Month: March 2015

Utility bills can be a drag, but trying to save on bills by using less electricity, water, or gas can be inconvenient and discouraging—it takes a lot of willpower to consistently keep your home ten degrees colder than you like it all winter long when you know sweet warmth is just a dial’s turn away. Here are some steps you can take now that will help you save on bills in the long run without sacrificing comfort.

One of the most important things you can do to save on bills is to weatherize your home—that is, make its inside temperature more constant even when the outside temperature is extreme or changes a lot. There are a few ways you can do this: caulk the edges of the windows in your home and install weather strips on doors that lead to the outside. This way, it will take a lot less energy to keep your home at a comfortable temperature. You can also install thermal curtains on your windows for another layer of insulation.

You can also save a lot of money on electricity by making a few energy-smart purchases. Replacing your lightbulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs will save money in the long run; they last longer and use less energy than standard light bulbs. You can also purchase a programmable thermostat—one that can be set to automatically turn off at certain times of the day—so that you don’t waste energy running your heater or air conditioning when nobody’s home, or when everyone is sleeping.

It’s true that these projects aren’t inexpensive, but they have consistently shown to save households significant amounts of money in the long run. Saving up for a bit to take just one of these steps can prove to go a long way towards lowering your monthly bills.

If you’re looking to save even more, there are some other things to consider as well. Ask your employer if you can get a discount on your cell phone bill, or consider downgrading your cable package (or eliminating it altogether) and relying more on NetFlix or other activities entirely. You can even save some money on gas by filling up on Wednesdays, when prices tend to be lowest. Be creative, and don’t be afraid to spend some money now if it will help you save on bills later—your home is an investment, and you should treat it that way.

While car insurance companies differ greatly in their quality of service, their stated benefits are roughly comparable for similar levels of coverage. Therefore, when looking for a certain level of coverage, it can pay to shop around for the cheapest car insurance as long as you do not sacrifice quality of service.

Some brokers or websites provide ratings of insurance companies while others allow for comparison quotes. These generally work by partnering with 3 or more insurance companies for the purpose of allowing a potential customer to choose from multiple quotes.

This approach can be effective, but understand that you are still limited in choice to the partners of that service. There may be many other car insurance companies that provide the same or better service, and many may carry cheaper premiums.

When you are shopping around, consider the reputation of the company. Look for red flags, such as a low Better Business Bureau rating or regulatory action against the company by your state’s Department of Insurance.

Also, when choosing between different companies, make sure that you are comparing similar policies with matching levels of coverage. Look for anomalies that can make a cheap car insurance quote seem like a great deal. There may be missing levels of coverage that you were not aware of that might come back to haunt you later on.

One of the best approaches is indeed contacting individual companies directly to request a quote. This can often be done online in just a few minutes. Expect them to review your driving history and your credit report prior to issuing a quote. Most companies will also investigate a little known insurance bureau that aggregates claims made to insurance companies. If you have made claims in the past, these could increase your quote.

Online sites allow you to obtain multiple quotes for comparison. If you choose to call the company to obtain a quote, understand that the person is required to make an attempt to sell the policy to you, even if you are simply shopping around. While you may indeed choose to go with that company, you will need to make sure there are not better policies out there. Sometimes the cheapest car insurance quotes actually come from good companies, so shop around and make sure that you select the one that you are most comfortable with!

You would think that staying loyal to particular company would make way for discounts and better treatment. However, when it comes to insurance companies, loyal customers seem to be getting taken advantage of. When thought about logically, it does not make sense to for companies to offer lower rates to customers who don’t bother checking alternative auto insurance quotes. This makes it that much more important to do some policy shopping every few years since this could yield in significant savings.

Here are a few tips to make sure your car insurance company is not overcharging you:

1. Shop around for a new car insurance policy. Try to do this every two to three years and you may be surprised with what you find. However, this doesn’t mean that you are forced to switch carriers on a regular basis. If the difference between your current carrier and the new one is only a few dollars, it wouldn’t make sense to switch. Also, try to have good communication with your agent, which goes into the next point.

2. It’s important to find a good agent. It’s been said that independent insurance agents are more likely to value loyalty and be more engaging than agents that are tied to a specific company. Agents are more than just middlemen; they are people who actually care about customer loyalty. They don’t want the company they represent to treat their client poorly.

3. It may be that loyalty isn’t even the big problem. You may just need to eliminate what you don’t need. While it’s important to do policy shopping, it’s also important to review your current policy and make sure it’s up to date. You very well may be paying for insurance that you no longer even need.

Many drivers may think they’re being loyal, but there’s also an aspect of laziness involved. They don’t want to be bothered with turning on the computer, finding a reliable insurance comparison website, and entering in basic information. However, the process only takes a few minutes and by the end, they will know if they’re being overcharged or not. Do your research and find out the information! You could end up saving a lot of money!

Are you having trouble sticking to a budget? Are you trying to save some of your paycheck each week/month but finding it impossible to do? Managing a personal budget is tough for everyone (remember, if it was easy everyone would have a fat savings account and/or no debt!) However, it IS possible if you follow these three easy guidelines.

The first rule to keep in mind is that you should never have more money going out than you have coming in. Sounds simple, but lots of people have more expenses than they have income. One contributor to this problem is “plastic” – you know, credit cards! Lots of people run up high credit card balances that they cannot pay off each month. It is okay, perhaps even a good idea, to use a credit card to help you establish good, strong credit. That means charging a small amount (what you know you can pay in full when the bill comes due) then paying off the balance. But it is not okay to make huge purchases for items that you could truly live without (like a new 50-inch flat-screen TV.)

Secondly, decide how much money you can afford to spend on non-essentials such as eating out for meals, going to movies or playing putt-putt. Once you have a specific amount in mind, set it aside and use it for those things and nothing else. When that money is gone, you can’t allow yourself to pull money from other places in your budget to spend on those non-essentials. As a side note, you should always pay yourself a little something out of every paycheck. This should not be considered a non-essential; in fact, quite the contrary. Even if all you can afford to deposit into a savings account is five dollars a week, it is better than nothing. You won’t miss small amounts and before you know it you will have a nice little chunk of change to cover emergencies or a special purchase. This will also keep you from having to use a credit card in those instances.

This brings us to the last tip, using your WILLPOWER! Again, if it were easy everyone would be doing it! It’s like eating only two cookies when you really want 10; it takes a lot of willpower. With your budget, you must exercise self-control to resist urges to spend money you don’t have or charge an item you will not be able to pay for later. This may be the most difficult task because just about anything we want can be easily had these days. Those with “good credit, bad credit, no credit” can buy cars, houses, and many other big-ticket items. Denying yourself takes amazing self-discipline but you can do it!

Personal budgeting can be an overwhelming task when you first set out to conquer it. However, following these three guidelines will help keep your budget manageable and help you maintain control over your finances. Don’t let them control YOU!

Payment history on credit accounts is the single biggest factor that contributes to your credit scores. In fact, 35% of credit scoring inputs are based on your payment histories.

Payment history measures your on-time payments for consistency. Specifically what the credit bureaus are looking for is that your account status remains in “current” status for each account. As long as your account remains in that current status, it will continue to report as a positive account.

Closing a positive account will be reflected on your credit bureau. The positive payment history will remain on your credit report for ten years, providing a boost to your credit scores. Of course, that benefit will fade over the years until the account finally drops off your credit report.

Conversely, a missed payment will plague your credit report for seven years. Missing one payment can cause your scores to drop immediately, as it signals financial distress. That negative mark will continue to reflect negatively for the next seven years, although the significance will fade over time.

One missed payment, if corrected, does not ruin your credit the way that it used to. While your score will be lower, you are not penalized quite as severely. Fair Isaac, the maker of the FICO credit scoring formulas, made that change as a part of its FICO 08 changes that were implemented in 2009. Lenders that do not subscribe to FICO 08 base their decisions on older models that do penalize more for a single delinquency.

While a thirty day delinquency is relatively minor by itself, multiple delinquencies signal a more desperate financial situation that is reflected in your rapidly dropping credit score. The more severe a delinquency, the more your credit scores will suffer.

Credit accounts generally charge off as noncollectable bad debts once they are 180 days delinquent. Specific federal rules on credit card accounts require this treatment of accounts in default.

If you are dealing with delinquencies, the biggest action that you can take to improve your scores is to restore late accounts to a current status. This is the single greatest impact that you can make to improve your damaged credit.

How Long Do Missed Payments Affect Me?

Missed payments have lasting negative impacts for seven years. That being said, they tend to affect you less over time. Consider the way that a black eye may heal. It looks worse immediately after it occurs and is clearly visible for several days. It then begins to slowly fade. After a couple of weeks, it disappears completely.

Missed payments work the same way. Your scores will still be impacted by missed payments for a full seven years. However, that impact is less substantial as the date of the missed payments gets further in the past.

Once seven years have passed, the missed payment is deleted all-together. If the account was closed or charged off, then it will disappear entirely at that time. If you were able to bring the account current, then it will revert to a positive status once the missed payment drops off.

Payment history is the single biggest factor in determining your credit scores. Taking steps to prevent or correct damage can be crucial to maintaining or rebuilding your credit. If you need help in this process, you should consider speaking with an Accredited Financial Counselor who can discuss your options with you.

When it comes down to stock market investing tips, stock market strategies are one of the most abundant and diverse concepts you will encounter. The reason that so many stock market strategies exist is because very investor buys stock shares using a method that works for them. Investment tips are nothing more than someone stating what stock shares look like they will work for their own stock market strategy. There really is no other way to go about finding a stock market strategy than to develop your own.

Every supposed guru under the sun will give you investing tips, but do those pay off more than they don’t? Most likely not, and the reason is that the stock market strategies of the ‘guru’ leave out one critical piece: timing.

Timing with the stock market entails when to buy and when to sell to gain the most advantageous (read economically pleasing) results. If you want to know how to invest stocks, then timing is really all you need to know. Why? Because every stock market strategy involves the basic ‘buy low sell high’ mentality.

Really, all the common stock market strategies consist of is a way to determine when the low and the high occur (or the reverse if shorting). If you can learn to buy stock shares when YOU feel the price is at a low point, a point where it will rebound from, then you already have one part of the puzzle.

It is important for you to learn to do this so you do not blind buy stock shares based on another person’s opinion. An opinion that is inherently risky since it is human conceived and thus prone to error. This is the very reason why you should never let investment tips weight heavily on your pocket book. Take investing tips as nothing more than a suggestion that you can use a lead to perform further due diligence upon.

Once you learn how to buy the low, you only have the other half of the puzzle to go. The only investing tip I ever adhere to is to not get greedy. If I get the inclination that I should walk away, I do. If I miss out on extra gains, so what? I still have gains. And any gain is better than a loss.

So long as you can identify when YOU feel it is right to buy, and know when you are comfortable walking away with a gain or cutting off a loss, then you have your own bonafide tailor made stock market strategy. Stick with it and hone it over time. This is what all investors do. If someone had a reliable system that gave a reliable ROI, everyone would use it. No such system exists because everyone is different and needs their own person stock market strategies.

So do yourself a favor, use investment tips as nothing more than a hint at something you may want to do further due diligence on while using your own experience to develop stock market strategies that work for you.

Here is a little bit of stock market investing advice.  When considering investment options look first to those that have fallen the hardest.  The old adage says, “buy low sell high”, and it is none sure that now.  The stock market has plummeted and since we are seeing so many companies reach new lows or all time lows then the adage would tell us that now is the time to buy.

Knowing this, beginner stock market investing would tell us that to maximize profit.  We should seek out those that have fallen the furthest and hope that they will rise equally as far as they return to the approximate level they were before the fall.

Because of the stock market crash, we are seeing many double or even triple digit stock prices become stocks under 5.00.  Assuming that these companies will not go bankrupt, and that they have a sound plan for regaining financial solidity, these companies have a very strong chance of returning to the same strength they were before the crash.  This means that in the worst case scenario, where you have a five dollars stock that was once a $10 stock you have a very realistic chance of doubling your investment by buying one is at five dollars.

However, just because a company now priced under five dollars does not make it a wise investment.  Remember that the stock market for beginners can be very difficult.  And that the best way to become good investing is to do your research and due diligence.  And this is always true, but especially true for stocks under 5.00.  So if you decide that you are going to purchase a stock that has fallen substantially be sure, and I mean absolutely sure, of your conviction that it will rise in price, and not actually go down to zero and cost you your entire investment capital.