Top Finance Blog

The holidays are past us and 2011 has come to an end. For many, this is the time to look forward and plan for the year ahead. Do you have any personal resolutions? Career goals? Financial commitments? Many people resolve to lose some weight and spend more time with their families. These are great goals, but don’t go into 2012 without similarly planning for your financial year.

via Flickr

Even if you don’t have financial goals, it’s still important to assess your upcoming budget. Are you planning to make a large purchase, such as a car or home? Do you expect a consistent income stream? How is this coming year going to be different from the last? Doing some research, jotting down some numbers, and making a tentative budget will likely make you feel much more comfortable heading into the year. If it means checking out mortgage rates and getting free insurance quotes over the next couple weeks, it’s still a worthwhile hassle that may be appreciated down the road.

Still, it’s beneficial to have a couple overarching financial goals. If nothing comes to mind, you’re welcome to share one of mine: going green. More specifically, I want to save money by making my life more environmentally-friendly. Here’s what I plan to do:

1. Install energy-efficient lights in my home and my office. While these lights cost more upfront, they easily translate into savings over the course of a year.
2. Insulate my attic. Making your home better-insulated can be a costly and difficult undertaking. But, in many homes, it’s easy to add insulation to the attic. Since heat rises, doing so can greatly improve your winter heating efficiencies.
3. Get a modern thermostat. A new generation of thermostats, made by companies such as Nest Labs, are designed to regulate a home’s temperature in a way that best maximizes energy efficiencies. As with energy-efficient lights, these products are more expensive but you allow you to easily recoup your costs.
4. Take public transit. Taking the bus or train is often less convenient than driving a car. But, when feasible, forsaking gas costs and using public transit can result in some big savings.
5. Eat leftovers. This may sound like a weird one, but I’ve always been adverse to eating leftovers, even though doing so can reduce one’s food costs and lower the demand for food production. I resolve to change this habit in 2012.

These are the main ways that I hope to be greener and save some money in the upcoming year. It is not my only financial goal but it is certainly one of the key ones. If you have no big plans for yourself, you may want to consider taking this advice, become more eco-friendly, and helping your wallet line in the process.

Alex Summers is a recently graduate from the University of Arkansas (SOOOOIIEEE! Go Hogs!) and is entering the foray of the world of writing. And advertiser by trade, writer in dreams, and in reality somewhere in the middle, Alex is considered to be a grounded creative or literary business professional, whichever paradox you prefer.
 

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Mitch Mitchell

Today, almost everyone is in some form of credit and debt crisis. With the downturn in the economy, many people found themselves without a job and without a way to pay their credit card debts or other financial obligations. If you find yourself in this situation, you are not alone and there are solutions to help you find your way back to financial freedom.

by Alan Cleaver via Flickr

Benefits of Credit Relief Counseling Services

Probably the best benefit of using debt counseling services is that professional credit counselors can help you develop a plan for making a budget, prioritizing your financial obligations and getting out of debt. When you talk to a credit counselor, make sure you talk to them about all of your financial debts so that they have a clear picture of your financial situation. With this information, they can help you decide what expenses can be cut and assist you in developing a realistic budget.

Although you may not see an immediate improvement with your credit score, eventually your credit rating will improve. As creditors begin to receive regular monthly payments and you start paying off your credit obligations, positive information will be sent to credit reporting agencies and granting credit to you will be seen as less of a financial risk. Eventually, you will see the benefit by being able to qualify for premium interest rates again.

Debt Management Services – With a working budget, and then you can begin to look at credit card repayment options. One of the most popular services offered by many debt counseling companies is debt management. With debt management services, you usually make one payment a month to the credit counseling company, which encompasses all of the credit card payments you need to make for the month. They, in turn, make your payments for you.

Negotiated Debt Reduction – Usually, a credit counseling services will negotiate with your credit card companies to lower your monthly payments by reducing your interest rate, removing accumulated fees or freezing your account. As a result, the single monthly payment you make to the credit counseling service is usually lower than it would be if you were to pay all of the credit card payments separately. Ultimately, you end up with more money to put toward your budget by using debt management services.

Credit Card Consolidation Loans – Debt counseling companies also often have access to credit card and debt consolidation loan lenders. Since consolidation loans are spread out over a longer term than credit card payments and are offered at lower rates than credit cards, taking out this type of loan can significantly decrease your monthly payments and give you more room in your monthly budget. A consolidation loan does not eliminate your debt, but it can make it more manageable and allow you to more realistically pay it off in full.

Credit Repair Services – Credit counseling services can also help you with credit repair efforts. They can help you place a statement on your credit report explaining any major life events that have affected your ability to meet your credit obligations, such as job loss, illness, death or divorce. This can be an important activity because it will help potential creditors understand and take this information into consideration when considering you for credit. Additionally, professional credit counselors can help you remove erroneous and negative credit information from your credit report. This can help significantly improve your credit score.

Working with a professional credit counseling service can provide you with guidance and assistance to help to dig your way out of your financial crisis. With their assistance, you can develop a realistic budget, begin to pay off your debts and improve you credit score.

Shin Mayormita writes for FranklinDebtRelief.com, a company that specializes in debt settlement, also known as debt negotiation.
 

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Mitch Mitchell

If you thought that you had to have a high paying job in order to become rich, think again. The book The Millionaire Mind by Thomas J. Stanley, Ph.D. proves that with the right mindset and temperament almost anyone can become a millionaire. And some professions are made to create millionaires that you probably have never thought about before.

This isn’t a book that teaches you how to become a millionaire. Instead, it highlights how some people attain wealth by living frugally or by being in professions where expenses are lower because those in the profession get to be a bit more low key.

For example, think about plumbers and lawyers. Lawyers make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, and you’d think that there would be a lot of millionaire lawyers. Yet, because of their profession, they have to pay out a lot of that money on things like their clothing, fancy offices, fancy cars, and membership fees. That’s because we expect our lawyers to have a certain look and live a certain visible lifestyle.

Compare them to plumbers. They make nice money, don’t necessarily have to have offices but if they do, they don’t have to look like lawyer offices. They can purchase vans that have their logo on the side and it’s a business expense, while driving a regular car. They wear uniforms or their own clothes and don’t have to join country clubs and the like if they don’t want to. Their memberships cost a lot less as well as everything else they do. So, they get to keep a lot more of their money, and if they don’t spend extravagantly they can easily become millionaires; at a matter of fact, Dr. Stanley said there’s a much higher percentage of plumber millionaires than one might imagine.

His book also tells us that education doesn’t have much to do with whether someone becomes a millionaire or not. Just because you have a college degree doesn’t make you any more likely than someone else to become wealthy. It takes drive and thriftiness instead, which makes sense.

One interesting thing he did was take a survey to see what the top success factors were based on the responses millionaires gave him. You might be surprised at the top 5:

• Being honest with all people
• Being well disciplined
• Getting along with people
• Having a supportive spouse
• Working harder than most people

As I stated, this isn’t a book of lessons. Yet what this book contains teaches its own type of lessons and might help change your perception of wealth and how to get rich for the better. You should think about picking up a copy of The Millionaire Mind.
 

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Mitch Mitchell

Buying a house can be a fun but challenging and time-consuming task. There will be a lot of time spent in sight-seeing and visiting different prospect locations before landing to the perfect and ideal site. This process entails financial resources. Thus, it is something that you must take great precaution in. This article gives you [...]

Something a little bit different here at Top Finance Blog. There are these social media awards called the Shorty Awards that have people nominate them for awards in different social media categories and allow people to ask for others to nominate them. Voting ends on February 17th and there is one winner per category. Click [...]

For the first few weeks after the New Year starts, people everywhere are still getting their resolutions together, but chances are — given the state of the economy — if you are one of the millions of people who bothered to set a resolution for yourself, it probably has to do with your finances. While [...]

The Millionaire Maker by Loral Langemeyer is a book that gives people encouragement and instructions on how to learn how to handle their money and grow their money to get out of debt, gain financial freedom, and even learn something about themselves in the process. Langemeyer talks about her principles of wealth building, known as [...]