Chill Maadi

When facing home foreclosure, many debtors feel like they are out of options and turn to a bankruptcy filing. Although a bankruptcy filing prevents home foreclosure, it is not the best solution. There are several methods you can attempt before resorting to bankruptcy filings in order to protect from foreclosure.

The first path that you should always try is dealing with the creditors directly to figure out a payment plan. Although creating a new payment plan may result in expensive payments for the short term, that is better than foreclosure. If you have repaired your financial situation but are still facing foreclosure, this may work for you – you can work with the creditors to pay in the short run to protect your home, and then go back to the prearranged payment plan in the future.

If you cannot create a new payment plan, then you can still use the property to try to pay without losing the home. There are several types of deals you can make with a creditor – for instance, you could try to modify the mortgage, sell the property to a third party or the creditor directly at foreclosure in order to pay off the debt, get a second mortgage to pay off the current debt, or buy it back from foreclosure yourself. However, all of these plans involve negotiations with a foreclosure expert and creditors, and you must be certain that this is the right path for you. Often, homeowners do not see that stopping foreclosure is just a short-term fix to a long-term problem – that they cannot afford that house – and spend a lot of money preventing foreclosure rather than moving to a more economical house.

However, filing for bankruptcy will prevent home foreclosure. This can be good for two reasons – it buys you more time in order to try to stop foreclosure, or if you actually continue through with the bankruptcy process, then it will protect your house and certain other assets from being taken. However, it will come at the usual cost of bankruptcy and will be on your credit report for the next seven to ten years.

Although it is important for you to talk to a foreclosure expert before making any decision, it is good to know that there are plenty of possibilities out there to protect your home from foreclosure. You must try to determine which path is best for you in your situation and work to try to prevent foreclosure.

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Note: Bankruptcy can result in a stay from foreclosure. Homeowners lose that stay once they leave bankruptcy protection.

Your credit report may look like a tangled mess of account information, but it is actually an orderly and efficient way of presenting information. It may be too efficient, since most people have no idea how to read a credit report.

What compounds the problem is that credit reports all look different. Not only are there three main consumer credit bureaus, but depending on which credit report product you order, your report may look different than others.

That being said, you may want to consider where you obtain your credit report so that you can actually understand what you are reading. If you happen to know someone who works for a company that can pull one for you, it might be tempting to ask them to pull one for you. However, doing so is ill-advised, since those hard credit pulls can lower your credit scores. The reports that lenders pull are also the least consumer friendly reports, as they are intended only for professionals used to dealing with those reports.

Instead, consider getting a consumer product that is meant for the average Joe. The reports available through the Annual Credit Report Service are reasonable enough and they are free. My particular favorite are the ones available through Fair Isaac Corporation. For me, it is worth it to pay a few bucks twice a year to obtain actual FICO credit scores based on the information held at each credit bureau. Additionally, the information is organized very well with simple analysis provided for the most important aspects of the reports.

It compares details from my credit reports to those of FICO High Achievers, those who are maximizing their scores based on characteristics of each category. It really is helpful to see how you compare to those with high scores so that you know what actions to take in the future.

There are some key items that you want to look for when reading your credit report. First, look for any negative information that you might want to contest. Negative information may show up as late payments, often reflecting a 30, 60, 90 etc that communicates a 30 day, 60 day or 90 day delinquency. Pay attention to charge-offs, since that can cause the debt to be listed again through a collection agency. Sometimes the collection agency record lists the referring creditor. Other times, you may need to compare the balances to match them up.

The date of last activity is important in terms of closed accounts. Most negative information drops off after 7 years. Positive accounts can remain for 10 years.

The information is organized in a cookie cutter approach, with information on each account listed in the same format. Harder to read credit reports show the order of information prior to the accounts listed, but there is no label within the account record. Therefore, you really have to focus to make sure you know what the amount in line 2 represents.

If you find that you are lost, consider contacting a credit counseling organization to request a credit report review. Most agencies charge less than $25, and many are able to provide the service for free.

720 is an excellent credit score. Excellent credit scores are what everyone would like to have, but may not know how to go about achieving that goal.

The first thing that you must do to improve your credit score is pay all bills when they are due or earlier. Even being only a day late can lower your score. Even if you have made mistakes in the past and do not have an excellent score now, paying everything on time from now on can help to raise your score.

A variety of credit is much better than too much of one and none of another. For example eight credit cards is a lot, and should be reduced to a more reasonable number, like two or three. A couple of credit cards, a car loan and a house mortgage looks much better in your credit file than just having the credit cards.

Keep your credit card balances low. It is not a good idea to charge all your credit cards up to the limit. Try to keep them low so you always show available credit on your reports. Having them high will lower your credit score. If you want to purchase something on credit that may hurt your score, it’s a good idea to rethink it and decide if you really need it.

The length of your credit history is an important part of your score as well. It may take time to have your score go from good to excellent, but keep paying your bills on time, keep your revolving credit line balances low and eventually you will see your score go from very good to excellent.

Having an excellent credit score will help you in the future, you will get much better interest rates when you go for a mortgage, it will be easier to get car loans. Life is a lot easier with an excellent credit score. You will be glad that you put in the effort to makes you excellent.

It’s hard being an annuity agent today. With the recent economic difficulties, almost everyone is struggling to become financially secured. Businessmen think of some innovative ways to improve their sales, whether changing management strategies or creating some new products. If you are a new agent, finding clients can be tough. It seems like most of them don’t want to be part from their money, they are afraid to start an investment because they are afraid of losing it and they even forget the word trust. So, as an agent, how are you going to address this issue? Are you familiar with annuity appointments? This might help you out.

There can be ways to help you make good sales despite of the situation. There are parties out there that would cater your need. They are asking a part of your money once you succeed in luring clients to buy settlements but not that big. One of the most popular answers to your problem is the use of annuity appointments.

Annuity appointments are one-on-one appointments by agents to their prospect clients, apparently to transact about selling an annuity. This sales strategy is very ideal for agents who desperately need clients and telemarketing companies really try their best to site prospects.

The annuity appointments process begins when a postcard is being sent to the prospect client. The prospect then sends back his reply and that is the time for the telemarketers to start planning for the appointment. The prospective “customers” will often turn out to be the aged or people who are still earning and they don’t need or desire to buy.

Annuity appointments are simple ways that enables annuity agents to do a lot of work, expecting for a little reward or no reward at all. Then, the agent will typically have to spend hundreds, if not thousands or dollars in the “marketing” companies just to complete the appointments. So in the end, the annuity agents will be losing both, money and time. Thus, annuity appointment is both helpful and harmful.

There are points in life wherein we can experience severe financial problems and it seems like we can’t do anything to solve it. Although it is made known that there can be situations like this, but what if we are not prepared? This is the main rationale behind getting financial security insurance. Security in love is through marriage, security in homes using locks and alarms and financial security for life through guaranteed stream of income or in sell annuity.

We can do things to make our life financially secured through getting insurances and pensions but we can also secure more money at hand through properties selling and investments such as annuity. To sell annuity rights is a bit of a difficult process and it needs to be well planned and decided. If you think you are not ready yet to give up with your annuity, then don’t force yourself once transferred, it will never be yours again unless the buyer sells it back to you but this is barely possible.

If we desire to have a stable income for life, we humans also desire for a much more return investment. This is why, some take the risk to sell annuity for they expect a huge amount of lump sum money whenever successful. Thus, annuity cash out is done for a higher rate return and to solve financial problems.

However, there are also instances that to sell annuity wouldn’t work or wouldn’t help that big, particularly to urgent need of money. Why is that so? Well, annuity selling somehow takes some time before the process ends so if your liquidity problem is kind of urgent, then selling may not be the best thing you can do.

In addition, can you tell that it is the right time to sell your annuity in the market? If you gain more, then better but what if you lose a considerable amount? Sell annuity issues can be tough, so it is always advised to seek professional help first so you will be getting the most from your money’s worth.

If you don’t put your budget in its place, pretty soon, it will be looking down its pointy nose at you, reminding you how undeveloped your impulse control is, how you’ll never amount to anything, you’ll always be in debt . . .  If that’s not enough to make a person give up, I don’t know what is!

Do you find yourself spending time with the budget Nazi in your head?  Do you find yourself splurging and rebelling against its authoritarian austerity?  Maybe it’s time to leave the relationship!

I prefer to spend my time with a very different sort of budget. One that doesn’t make me feel like some kind of loser every time I consult it.  I’m not a financial guru at all–which is why I know that my budget strategy can work for anyone! If I can do it, so can you. Here’s how:

Make your budget at the END of the month! This way, your budget is just an honest friend here to tell you the truth about the way you spend your money. You’re making observations, not judgments.  Once you have all the information, you’ll be in a position to make decisions based on your preferences.

Take an honest look and DON’T beat yourself up! You’re just exploring here, learning something about yourself and your spending.  Think of it as an anthropology  or psychology project.  What can you learn about yourself?  Some fascinating things I learned about our spending habits by having an end of month budget:

• 3 years ago I noticed that DH and I spent about $100 a month or $1200 a year having coffee out.
• 2 years ago, I discovered that when DH and I went to the nearby grocery store for one item we’d forgotten in our monthly shop, it always cost us a minimum of $15, no matter how small and insignificant the forgotten item was!
• This fall, we discovered that we spent an average of 65-70 euros a month on wine.

Using information to recognize your options and make decisions: When we noticed that our coffee expenses were the equivalent to a plane ticket to Europe, we decided we preferred to drink our coffee at home or bring a thermos to a park bench.  We noted quickly that we felt equally satisfied–if not MORE satisfied–with our decision to move to cheaper coffee and more trips home for DH (when we lived in the States).

As for the grocery stops for forgotten items?  We realized that we preferred to save money by making a more careful list in advance.  Extra grocery trips and impulse buys were not making us happier people!

As for the wine budget–it may seem extravagant, but we decided to keep it.

Why? Because we don’t eat out at restaurants and hardly ever go out for drinks or coffee.  We enjoy wine-tasting on the weekends after a nice hike and having a glass of wine at home with diner.  And since we know exactly how much we spend each month, we know we can afford it!

See your budget as a guideline to make you happier: If you look at your budget and tell yourself, “Hey, next month, I bet I’d be just as happy with fewer trips to the grocery store or having coffee at home!” It’s a lot easier to follow than telling yourself, “OK, next month, grocery expenses under $200 or BUST!”

The later technique kind of reminds me of the whole dynamic of going on a strict and depriving diet–it usually results in misery, crankiness and binging later.  Doing something because you want to is much easier to maintain than doing something because you’ll be a no-good spending disaster with no self-control if you don’t.

What about your budget technique? Do you use a budget?  Do you have budget-related guilt?  Do you have budget goals?