credit score

New Year Finance Checklist

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annual personal finance checklist

It’s a new year. Contrary to popular opinion, for the most part, when it comes to money, finances, banking and investing, it doesn’t really matter if the year is new or not. That being said, plenty of people take the opportunity of a fresh calendar to take a fresh look at things like personal finance and their financial plans. So, here is a checklist of things to start thinking about to make sure you personal finances are lined up for 2016. 2016 Personal Finance Checklist Don’t get overwhelmed. Not all of this stuff needs to be done at once. Put a section on your calendar each week or two, and by the end of the first quarter, your finances will be reviewed, tuned-up, and ready for the year ahead. Banking Checklist Review your checking account statements and make sure your bank isn’t charging you fees just for having a checking or savings account. If you are paying monthly fees, or minimum balance fees, find a new account. Check with your current bank first, you might just be signed up for the wrong account. Remember, at today’s interest rates, there is no way having a higher rate compensates for having to …

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Real Credit Score or Fake Credit Score

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After investigating is CreditKarma.com legit or not, we got a lot of questions about credit scores and credit reports. Hopefully, this can help clear up some of the most common credit score misconceptions. Update: A Credit Karma tax review is here looking at the new free tax returns offering by CreditKarma.com. Update: Now CreditKarma.com offers free credit report monitoring. Check out the Credit Karma review of free credit monitoring service. Credit scores are confusing to many people. This is not the result of ignorance or being naive. Credit scores are not consumer products. They were (are) meant to be used by financial institutions. These lenders are the ones who pay for the credit scores. Banks and lenders are credit score customers, not the people who are being scored. Credit scores are not a free, open system. Rather, they are a product, sold by Fair Issac. They charge money for each credit score calculated. Fair Issac’s customers are banks, mortgage companies, and other lenders, not you. In fact, a quick look around the Fair Issac website should show you that this is not a company concerned about selling products or services to individuals as customers. Fair Issac has a separate website …

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How To Rebuild Credit After Bankruptcy

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Filing bankruptcy hammers your credit score. In addition to all of your credit lines being marked as discharged in bankruptcy, the bankruptcy itself counts against your credit score. Fortunately, your credit begins rebuilding immediately. Unfortunately, you might not be getting all of the “credit” you deserve. Credit Lines Closed in Bankruptcy For some people who file bankruptcy, the process ends with every line of credit they have being discharged. At this point, no payments of any kind are made to the creditors, and their financial life starts over. However, many people end up continuing to make payments on certain credit lines. For example, if you have a car loan, and you want to keep your car, you have to keep making payments or it will be repossessed by the lender. (A bankruptcy erases the loan, it does not erase the right to collect the collateral that you secured the loan with.) If the loan was discharged in bankruptcy, the lender will no longer attempt to collect the debt. You have to make payments on your own. In addition, the lender will no longer report any information about your payments (good or bad) to the credit bureaus, so you won’t get …

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Credit Sesame Safe, Scam or Legit?

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Credit Sesame is another online financial utility that lets you check “your credit score for free.” Of course, there are always more than a few caveats with these kinds of websites. So, let’s take a look at CreditSesame.com and see how it stands up. Credit Sesame Review Any reviews of Credit Sesame need to start with how much does Credit Sesame cost, and is Credit Sesame legit, or is it an online scam? One catch comes during the signup process where you are asked to “do more” with your credit score by adding “goals”. Some clicks there and you’ll get targeted ads, and maybe more. There isn’t a way to skip this step, so choose something you don’t mind hearing about, and as always use your “store email” or “email list” email address. (You should have a separate email address that you never use for anything “real” that helps avoid hacking attempts and keeps your real inbox clean. If you don’t have one, get a free email from Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, or other service before signing up.) I chose rewards cards when I signed up and the first thing at the very top of my screen every time I log in is …

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All Three Credit Reports Free

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Credit reports are a very important, and very frustrating part of personal finance. Nearly all financing requires a credit score, which is generated from the information in your credit report. However, you get no say in what is in your credit report. In fact, with one exception, you have to pay money if you even want to see what your own credit report says about you. Seems unfair? Blame the millions of dollars the finance industry spends on lobbying and the politicians that care more about where their next campaign contribution comes from than about what is right for the American citizens they supposedly represent. There are various services springing up to help fill this gap, but they all come with the potential for scams and abuse. You can get a free credit score from Credit Karma, or Credit Sesame, and you can buy a credit score from myFICO, but none of these come with full access to all three credit reports. Free Credit Scores Website The one (and only) thing the government has ever required the credit bureaus to do is give each person free access to their credit report, but only once per year. To comply the three …

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How To – Refinancing a Home Mortgage Steps and Tips

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When considering refinancing your home mortgage, the first step is to get all of the details on what you have now.  Sure, you have vague numbers in your head, but that won’t help you answer all of the loan application questions, or make a real hard-numbers based calculation about the value of refinancing.  What exactly do you need to know before you dive into looking for low interest rates and refinancing your mortgage? Required Information Before Researching Interest Rates and Refinancing Current Balance of Home’s First Mortgage – Not a ballpark, an exact number according to your last statement. Current Balance of Home’s Second Mortgage or HELOC – Again, the number from the last statement. Current Interest Rate – What are you paying on your mortgage right now? ARM or Adjustable Interest Rate Features – When does your rate go up? (The actual date, not just the year.)  How much can it go up in the first year?  The second year?  Each year after that?  Is there a floor (minimum)?  Is there a ceiling (maximum)? When Did Your Mortgage Start? – What day did you close on? Current Home Value? – Check Zillow and Trulia to get a ballpark.  Print …

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Payday Loans Scam

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Payday loans are a bad deal for borrowers. The negatives that are inherent to this type of loan are quickly exacerbated by people making poor choices, or just as often people with no choices. Payday loans are named for the way this lending method got its start. Originally, the way a payday loan worked, was that you borrowed month, until payday and then you paid the loan back. The idea was that this could be bridge to your next paycheck if you had unexpected expenses or other issues that busted your budget and left you no options. In the years since this type of loan has morphed into no-win situation for people with no other options. Why Take a Payday Loan To understand how a payday loan works, and how they cause such so many problems, it is instructive to look at just how people use payday loans, and why. As is often the case, and example can be particularly instructive. Let’s consider James. James gets paid once a month. On May 15th, his car has trouble. The mechanic says it will cost $300 to get it repaired, but James does not have $300 in his checking account and he …

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Best Time to File Bankruptcy

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While there is never a good time to file bankruptcy, there are some things that make filing bankruptcy at a certain time more or less advantageous for the filer. Making sure you understand the various bankruptcy rules and timing a bankruptcy filing correctly can save you some time and money. Good Time to File Bankruptcy One of the things that trips many bankruptcy filers up, even after speaking with a bankruptcy attorney, is that the bankruptcy court will take 40 percent of your unpaid earnings. If you get paid once per month, this can be a very big deal. For example, if you get paid on the 30th of each month and you file your bankruptcy petition with the court on the 28th, you will have to pay almost half the amount of your pay check to the bankruptcy trustee. In a case like this, you would be much better off waiting the following month to file for bankruptcy. However, there is a catch. You don’t want to file too soon after being paid because the other thing that the bankruptcy court is entitled to is almost all of the cash in your bank accounts on the day you file. For example, …

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Capital One World MasterCard No Hassle Rewards Miles

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Existing Capital One MasterCard holders may or may not be getting the same deals, but new credit card offers from Capital One are arriving in the mail to new credit card users. These are not reserved for highly qualified borrowers with high credit scores either. How do I know? One good piece of financial advice that I frequently give is to use phony names when signing up for certain things, especially promotional offers and magazine subscriptions. The reason is that these companies like to turn around and sell your name and address to other companies that then send you plenty of junk mail. These mailing lists can be more profitable than the actual business of writing a magazine or newsletter! Nothing helps sort out a real “Urgent! Response Required,” mailing from a phony one like seeing one of the fake names that you used to sign up for something in the past. Just like the one that appears on my no annual fee Capital One No Hassle Rewards World MasterCard offer that came to my house under a name used for magazine subscriptions. Since that isn’t even a real person, let alone someone with a high credit score, we know …

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Free Credit Score at My Credit Union

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Several years ago when I was a wild-eyed, fresh out of college, computer guy, I got my first “real” job with a local company. The company had around a 100 employees or so which meant that the HR person was the Office Manager. On my first day, the Office Manager went through all the basics with me: payday, W-4 forms, copies of my Social Security Card (or passport), and so on. We also went over my “Benefits.” Now, at the time, I didn’t much understand what benefits were or why I cared (other than insurance and vacation time) but, I understood what the word benefit meant, so I nodded along and paid close attention. One of my benefits was the right to join a credit union. Back in those days credit unions were a little bit tighter in their membership requirements, still it wasn’t too hard to join one. But, since it was one of my benefits, I marched down right away and opened an account. It wouldn’t be until years later that I would understand that the reason my company offered me this benefit was because the credit union offered me another benefit which was the ability to have …

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