Erasing Debt: 5 Great Tips for Paying off Loans Quicker

Loans are the great discouragement in many people’s lives. Because of loans, you may not be able to take your dream vacation, invest money into your retirement fund, help your child out with college payments or even have a date night once month with your significant other. 

Unpaid loans can cause stress and anxiety particularly for women who long for that elusive feeling of security. Plus, it can be incredibly difficult to watch your loan amounts go down so slowly as you keep paying interest. 

Whether you have auto, home or students loans or some other type of debt, here are five easy ways to get your loan paid off faster than you imagined.

Round Up Payments

While creating and working closely with a budget goes without saying if you are trying to be wise with your money, you may want to rethink how much money you allocate towards your loan repayments. 

Consider rounding up your payments to the next $50 or $100 mark. For example, if you have a student loan payment of $256 per month, you could round it up and make it $300 per month. 

While an extra $44 per month may not be easily missed in your spending habits, it will make a great deal of difference in the amount of money you are paying interest on for your loan. In fact, just that small amount will give you over $500 in extra payments every year.

Make One Extra Payment per Year

Another way to pay down a loan faster is to make an extra payment per year. This is much easier to swing if you consider making payments on your loan every two weeks rather than once per month. 

Split your monthly payment in half, and pay this amount every two weeks. For example, if you have a monthly charge of $200, you would be paying $2,400 per year with the traditional method, but $2,600 per year with the every two week method. 

For a home mortgage, making one extra payment per year for a total of 13 full payments would help you shorten the time on your 30-year mortgage by almost 4 years.

Find a Way to Get a Lower Interest Rate

Even if you have no way to make extra payments every month or every year, you may still be able to pay off your loan faster while making the same monthly payments. 

The only way to do this would be to lower your interest rate so that more of the money you are paying in goes to principal rather than interest. 

You could simply ask your lender to match a new rate that you have seen a competitor offer, request to refinance a loan or combine all of your loans into one new loan that offers a better interest rate.

Take Control of Your Spending

When you carefully budget your money and control your spending, it may be uncomfortable initially. 

You may find that you cannot go out to eat as often as you once did or purchase so many personal choice items. However, this will give you more money that you can put towards paying down your loans.

Find a Way to Make Extra Money

If you have put as much money as you can towards paying down loans but still feel that you are not paying your loans down fast enough, consider how you can increase your income. 

You may want to consider getting a part-time job, selling some clothes to a consignment store, having a garage sale or selling some items that you have crafted. 

If you are stretched for cash one month, you could consider getting a payday advance that will help cover your needs until you receive your next paycheck.

When you have paid off all of your loans and are debt-free, the weight that is lifted from your shoulders is enormous. 

You can feel relief that you have more spending money as well as more funds to invest in what is important to you. Plus, know that the faster you pay off your loans, the less you will spend overall on interest.

What to Do When Unforeseen Events Hit Your Family & Your Finances

A severe car accident. A broken furnace. An unexpected opportunity to travel and work abroad. What do all these seemingly unrelated things have in common? They all have the potential to alter your family’s life and your finances. 

While sometimes these unexpected events can be good, as in the case of the job opportunity overseas, they’re often not positive. And either type of event can cause significant stress. 

If you’re dealing with the aftermath of such an event, or you just want to be prepared for some future event, try implementing the following four tips.

1. Prepare for it Mentally

To put it frankly, bad things just happen sometimes. Because you can’t always avoid such situations, knowing that they can happen and mentally preparing for such events can give you peace of mind. 

To help you prepare, visualize different situations and think about how you would handle those situations. Where would you go to for financing? How much money would you be willing to put towards certain events straight out of your pocket?

2. Save More Ahead of Time

Saving money for a rainy day can be one of the best ways to improve your finances this year (or any year), according to a Forbes article. 

If you’re saving with an emergency in mind, you’ll want to have two kinds of savings plans, a short-term and a long-term one. In the short-term, you’ll need between $1,000 and $2,000 for emergencies like a blown furnace. 

For the long-term emergencies like a job loss, you’ll want to save enough income to live without an income for six to nine months.

3. Get Help from a Professional

Some emergencies are so bad, you can’t dig yourself out of them by yourself. One of the best things you can do if you find that this is the case is to get help from a professional. 

As Clearfield & Kofsky points out, it’s difficult for the untrained to deal with the potential legal matters that can arise from events like an accident or a bad fall. Of equal importance is to find some support for your mental health as well. 

You can’t really make good decisions if your thinking has been skewed a bit by the accident. Having a professional around to guide you just makes sense.

4. Get Good Insurance

Having good insurance can go a long way to help you recover from an accident or other mishap. It also helps to ensure that tragic events won’t completely wipe you out. 

It’s okay to not know where to start when it comes to this. In fact, you should go ahead and shop around for a good policy. Doing so can save you some serious financial heartaches in the future.

The best way to handle emergencies is to be prepared for them. Just like cities and states have an emergency plan in place for when trouble strikes, so can you. 

Getting money put into a savings account and lining up some good insurance are some good first steps. Additionally, it’s critical that you know how to get professional advice when the need arises. 

Finally, know that everyone has challenges. If you prepare for them, however, they don’t need to wipe you out financially or emotionally.

6 Things You Must Check When Buying a Used Car

Even though there is something oddly satisfying in knowing that you are the car’s first owner, in most cases, this is simply not worth the price. As soon as you take the car out of the salon, it can no longer be branded as new, which makes its price deteriorate drastically. 

Just a few years later (3-6) the car will be worth only half of its original price, while by the time it is 10 years old it will cost only 20 percent of this amount. Sure, a decade is not a short time-span, but a high-quality car can be equally as functional even 15 years after it was made. 

Nonetheless, there are some things you simply must check before buying a used car and here are six of them.

1. Consult Your Budget

Every once in a while, you will encounter an offer you simply won’t be able to say no to. Imagine a scenario where you get an insanely low offer for a car you always dreamed of having. 

On one hand, you can’t put a price tag on a dream, but at the same time, the amount may still be too much for your budget. Sure, sometimes undergoing a bit of austerity is worth it if it means getting what you always wanted, but sometimes it will still be too much for your budget in the long-run.

2. Run the Report History

The first thing you want to do before closing a purchase is check vehicle’s history report. This is a fairly easy thing to do and it reveals to you whether or not the car has been in any accidents or if it was subjected to things like flood damage. 

In order to do this, however, you will have to find its identification number. Another thing you can learn this way is if the odometer has been rolled back in order to boost the price.

3. Check It out in Person

With the right angle, lens, light and a bit of work on a Photoshop, any car can look amazing. In person, it is much harder to hide some of the vehicle’s obvious flaws. 

Even as a layman you will be able to clearly see rust and tear marks, but it is usually much more efficient to bring a mechanic from a trusted auto service to do an inspection. 

No camouflage methods will be able to trick a professional and although they work for a fee, it is a small price to pay when compared to buying a faulty car.

4. Talk to the Owner

Another thing you want to do when buying a used car is speak to the owner in person. Sure, fabricating certain facts and concealing truths is easy to do on paper (or on the internet), but something much harder to pull off in person. 

You need to start with some basic questions like were they the first owner of the vehicle and why are they selling it in the first place. While this may seem as something too basic to actually be effective, you would be surprised with the amount of honesty you may encounter.

5. Going for a test drive

Probably the most important step of them all is taking a car for a test drive. The car may look great on paper, but the way it behaves you are driving it is what really matters. 

While driving, make sure to drive as unorthodox as possible (of course, without putting yourself or others in danger while doing so). You need to try breaking, turning sharply and even drifting a bit. 

For safety reasons, it would be best to go someplace remote, without a lot of traffic.

6. Transferable Warranty Can Be a Deal-Breaker

Last, but in no way least important, in some situations, the vehicle you are intending to buy is still covered by a warranty. 

If that is the case, you will probably have the option of transferring it to yourself. In this way, you will be able to save a small fortune on future repairs.

In Conclusion

The best thing about the above mentioned six tips is that they can be all performed in a matter of minutes and hours, rather than days. 

Seeing how there are not many expenses greater than vehicle purchase, any effort invested in protecting your finances is always more than worth it.

Author bio: Steven Clarke is a business consultant/web entrepreneur, also passionate about cars. In his spare time he likes to write about his ideas and share them with the world. Steven is a regular contributor to several websites.

Out on Workers' Comp? How to Take Care of Your Personal Finances

Thousands of wage earners go out on workers' compensation every year. The experience can be brutal because the workers generally lose the ability to earn money immediately. 

The following is some information about what happens to the personal finances and what a person can do take care of them during a workers' compensation period.

The Decline of Family Funds

Workers' comp cases usually put the family in shock right away because they are so unexpected and sudden. A family that does not have a good amount of savings can suffer immensely if these funds are not available. 

The bills like the utilities, mortgage and rent will continue to build up, but the injured person won't be able to pay them until the Worker's comp money comes in. 

Therefore, it may come down to eliminating some of the daily pleasures that your family enjoys such as cable, Netflix, and maybe even the internet to help you save money. 

You may have to budget out every grocery trip and even ration your daily meals. This may even require your spouse to go back to work. No matter how you look at it, until your workers’ comp comes through, you will be facing major financial changes and decisions.

The Worker's Comp Process

A Worker's comp case can go smoothly if the insurer approves the case. If the claim is

deemed invalid for some reason or another, the family finances could crumble by the time the situation resolves. 

Families will suffer horribly if they do not have a large portion of the money saved. To help you navigate this process and make sure that your finances are taken care of, you should contact a lawyer like those at Oxner + Permar, LLC. for assistance. 

Without a good lawyer on your side, you may not get all of the money you need to cover your expenses from workers’ comp. And while hiring a lawyer may ultimately cost you money, this will help you in the long run in making sure that you get the money you deserve from workers’ comp to take care of your family. 

Then you won’t have to give up those extra pleasures that your family enjoys on a daily basis.

What the Family Can Do

Making smart decisions before on-the-job injuries occur is the best way to avoid total devastation when something like this happens. Starting an interest bearing savings account is a good idea as well as making small investments. 

Both ventures can help a family to get through a crisis and it will help alleviate any financial strain that your family may incur during this trying period.

There are several things that the other family members can do once the leave begins. One thing they can do is start selling the items from the home that no one needs. 

Items like household goods and electronics may sell at online auction sites. Examples of things that can bring money in are items such as cell phones, computers, navigational systems, clothing and the like. 

Another thing that you can do is work some odd jobs. Short-term loans and pawnshop advances are tangible, as well. The best way to bring money in is not to borrow it, but it may be necessary.

The struggling family unit will make it if they follow some of the previously mentioned tips. The other tip is to file the workers' compensation cases as quickly as possible so that it can proceed quickly. 

The injured person must also do everything that the employer requires him or her to do.

UK Retirement Savings Map Shows Who's Saving and Who's Not Saving for Retirement

Dreams of a comfortable retirement are going to turn into a nightmare if you don't save money today. It's hard to believe many people are saving little to nothing in their workplace pension plans. Lately, there is a discussion going on in the media concerning this very issue.

In the infographic below you can see how the different regions in the UK are saving money for retirement. It's not very encouraging to see the neglect that many workers are taking to their retirement pension plans. Saving little to nothing seems to be the norm and not the exception. Check it out.

Credit: True Potential, A UK based company providing an online investment service

Debt Management: 7 Things You Should Be Considering Before Filing For Bankruptcy

Thousands of people file for bankruptcy each year when they find that the financial rut overwhelms them. Bankruptcy sometimes leaves a consumer with a poor credit score and file for up to seven years. If you are currently considering bankruptcy, you can consider these seven alternatives before you move forward.

Debt Settlement

One thing that you may want to consider before you file for bankruptcy is a debt settlement. You may be able to get an experienced counselor to negotiate a "pay in full" balance on some of your accounts that could render them as paid. 

If you can get that “pay in full” balance, then you essentially have a clean slate and you will be able to move on. With that said, you don’t want to go back into debt and you will want to be more careful about how you invest and spend your money in the future.

Debt Consolidation

Debt consolidation is a very common practice. You may just need to consolidate your bills so that they will be clearer to you. You can do a consolidation with a credit card, consolidation loan or a debt management plan. 

All three alternatives will allow you to make one low monthly payments. This should also help lower the interest rate on these payments making the burden of your debt a little easier to bear.

Debt Negotiation

Debt negotiation is the act of trying to persuade the creditors to give you a break on your debt. You can do that through an experienced attorney or counselor. You may be surprised at the leniency you receive if you make an effort to negotiate. 

However, you do not want to enter these negotiations without that attorney or counselor on your side. This will give you a better chance of getting some breaks on your debt payments.

Budget Consulting

Budget consulting is an educational course that a seasoned financial specialist like the ones at the Law Office of Barbara B. Braziel provide. Such lessons can teach different aspects of your financial profile and how you can avoid some of the most common pitfalls. 

If you go through such a program, you can learn how to cut your expenses so that you can have more funds for your savings and debt.

Debt Management Program

A debt management program can get you back on track without making you file for bankruptcy status. 

A counselor can help you to develop a monthly repayment plan that fits into your budget, and the counselor can even pay the bills for you each month for a small fee. Some consumers find such programs to be quite helpful.

Credit Monitoring

One of the best ways to keep track of your credit and how it has been impacted by debt is to monitor it. Monitoring your credit can keep you out of the bankruptcy court. 

You can dispute things that are making your credit report look poor and keep an eye on new developments. Monitoring software costs approximately $10 a month.

Credit Counseling

Sometimes it is just too difficult to manage your debt and budget all on your own. Sometimes you really do need the assistance of a professional. 

It may cost many to have a counselor or financial advisor on your side, but if it ultimately helps get you out of debt in the long run, then this is worth looking into.

Now you know of some alternatives to bankruptcy. Consider them and whether they can serve you well. If not, you can always speak to a bankruptcy expert.