Lots of credit card information

Published by The LowCred Guy on Tagged Building Credit, Credit cards, Tips

Many people need help, advice and information about credit. Credit cards come in many different forms and have many different benefits and downfalls. When you do a search in Google, Yahoo, or just about any search engine to find info about different credit questions you may have, what do you get?

Go on…Do a search now and see…

SPAM…..an plenty of it

There are some websites out there that genuinely want to help you, give information, or just talk about different credit and finance situation. Its hard to weed through all the spam to find good relevant info. Credit Card Rewards is one of those blogs that appear to want to give you all the info you need to know what your getting into when dealing with all the different credit cards out there. Yea I know lowcred.com if focused mainly of living life with little to no credit, and Credit Card Rewards would probably be more useful to those that have really good credit, but there is still some info there that we can benefit from. Just in a quick "once over" of the blog I found quite a few interesting and useful articles, and links to articles.

 

Tags:Building Credit, Credit cards, credit questions, Tips Sphere: Related Content

Comment now » Read more July 13th, 2007

Ive been laid off, what do I do now?

Published by The LowCred Guy on Tagged Debt Managment, Financing, Income, Tips

Sadly enough, the way the world is now, there are very few jobs that are guaranteed to always be there for you. Years ago, people got jobs and planned to work those jobs until retirement. Now a days, not so much. People may go through 3 or more of those "would be lifetime" jobs before retirement age. Its funny how things change, when I was in high school, there was a place that was considered one of those good lifetime jobs. People that graduated from high school and got jobs at that place were considered to be in pretty good shape for the rest of their lives. Since Ive graduated and have lived life a little, that place has proven to not be as stable as it was once was. There has been several large "headline news" lay offs, and me personally, I would only apply for a job there if I was really in need of a job.

Thats not to say that place isn’t still a good place to work…because it is…its just that the stability just isn’t the same as it once was, lay offs have happened to frequently for my comfort.

But if you do get laid off, what do you do?

You have bills that need to be paid. You have obligations. You may have a family: Wife / husband, Kids.

The very first thing you need to do is apply for unemployment benefits.

Many states and cities (in the US) have some sort of unemployment benefits that can help during times of hardship. Some offer a certain amount of money a week. Some offer help with getting more schooling and or training. And signing up with your cities unemployment agency often allows you to search jobs that are listed with that agency so you’ll have a start in your job hunt.

Find out how much money you have on hand or available

When you are laid off, you never know how long being out of work will last so you have to get a foundation of what your working with. Check your savings accounts, see how much you have. If your married, factor in your spouses income. Count up your unemployment benefits, your severance pay (if any) from the job that just laid you off. If you were involved in any 401k plans, find out how much is available to you.

With 401k plans, don’t automatically look at that as available money, you really want to save that to roll over when you get your new job (some jobs do different plans that will require you to cash out). But just remember that the money in your 401k plan is there and have an idea of how much is there just in case you need it.

Basically, just look at all your options and get an idea of how much money you have available. Knowing what you have would make things easier when your trying to figure out what you are going to do.

Find out how long you can manage without a job

Now that you have an idea of all the money that you have available to you, take a good look at your monthly obligations. Add up all your bills, your rent or mortgage, your electric, phone, cable…everything that you usually have to pay out in a month. Don’t forget to factor in food and gas. After you have all your obligations listed (yes make an actual list), figure out how long you can manage with the money that you have figured to be available to you. Don’t start cutting back yet, this is just the a snapshot look right now.

Ok…now cry.

After you finish crying, you need to make a plan of attack, you need to get your bearings, and start making a plan to recover and move on. The first thing you need to do is let the rest of the family know whats going on. Up until now, the only people that should know is your spouse. When you come to the rest of the family, you need to have some sort of confidence that you have things under control. You want the kids to know the situation and that things will have to change. they may even be helpful, there might be things that they may suggest that isn’t important to them an can be dropped. If they are older and have jobs themselves, they may offer to take over the cell phone bill or something that they feel like is theirs more so than yours. But the main thing is let the kids and the rest of the family know that you will be really watching the spending until you get a new job.

Now the cutbacks

Remember that list of monthly obligations that you created? Now go back to that list and figure out which things you could do away with. Do you need that $90 a month Direct TV package? Could you do away with the bi-weekly camping trips in the summer? Do all 5 people in your house really need cell phones? Is it possible to make "t-bone steak Fridays" more like "fried chicken Fridays"? Factor in all the little cutbacks you can think of and figure out how long you can last then. Keep in mind that the cutbacks don’t have to all be done at this moment, you can space them out over time. You don’t want to cut off all the kids cell phone’s only to get a job before the next bill is due. But be honest with yourself and figure out the best way to do things.

Look for employment

All of the things you have done up until now should be things that are done within the first week of being laid off. You have a temporary plan to get by but it doesn’t stop there. You have to now go out and find work again. First thing you should do is update or type up your resume. Keep in mind, that depending on what type of job you’re going after, you may have to have several versions of your resume to cater to different requirements of the jobs your applying for, but for now create a general resume to start.

The first jobs you apply for should be jobs that you think you will like. Write down all the places that you would like to work, get a newspaper and write down all the jobs listed that you like, don’t be too picky, but be somewhat picky. The reason I say this is because, in most states, once you find full time employment again, your unemployment benefits stop. So if you made 70k a year, don’t mess around get a job that only pays 30k a year tops right from the beginning. Depending on how far you can last on what you figured up earlier, you may have a certain time frame that you can afford to be picky and go after a job or position that you indeed want.

After you got that list together, do some searching….find out if they have openings, call them, talk to friends, do whatever you need to do to find out what is available. Adjust your resume to fit the job openings they have and apply for those positions. The places on your list that don’t have any openings listed, still find out the address to their human resources department and mail them a resume with a very nice cover letter.

Keep checking that list, adding to that list, and applying. As the list get empty, lower your standards a bit and add more.

Keep repeating those steps until you get a job. But never act like you got all the time in the world, make sure you have a sense of urgency, and keep your hopes up. Sometimes job hunting can be disappointing and upsetting but you have to stand strong. And if your the man of the house, remember that women are more likely to leave a out of work man when there are money problems than men are to leave a woman. So if you appear to your wife to be getting lazy , there could be even more problems.

Another thing to remember is that you can always do odd jobs that could make a bit of cash. A lot of jobs will teach you skills that will help out around the house, and just because you’re laid off doesn’t mean those skills are gone too. Put an ad in Craigslist.org or your local newspaper classified offering your skills.

The main thing to remember is stay focused, optimistic, but at the same time think realistically, an you’ll be ok.

Tags:Debt Managment, Financing, find employment, Income, jobs, laid off, lost job, plan, retirement, sadly, Tips, unemployment Sphere: Related Content

Comment now » Read more July 12th, 2007

How does one get extra money really quick?

Published by The LowCred Guy on Tagged 401k, Bills, Debt Managment, Income, Loans

This is a question Ive asked myself plenty of times before. Things happen, expenses can come from anywhere at any time.

How do people manage.

If you are one of those lucky people with loads of credit, most of the time you always have a credit card or loan amount available to you at those "I NEED MONEY QUICK" times. But what if you aren’t a credit score goodie-two-shoes. You haven’t had a credit card in years, and forget getting a loan. What do you do?

For example, take "Hypothetic John". "Hypothetic John" has very poor credit. It got bad a while ago and he just gave up on any type of credit and started paying for everything with cash. Years has gone buy and he now has no credit history and if the companies go back far enough the history he does have is all bad. lets check out how he lives.

list of his monthly bill items.

• Rent…..$700.

• Car payment…..$350

• Insurance…..$70

• Electric…….$120

• Phone…….$65

• Gas (auto)…….$120

• Gas (home)…..$60

Mostly simple items, none are expensive. Hypothetic John brings home about $2000 a month (after taxes). Enough to pay all of his bills and a little left over to buy food and see the occasional movie. All of a sudden, wham, his car breaks down…..needs some work that will cost him $1200 bucks. He can catch a ride to work with "Make Believe Jim" for a while, but they don’t really get along with each other, so thats not an option that can go on for a long period of time. John really needs to get his car fixed, and quickly.

He needs extra money really quick…

How does he get the money?

Of coarse, most people would say things like "that is why you put some money away in a savings account". But lets face it, after paying his bills, John has a little over $500 bucks left. That has to buy food, and anything else he does all month. Thats not really enough money to build a really healthy "just in case" fund.

Options are very limited.

One thing you should always do whenever it is offered is join your jobs 401k plan. With a lot of 401k plans you can borrow money from it. Its your money so there is no credit check or anything. What you can borrow all depends on how much you have in the plan and what the rules are with your plan.

Thats an option…but beyond that, what other choices do you have? You can get a Payday loan, but Ive talked about the problems those can cause, and John’s limited income really puts him in with the type of people that will get in trouble with those loans. The only other options you have that I can think of is borrow from friends / family, or get rid of the car altogether, which will cause even more problems.

Your pay is your pay, and your bills are your bills. You can get a second job but it will still take a few weeks to get that $1200 bucks to get your car fixed, and thats thinking you get a second job as soon as you head out to look.

What do you do?

Tags:401k, Bills, credit card, Debt Managment, Income, Loans, need extra money quick, things happen, Uncategorized Sphere: Related Content

Comment now » Read more July 10th, 2007

Protect your identity, creditors can really screw you.

Published by The LowCred Guy on Tagged Building Credit, Loans, Tips, Uncategorized

I had to go to court today!!!

Why? I dont know. About 2 months ago I got a summons in the mail. It was a judgement. It had the name of the company that the judgement was from but I didnt recognize it. I get to court and the judgement was for the amount of $2000 bucks. It was a loan that was taken out in 2006 and there was never a payment made.

• I know I havent taken out any loans
• My credit isnt great but I know  I havent taken out any loans and never made a payment.
• I know I havent taken out any loans in 2006.

I explain to the judge that I dont recognize any of this and that I know I didnt take out any loans, especially a loan that was taken out and never made a payment. It is a mistake. It got me to thinking how much those credit agencies can screw you over if your not paying attention. And reminded me how important it is to protect your identy.

When you are buying things online (and in stores / restaurants)  take safety measures to make sure your not giving your identity away. A while ago, I ran across a pretty good guide of things you can do to make sure your online purchases are as safe as you’d expect. You might want to check that out (linky)

When your dealing with creditors, they are a very sneaky goup of people. Ive had companies use a checking account that they had on file to try to "steal" a payment from me. Ive had companies give me information on the phone then tell me later they never talked to me. When dealing with creditors, keep these 2 things in mind.

• They ussually work on commision
• They strongly believe in CYA (if you dont know what that means look it up)

Make sure you get things in writing, and keep your reciepts and copies of anything you sign. If at all possible, write letters along with the phone calls.

I dont know what the deal is with this judgement that I went to court for today but Im guessing it is one of the 2 reasons I stated above.

Tags:Building Credit, cya, Go to court, identity theft, judgement, Loans, summons, Tips, Uncategorized Sphere: Related Content

Comment now » Read more June 28th, 2007

I dont think there is a loan available that SUCK more than a payday loan

Published by The LowCred Guy on Tagged Debt Managment, Loans, Tips, Uncategorized

Have you ever got one of those Payday Loans?

If you do a quick search you can find tons of websites offering them. Just about every variation of "paydayloans.com" will lead you to a website offering that short term problem fixer.

No credit check!!!

Funds deposited the next day!!!

All your problems solved!!!

The truth about those loans is that they can potentially be more of a problem than the problem that caused you to apply for the loan in the first place….If that makes any sense. In short, you can get a small loan for amounts up to $1500 bucks, You get the money deposited to your checking acount the next day. And the payment is automatically widthrawn from your checking account on your next pay day.

General requirements for a Pay day loan include

• You must have a checking account
• You must have your paycheck directly deposited to your checking account (in most cases)
• A telephone and/or a fax machine
• Your bank statement and/or pay stubs.

Beware!!!!! things are not what they seem.

That loan limit from $1000 to $1500 that they are advertising, in most cases will never be seen. A lot of the payday loan websites dont even have a place to apply for a $1000-$1500 loan. They talk about it, but if you start poking around you’d be hard press to find the application. If you look and the loan limit is included in the application…be prepared to see it dissapear before you get to the end of the loan application. Most of the time, once you add your info, the most you can borrow will end up being $300-$600 bucks.

Now this is funny. They advertise "NO FAXING" so you think "cool, im going to apply, they will check my stuff and email me to let me know that i got the loan."

Nope

They call you, they call your job, then they send you an email with guess what….A fax number for you to fax a copy of your bank statement and/or pay stub. They do save face by allowing you the option to email the information, but most people will use the same process emailing as they wouldve used faxing.

Now the killer …

If you dont pay the full loan back on your next paycheck, you will probably pay that loan off 2 or 3 times over by the time you’re finished. A $400 loan could end up costing you about 5 payments of $176

So, if you ever think about applying for one of those payday loans, make sure you really need that $300-$500 bucks really bad. because its probably the absolute worst ripoff loan you could ever get.

Tags:Debt Managmant, Loans, payday loans, Tips, Uncategorized Sphere: Related Content

1 Comment » Read more June 28th, 2007

Using auto pay can make for a little less stress

Published by The LowCred Guy on Tagged Banks, Bills, Debt Managment, Uncategorized

Managing your expenses can sometimes be difficult and confusing. Sometimes you will just get downright overwhelmed or even depressed trying to figure it all out. If one bill slip then comes the late fee’s.

If your budgeted right down to the penny a late fee can throw the whole month off.

Ive always found that putting certain bills on an auto pay status can help in those situations. People have many different ways of organizing things. Ive dabbled in using an Auto pay method of bill management myself and found that if you can get a good start, you can live life with a little less stress.

The key words here is getting a good start. Sometimes its not possible, but I would suggest getting all of your bills caught up. If they are caught up you can start everything at one time and it will be less confusion.

Another thing is look at your auto pay options. The way I prefer it is to have a certain amount of my paycheck directly deposited into an account that will only include money that auto pays bills. Once the auto pay options are set up, that account is forgotten about, except to check to make sure everything is working like it should. You wouldn’t withdraw or add money to that account once you got it started.

Everyones monthly obligations are a little different but this is a basic list of what would be typical.

Mortgage / Rent
Car note
Auto insurance
Electric
Gas
Cable / Satellite tv
Telephone
Water
Cell Phone
Internet
Food
Gas (auto)

Out of these, what you would want to do first is pick out the most important bills. Of coarse your mortgage and car note will be on the list.

Then I would add a few of the bills that you know will not change every month. Telephone and Cable / Satellite TV

As for the rest: Your electric and gas bill changes from month to month, and you really don’t want to have a variable bill on auto pay.

Also bills like Water, and Auto insurance, depending on where you live and how your plan is set up, may not come about every month.

So, what you would do is add the amount of your mortgage, Car note, Telephone and cable bill and divide it between how many paychecks you have in a month: if you get paid weekly, divide by 4, if you get paid biweekly divide by 2.

Most banks now have some sort of bill pay program, where you can set up bills to be paid automatically. All you have to do is take those 4 bills and set it up through your banks bill pay system.

When your done, and everything gets going. you can feel a little less stress knowing that the most important bills you have will be paid automatically every month. and if its your thing, you can juggle the rest of the bills you have to your liking.

 

Tags:auto pay, Banks, Bills, bill management, Debt Managmant, money, paycheck, Uncategorized Sphere: Related Content

Comment now » Read more May 25th, 2007

Dont let your bad credit history scare you away from buying your dream home

Published by The LowCred Guy on Tagged Banks, Bills, Debt Managment, Financing, Loans, Mortgages, Tips

Do you want to buy the home of your dreams but you don’t even make an attempt because of your bad credit history?

Your credit plays a big part in purchasing a home. How much the bank will lend you. What your interest rate will be. What type of loan you will be offered. All of these can be affected by your credit report. One thing you have to remember is that there is a difference between bad credit history and outstanding debt, the key work here being history.

Don’t let your bad credit history stop you.

Here are a few tips that may prove helpful if you want to make that home purchase but were always scared to try due to your bad credit history.

1. Get a copy of your credit report…check it for mistakes.

Currently, my credit report shows that I owe $5000 for a student loan. It isn’t mine, Ive never applied for a student loan. Its a mistake. Don’t be surprised if there are mistakes on your credit report also. Make sure there aren’t, and if there are then resort to writing letters or calling the credit reporting agency to get it taken care off. To the mortgage company that mistake is going  to either look like an unpaid or delinquent bill or a bill in general that will make it appear that you can afford less than you would if that mistake wasn’t there.

2. Tie up those loose ends!!!

You know what Im talking about….That $30 cable bill from 2 years ago that you never paid. The $150 dollar charge off from an old overdrawn checking account. And this is probably a pretty popular one….The balance of that Health club membership you forgot all about when you lost interest 2 months after joining. The mortgage company is going to see all that stuff and they are going to want answers. Not only are they going to want answers, but they are going to want those bills gone before they even think about giving you a mortgage (if they are still willing to work with you after seeing those items on your credit report).

3. Write Write Write

This is sort of a grey tip, but look at all of those blemishes on your credit report and write letters to have them removed. Even if they are legitimate items that you are completely away of, write letters anyway. I’m not saying deny or lie about those items, but just come up with reasons why they shouldn’t be there and write your credit reporting agencies asking for them to be removed. Chances are, most of them will not be be removed, but the creditors that put those items there in the first place has to respond to your removal request within a certain amount of time and with any luck some will not comply…Thus you may get a few of them dismissed.

 

Do you see a trend here?

Credit history is a little bit different from outstanding debt . When it comes to getting a home loan, making sure you don’t have anything outstanding, or open will help you out. So clean up what you can by using the tips above and head on into your mortgage office…you’d be surprised.

Tags:bad credit history, Banks, Bills, credit report, Debt Managmant, dreams, Financing, home purchase, interest rate, Loans, Mortgages, Tips Sphere: Related Content

Comment now » Read more May 22nd, 2007

Combat telephone spam with these 2 FREE telephone voicemail services

Published by The LowCred Guy on Tagged Debt Managment, Tips

There have been a couple of times throughout my life where I have been overwhelmed with either bill collectors, or telemarketers calling all day every day. The situation I talked about in my first post lead to one of those times. Then there were other times, like applying for a loan online and all of a sudden every second rate mortgage company in the country is calling you.

It can get annoying.

You get tired of answering the phone so you start screening your calls….

Your voice mail gets so full that you stop checking it…

You miss out on phone calls or voice mail messages that you were looking for because it got mixed in with all the other telephone spam.

I usually try to have a secondary number that I can use to try to anticipate those situations. For a while, I was using Vonage’s virtual phone numbers. But I got tired of Vonage all together and got rid of it.

I found something that would work out perfectly to combat telephone spam

All you really need is a phone number with a voice mail attached to it, that is separate from your "normal use" phone and will not ring or annoy you unless you want it too. Lets face it, your not trying to answer these particular calls, and you don’t want the voice mail messages to clutter up your "real" voice mail messages. You can try out these 2 free web based voice mail services Offered buy AOL and Net zero.

Both of these services offer a free local phone number. You can give these numbers out when your applying for something that you think may bring you telephone spam. When someone call your number, it will ring like a normal phone and go to your voice mail greeting (which you can leave your own message). At your leisure, you can call the number to listen to your voice mail, or log in at the website.

Both of these services allow you to have your voice mail messages sent to your email. Also there are options to get notifications of new messages sent to your cell phone via text message, or sent to your email. If you want to know about every voice mail left as it happens, you can do that. Or if you want to be left completely alone and check for messages whenever you think about it….you can do that too. Its up to you.

Check out AIM Phoneline   or  Netzero’s Privatephone.com

Tags:bill collectors, Debt Managmant, Free telephone number, Free voicemail number, Privacy, telemarketers, Tips Sphere: Related Content

Comment now » Read more May 18th, 2007

Using Visa check cards? Get multiple bank accounts.

Published by The LowCred Guy on Tagged Banks, Bills, Credit cards

For a long period of time I lived life without a Visa or Mastercard. About 10 years ago, it wasnt a big deal. The only reason I would need a Visa or Mastercard would be to rent a car or get a hotel room. Even back then, most hotels offered the option of putting down a deposit if you didn’t have a credit card.

Times are different now, a lot of things you do ask for a credit card, even things as simple as getting a membership to Blockbuster. A simple solution is of coarse to get a debit card through your bank with the Visa logo. If you go that route, it is also a good idea to have more than one bank account. You need an account that you can keep the bulk of your money in that is separate from the a Visa check card account. That way, if you run into a situation where you happen to get overdrawn on one account, you’d still have another account you can use. The main thing is not to get overdrawn, the fee’s are killer.

I usually maintain 3 accounts. The first account is where my paycheck is deposited. that account has no ATM card and forces me to go to the bank every time I need to get money out.

The second account is the account that I use to pay certain bills, that one has the Visa check card, and I also have a smaller amount deposited in that account, enough to cover the bills I plan on paying with that account.

The last account is my account that keeps the money I would use to buy things online, and make other small random purchases. It too has a visa check card.

Living with no credit will make you think of ways to get around little things, but this is probably a good tip for anyone that uses Visa Check cards

Tags:atm card, Banks, Bills, blockbuster, Credit cards, debit card, Maintaining Bank Accounts, Mastercard, money, paycheck, Paying Bills, Visa Check Card Sphere: Related Content

Comment now » Read more May 14th, 2007

Credit problems can happen at any time to anyone!!!!

Published by The LowCred Guy on Tagged Auto Loans, Building Credit, Credit cards, Debt Managment, Financing

A few weeks ago I was sitting at my computer and thought about how tough it is sometimes for people that have bad credit. Not just bad credit, but very little credit. As an adult I have found that there are several times when I wish I had a credit card, or able to get a loan for more than a small amount.

When I was younger, I started to try to build a good credit rating. I had a decent job, was able to afford some of the things that I would wish for in high school. I started to take on some credit obligations, hoping it would help build my credit.

I had a car, which my father co-signed for me to get, so that was working for me. I got this idea of getting a small loan from my credit union, one that I knew I could pay back in full if needed, just to get a monthly credit history building. I headed over to my credit union and got a loan for $500 dollars, started paying that back monthly.

At that time, I was new to life, didn’t have many obligations….my car payment, thats all. I lived with my parents so no rent or anything.

About 6 months later I was at my local mall and decided to apply for a JCPenny credit card. I was accepted and the card later came in the mail with a $1500 limit. I never used the card much, just to get gifts etc. Then later still a Target opened in my area and they were accepting applications for their credit card. I applied and got another card.

After a few years, I had  couple credit cards, paid off the small loan I had, and bought another vehicle (got rid of the car I already had). My credit rating was on its way to a good start. I was never late on any payments, and I had no problem walking into any place that offered financing, and have something I want financed. I did however get a little carried away. I bought a cell phone (the bills were really expensive back then), I signed for family members and friends to get things on credit, I even had a credit card from a local jewelry store where I bought a pretty expensive watch. There were other things Ive done also that I cant remember right now.

Like I said, I was handling things, so paying the bills weren’t a problem. My credit was still growing.

Then that dreadful day happened.

I walked into work one day to find out that the place was closing and everyone was going to get laid off. At first I thought "no big deal". Figured I had a few years experience, also a little military experience being that I was in the Army Reserves. It shouldn’t take long to find another job.

I had 2 months before my job ended, and headed out on my job search. Like I said, I was young and still filled with enthusiasm. I went to all the places that paid about what I was making and left resumes, filled out applications, and talked to supervisors. That 2 months came and went and I don’t think I got called for 1 interview. 

I was officially unemployed.

The credit card bills, Car notes, and Loan payments started piling up.

This story isn’t finished, but its just an example of how good things can turn bad so quick.

Tags:Auto Loans, bad credit, Building Credit, Credit cards, credit history, credit obligations, credit rating, credit union one, Debt Managmant, Financing, good credit Sphere: Related Content

Comment now » Read more May 13th, 2007

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