Fighting Financial Bad Habits

Many consumers find themselves in a debt quagmire because they have one or two bad financial habits and let those habits spiral out of control. A great long-term form of debt help comes when consumers face these bad habits and fix them, and see the added bonus side effect of taking care of their debt. Just a few examples of bad financial habits follow.

Procrastinator. This can take form in several ways. One way is when you procrastinate about signing up for a 401(k) through your job, or put off amending your life insurance policy when you get married or add to your family. Or it could be even when you procrastinate about adding up your debt to see a final total amount of what you owe. This is an easy fix. Just email your HR representative to find out about opening a 401(k), or contact your life insurance agent, or sit down with a pad and paper (or excel spreadsheet) and your bills and take a deep breath and add it all up.

Money-Melts-in-Your-Hands. It is all too easy to do a little internet shopping on your lunch break, or page through a catalog looking for your nephew’s birthday gift and ending up ordering other things you just had to have. But it’s not fun to watch your bank account shrink as a result. Impulse shopping is a hard habit to break, but it can be done.

Debt Help Tip: For really bad impulse shoppers, it might not be a bad idea to pop the credit cards into a baggie with water and then freeze them. That way, if you want to make a purchase with the card, you’ll need to defrost the card first.

Thanks for reading!

Mike Welton
Financial Advisor-MyDebtIQ.com

1-888-998-1226

Room For Improvement?

If you’re suffering the ill effects of a not-great credit score, it might not be easy to understand why someone with a really great credit score could be interested in credit score improvement.

There’s a number of reasons that someone with a high credit score would want to pursue an even higher score. There are several benefits to having a very high score, not the least of which is it really truly saves you money. Some of the benefits include:

1 - The Very Best Rates on Loans or Credit Cards. The higher your score, the more likely you are to qualify for the best offer.

2- Really Great Perks. While you may have gotten the best possible interest rate on a mortgage, it’s always possible that the lender will be happy to knock off some fees or perhaps even qualify you for a bigger amount of money.

3- Building a Safety Net. As all too many Americans have discovered, there are numerous unexpected life events (e.g., sudden unemployment, death in the family, etc.) that can cause drastic financial reverses. Those consumers with very high credit scores are more likely to emerge from such events with credit scores intact, or at least not ruined.

Credit Score Improvement: All this said, there’s no need to go for total perfection with your credit scores. Many creditors (and the credit bureaus) agree that the slight difference between very high and perfection just won’t make a difference in your everyday life.

Thanks for reading!

Mike Welton
Financial Advisor-MyDebtIQ.com
1-888-998-1226

Preventative Help With Debt

Although the bulk of people seeking debt help are those already in debt trouble, we think it would be helpful to help those people who are not yet in trouble, but could be. Specifically, recent college graduates and even current students. For these young people, we’d like to offer the following tips for preventative debt help.

Consolidate student loans. If all your student loans are from the same lender, you’ll have to consolidate with that lender. If you have multiple lenders, shop around for the best consolidation deal.

Pay your bills on time. Even if you don’t have much credit history to your name, it’s smart to keep it as clean as possible.

Think Hard about your future. Oftentimes, recent college graduates who are unsure about their career plans decide just to go to graduate school, hoping it’ll best guide them to a career later on. However, that can be a very expensive way to test out a career.

Smart vs. Stupid. Debt, that is. Smart debt would be your student loans, unless you’re flunking out. Stupid debt would be any debt beyond basic living expenses: Every dollar you borrow to eat out instead of feeding yourself, to buy the newest video game systems or cell phones, to go out drinking, and to have someone paint your nails is stupid debt.

Debt Help Tip: Smart management of your money is an excellent way to keep from getting into a debt quagmire later on down the road.

Thanks for reading!

Mike Welton
Financial Advisor-MyDebtWorkshop.com