Debt Cure Process

January 23rd, 2009

Will you say, “I’m debt free” one day? Do you hope to find yourself live in a debt free life? Never lose that hope because it’s possible to do, but hard to accomplish. Our hard efforts will deliver us to the way out of debt easily.

Debt levels are in increase year after year. Most consumer debt is in the form of credit card debt. Many families are in serious financial owes because of the high debt burden they face. So what?

How can those people get rid of debt? There are many debt elimination programs are good in reaching us to our debt free living. Finding debt cure or debt relief is easier than people think. You should put in more effort till finding a good debt elimination organization. By the way, free debt elimination companies like churches are the best resort we can use to eliminate our debt legally.

After taking this step, the organization you are in will do all the next steps from making a management plan for you till putting you in the way out of debt.

Here is what they can do for you:

- Making a debt management plan that suits your current financial situation and your needs as well. Not all plans can work for everyone.

- Contacting your creditors to let them know that you are on a debt management plan so that they will stop calling you.

- Forcing you to stop borrowing money. There is no need to be in more debt anymore. That means cutting up all your credit cards immediately. This step is the hardest one for most people who were growing up using credit cards.

- Trying to change your life style step by step, starting with using cash to make your purchases. That, of course, will change the way you spend money. This step is very important in your debt cure process.

Your hard efforts will be translated into a good single of a successful debt elimination program or plan. The more efforts you put in, the more chances you may get to become debt free one day.

Now, it’s your turn to say “I’m debt free”…

Legal Debt Elimination

January 16th, 2009

There are many ways to eliminate your debt legally, but the most important thing is to have a strong determination helping you to be successful in your life.

Debt elimination process is known as a long-term program that may stay years to complete its mission of debt reduction or debt elimination. That’s why we need to work hard as much as possible in order to lessen the journey length.

Sometimes you will need to take hard decisions to ensure a safer and securer future, sometimes you may find yourself in debt at some point in your life. We have an important role here which is trying to not fall into a debt trap and then feel it’s too late. Don’t wait till you become under a mountain of debt, try to fix all your financial problems on time.

Here are two methods of legal debt elimination helping us to stay debt free as long time as possible:

Method #1:

Paying off all your monthly payments on time, never delay any payment in order to avoid falling into more debt at a high interest rate. Remember, if you delay in paying your debt on time, the interest rate will increase which may kill you till find yourself surrender with a debt trap.

That method requires amount of reorganization as well as reprioritization and a total change in lifestyle. Those things are required to avoid being into a debt trap by saving money and legally eliminating debt. So we should do the following:

- Lessen eating out in order to save the money and paying our debt as soon as possible. Remember, we should use every cent we save to pay the debt.

- Lessen your spending habits as general. Try to have healthier food choices, avoid junk food.

The best advice here is to PLAN and then SPEND. Never spend without making a plan for your expenditures.

Method #2:

Making a budget is the magic key we can use to eliminate our debt legally. Through staying within your budget’s guidelines, you will be able to pay the minimum payment due on all your debts including the high interest rate loan.

All you have to do here is to be organized along the way, try to increase your income, and save much money in order to pay your debt faster.

If the both methods fail to eliminate your debt, it’s better to file your personal bankruptcy and try to choose this legal way at the end of your journey. Bear in mind that this method should be the absolute last option to legally eliminate debt.

Never think of debt elimination scams, legal debt elimination is the fastest way to get rid of debt and stay debt free.

Balance Position

January 16th, 2009

Finding a good debt consolidation service will help us to get the best solution at the proper time. To know whether or not you need such a service, you should know exactly how much debt you are in. If your total balance position gets worse, the service of debt consolidation companies will be required.

Do you really need a debt consolidation service? That question depends on your total balance position. It’s crucial to get a debt consolidation service if your balance position is out of order.

First, we should know how these services helping us. Debt consolidation companies are always getting you out of debt by just one solution which is consolidating all your arrears into a single low interest rate loan. They are also a good support to make an excellent budget to take some serious steps toward your debt consolidation process.

Some of those companies are free of cost, and others may charge you with a specified fee. Some of these genuine non-profit organizations help you by fully examining your debt and also suggest ways and means of bringing down your burden.

Well, the service of those debt consolidation companies may not be required if your debt situation is not critical. So if you faced some problems with a number of credit cards, in this case you should lower your monthly payments till getting out of your financial owes.

What if you have a serious problem with your high debt burden? Here, debt consolidation methods are playing an important role to get you your debt free living. Also, another option could be used in a case of consolidating loans is unsecured debt and high credit card loans.

Those types of debt are easier to consolidate than secured loans. Your debt reduction procedures may also be easier if you use online debt consolidation. Many online firms offer the service of debt elimination or debt reduction in a financial crisis.

The ideal debt consolidation company is the one that agrees to combine all your loans and pays off your arrears with a consolidated loan carrying a low rate of interest.

Make sure that your debt consolidation company guides you to the way out of debt, not to a debt trap.

Save, Invest, Make Plans

January 14th, 2009

Here are three options to find a good financial planner, choose one of them that suits your needs and goals. Each option has tasks to do for you, try to find yours.

Three things need to make good financial decisions: save, invest, and make plans for the future. We have the ability to do those three things ourselves, without any help from others. But sometimes, we need to make a hard financial decision that requires a professional who has a high level of experience.

Can you entrust your financial future to a stranger? No, it’s impossible. But your financial planner isn’t a stranger, he is a person wants to improve your financial situation. If your financial advisor is a bad guy, then it’s your choice from the beginning. Remember, your personal financial planner is your choice.

In fact, these days everyone finds difficulties to manage his money which leads to a need to hire a financial planner who gives us advice to save, invest, and make plans for our futures.

Because qualified planners have demonstrated a certain degree of knowledge and experience, they can deal with myriad personal financial topics, they can help you set financial goals and priorities, then recommend specific steps to meet them.

That means they can give you advice to:

- Save more money in a short period of time.

- Invest and know how to allocate your investments.

- Make plans for your future and explain how decisions can affect your financial future.

Here are your options to find a good financial planner:

First - Certified Financial Planners or Personal Financial Specialists:-

Those professionals are trained just to give you advice on topics from retirement planning, investments, tax and estate planning, and insurance needs.

They must pass many tests to covering major planning subjects including insurance, investment planning, tax planning, retirement planning, employee benefits, and estate planning.

Second - Investment Advisers:-

As the name suggests, they advise their clients about securities. Note: A financial planner or broker may be an investment adviser but not all investment advisers are planners or brokers.

There are many types of those investment advisers such as certified investment management consultant who specializes in investments, certified fund specialist who gives advice on mutual funds, etc.

Third – Tax Planners:-

Those planners are professional in taxes which can help people with tax planning and preparation.

As we said, determine your needs and goals, and then search in the right direction to hire the best financial planner who is compatible with your financial aims.

Fee-Only Planners

January 12th, 2009

Understanding the fees involved with hiring a good financial planner will help you to become more comfortable with the person you are dealing with, especially when your financial advisor understands your needs.

What’s the cost of the help? There are three basic billing structures that many financial planners are getting paid through:

1. Fee-only structure: This form refers to those planners who get fees only for the advice they give. No commissions are available here.

2. Fee-based structure: Here, planners get paid for advice and they make commissions by selling some financial products.

3. Commission-based structure: Planners depend on earning money from the products they sell.

What’s the best structure that suits your financial needs? According to our bad financial situation, the first type of billing structures is the best choice for us. Why is that?

Simply put, you need to feel confident that your financial planner won’t make recommendations to generate fees. Also, you don’t have to be worry because of the high fees you may face on the other types. You will know exactly how much it will cost you to take advice from fee-only planners.

How much does it cost you to hire a fee-only planner? There are some different systems in how fee-only planners bill clients. Let’s get more information about that topic and choose what suits our needs!

1) Some fee-only planners charge you a percentage of a client’s assets, about 1-2 percent. Those planners have great incentive for you to make a lot of money. In this case, you may spend typically about $1,600 per year.

2) Some may charge flat rates or an annual retainer. If you want to lower the cost of the help, that category will meet your needs as the average cost is about $500 per year or so.

3) And others may bill by the hour. These days, planners’ hourly rates average $120.

Before hiring a financial planner, estimate how much you can afford to pay his fees. After that, choose the best category of paying systems.

Ask Your Financial Planner [Part II]

January 11th, 2009

Here are the other questions that should be asked to your financial planner in the first interview:

3- Give me some information about two or three of your clients?

If he gives you the information you want, you won’t be sure of his honesty to you later. And if he is smart enough, he will tell you some fair information such as a problem faced him and how he solved it.

Make sure that you trust your financial planner as he/she will keep your secrets for along time.

4- What’s your experience?

A planner may have decade’s worth of experience dealing with tax-saving trusts, for example. If your needs match his experience, then choose him immediately. But what if you want a financial planner helping you to set up a retirement plan for you?

Experience isn’t good along the way, it may differ from what you want or need. It doesn’t matter if he has a high or a low experience if his goals don’t meet yours.

So your choice should be a person who helps you to achieve your financial goals.

5- What planning services do you provide?

There is a big difference between tax planning and tax preparation, insurance planning and retirement planning, etc. You should know what service your financial planner will exactly provide you.

Add, you should know whether your financial planner will solve your current financial problem or will manage your money all times. Will he review your insurance needs and your retirement needs?!

6- Will I follow all your recommendations?

The only answer you should accept is: “It’s up to you!”

This answer shows more self-confidence and a strong character. A financial planner must have skills to convince you that his opinions and recommendations are the best choice for you.

So there is no need to those kinds of people who haven’t strong decisions and opinions.

7- Do you want to ask me any questions?

You should give him a chance to talk, ask, and get some fair information too, not all of it. A good financial planner should ask you about your financial problems, goals, risk tolerance, etc.

Don’t let your financial information available for all people.

Ask Your Financial Planner [Part I]

January 11th, 2009

Here are some questions you should ask your financial planner in the first interview. If the answers are good enough, then it’s better to choose him as your support. Let’s ask the first two questions helping us to choose the best guy!

How to find the best match for your needs? There are many ways to achieve your goals, talking to a professional advisor is the best method we can use which guides us to success and riches.

Well, if you really want to find the best match for your needs, you must first choose three or four financial planners whether from a friend or reliable references. After that, you will make a face-to-face interview with each one asking the following:

1) How do you get paid?

It’s important to know how much the process of debt management service will cost you. There are three common ways to choose one which are fee-only, fee-based, and commission-based.

Fee-only planners get fees only for the advice they give, not for the product they are selling or promoting. Fee-based planners get fees also for the advice they give and sometimes for the product they sell. Commission-based planners are paid by the companies whose products they sell.

Never hire a financial planner getting more than 1-2 percent of your assets as a fee.

2) What’s the best credential to use?

A planner can pass many exams and has trained on some major points of financial planning but he is still not able to earn any credentials. A good financial advisor should have a good knowledge of insurance, investment planning, tax planning, retirement planning, employee benefits, and estate planning.

So that you will be sure that your financial planner will help you determine how much insurance you need while suggesting the best way to fund your teenager’s college education and so on.

Check credentials to find whether there are any disciplinary problems and complaints, or awards in his record which can help you to know your financial planner clearly.

Continue asking >>>

Find a Financial Planner

January 8th, 2009

Hiring a good financial planner isn’t easy like others imagine. You need to know some guidelines helping you to choose the best guy. Let’s get more information about how to hire a good financial planner.

Anyone can call himself a planner. The planner is a professional, not an amateur, who has a high level of experience and skills that are used to help debtors getting out of their debts. They are also known as “Certified Financial Planners” or “Personal Financial Specialists”.

Do you really need a financial planner?

In some cases, it’s urgent to hire a professional planner who typically prepares financial plans helping us to build your financial future. On the other hand, sometime we don’t need to hire a planner as we can do the work ourselves.

How to hire a financial planner?

To hire a good financial planner, you should know the offers you must take during the period you are dealing with him. Here are some guidelines helping us to know which one is the best:

- First advice, you should make at least three interviews to find the one who meets your needs and who can help you understand your financial situation very well.

- Second, during the interview let him talk more than you and make sure that he is asking many questions about your financial problems, goals, risk tolerance, etc. If he doesn’t ask, then it’s not good to choose that person.

- Third, search for a financial planner through reliable references such as the Financial Planning Association. Or you can ask a friend or family member about the best planner they are dealing with. That’s a great way to find a good financial planner as you will get real information about his abilities, experience, skills, how he solved the problems that your friend faced one day, and so on.

- Fourth, you should understand how your planner is getting paid. In general, there are three common ways to pay your financial planner’s fees which are fee-only, fee-based, and commission-based.

- Fifth, to make sure that your financial planner is a good guy, you should check credentials to see if a planner’s record is tarnished by disciplinary problems or complaints.

We should also know that not all planners offer the same thing. Some can help you get out of debt, some just give investment advice, and others can make only plans for your financial future.

It’s better to know what we need in order to search in the right direction.

Make a Good Mixture - Part II

January 8th, 2009

This is the second part of how to make a successful retirement. In this lesson, we will learn some missing links helping us to protect our retirement plans from the loss.

Experience won’t come from nothing. We should learn and learn and learn in order to become an expert in the field we choose. To make a good mixture of assets’ types, we should learn from others’ experience. We already have some cases teaching us how to deal with the financial situation we may in.

Now, it’s time to know some missing links that may spoil all our plans for a better retirement. Try to find most of them before thinking of your retirement plan.

Well, there is a missing link we should find before thinking of our retirement plans which is WHAT WE OWE. You can’t apply good savings strategies before getting rid of the majority of your debt.

With heavy burdens of debt, you won’t be able to think wisely in your retirement saving account. In this case, we should get rid of the heavy debts we have first, and then start our asset allocation plans second.

Another missing link, find out WHAT WE OWN. This is a really good strategy we must follow to know the next steps we should take. Through this direction, you will be able to estimate your ability to save for the future.

Ok, this link can be used within a different direction which is finding in which way your money should be headed. Your funds may refer to a small-cap investment, but indeed they can be used as large-cap investments. We should become familiar with what the market needs and tricks that we may face there.

This link also requires hiring a professional financial planner who has a good handle on most funds helping us to understand the market very well and use some of its tricks to lift our money up and up. He/she will help you find out which stocks are belonging to short-term or mid-term or long-term investments.

Without those two links, you may lose your way to a successful retirement. Try to put those links into consideration along the way. Thinking and searching are the best tools to find those links smoothly.

Remember, you will need to move more of the money into bonds as you get older. Get well prepared!

Make a Good Mixture - Part I

January 4th, 2009

To make a successful retirement plan, we should know how to mix some assets’ types together to work on our sides. It is better also to find which case is more convenient for our current financial situation.

We always say that determining our goals is the first step we should take before starting building our savings accounts. Of course, our aim today is talking about retirement. That’s the ultimate financial goal we want to achieve.

As we mentioned, the best option helping us to achieve our retirement goal is setting up an asset allocation plan. Stick to such a plan will make our risk tolerance in a good balance, plus thinking in terms of your tolerance for volatility.

Do you know that the extreme risk you may face is the risk of doing nothing! Ya, that’s right. You won’t gain money from nothing, you won’t eat from nothing, and you won’t enjoy your life from nothing. Life needs money to enjoy every minute you live in.

Recently, there are many choices available to gain more money from. One of those methods or choices whatever is to invest through asset allocation which enables us to invest where risks are under control.

Will you search for risky ways to get money? Of course not, especially when we are nearing retirement age. Younger people, however, can take on more risk because they have a longer investing horizon.

Time to make a good mixture between assets’ types!

Here are some cases helping us to demonstrate how to make a good mixture of what’s available for us in order to make a successful retirement:

First case, if you want to make a plan to retire in 15 years. You should keep 50 percent in stocks and 40 percent in bonds, with 10 percent in a money market account. And if you are younger, the percentage in stocks could be around 65 percent.

Second case, when you make a retirement plan in 5 years. In reality, the chances to get more returns will go down as you will suffer from allocating your assets for maximum return without betting the farm.

Third case, if your main goal is to pay your kids’ tuition bills. Then it’s better to think in using a separate asset-allocation plan. Add, there is another chance for this situation which is putting a bit more in the stock market while they are young.

Be careful, when we are talking about investment world, we shouldn’t forget the risky side. That’s why we need to seek getting advice from professional financial planners.

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