment and put your excess funds against the cards with the lowest rate. In this way you are getting the most bang for your buck with the small amount of extra funds you may have to pay on the debt. That debt will go down more quickly and then you can attack the bigger accounts and begin to whittle away at them too. And by using a smart approach to the credit card debt you have, you take control of the problem and put it on a program to go away. And that will be the greatest feeling of them all.