5 Tips for Wisely Managing Your Loans

These are tough economic times, and a lot of people are having to rely on credit cards and bank loans from establishments like MainSource Bank in order to keep up with their bills. If you have found yourself in this situation with multiple loans to pay every month, then try following these five tips to help you keep up with your payments and pay off those debts as quickly as possible.

Keep a Calendar of All Required Payments

When you have a lot of different loan payments to make every month, the first thing you need to do is create a calendar which lays out all of your due dates and minimum payment amounts per loan. By keeping track of your upcoming payments, you won’t be caught off guard at any time.

Money management is just basic math—addition and subtraction. The numbers shouldn’t ever surprise you. There’s no excuse for bouncing checks, missing due dates and getting stuck with late fees. All of that can be prevented by organizing your calendar and doing the math.

Schedule Automatic Payments

Once you have your payment calendar all set up, the next thing you should do is schedule automatic payments for each of your loans.

The only reason you might be scared by this step is that you are spending more money than you make every month. If that is the case, then you still need to schedule those automatic payments. But you also need to see where all your money is going so that you can cut back on unnecessary expenses and prioritize these bill payments. 






Now that your bill payments are all pre-scheduled, and you are keeping a positive cash flow to cover those payments, you’ll never have to deal with another late fee or feel stressed about when payments are due. It’s already figured out and set up to run on autopilot.

Synchronize Due Dates with Pay Periods

If your bill payment due dates are spread throughout the month in a way that makes it difficult to track or in a way that makes it difficult to pay promptly, you can try calling your creditors and setting up custom payment due dates. This is especially helpful if your bill payments are all loaded heavily at the beginning of the month and require more than one paycheck in order cover them.

So what you want to do is put half of your due dates at the beginning of the month to be paid by one paycheck, and then you schedule the other bills a couple of weeks later to be covered by the next paycheck.

Negotiate Lower Interest Rates

If you haven’t already, you should try contacting each of your creditors to see if there is any way they can lower your interest rate to help you keep up with your payments. Many creditors are actually happy to do this because they lose a lot of money when their customers fall behind and they have to charge off those accounts to debt collection companies.

If you own your home and have a lot of credit card bills or other bank loans, you might be able to combine these into a single, large consolidation loan or mortgage payment. By reducing the number of payments that you need to make every month, this might make it a little easier for you to stay organized and to avoid missing any payment due dates.

All it takes is a phone call and a cheerful attitude. You never know, and you just might get lucky. So give it a try and see what they say.

Pay Down Faster with Snowball Technique

The snowball technique is a proven method for paying off multiple debts as quickly as possible. The way it works is that you figure out all of your bill payments, then you make only minimum payments to each of them—except for the one that has either the highest interest-rate or the lowest minimum payment. This one becomes your priority.

So you will choose one of your loans, and make it your priority to pay off that loan as quickly as possible while maintaining minimum payments on all the other loans.

Once that priority loan is paid off in full, you then take the payment that you were making there and add it to the minimum payment on the next bill on your list. By progressing in this way your bill payments snowball, and the bills get paid off faster and faster.

It can be very frustrating when you have a lot of bills to pay off and are trying to get out of debt. But many people have done it before, and you will do it too. You just have to get organized, prioritize your bill payments and reduce your unnecessary spending as much as possible. By following these tips your bills will get paid off in no time.

Financial Terms Jargon Buster

In a study carried out by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), it was found that just 38% of adults know what ‘inflation’ means. True Potential Investor’s jargon buster has been created to help improve our knowledge of important financial terms. Take a look to find out more:

Bonds

When companies want to raise funds to meet a business goal, they may offer corporate bonds. To do this, some choose to issue bonds that investors can then buy. The money raised from the investment is held for an agreed number of years. 

At the end — also known as bond maturity — the investor receives the money they invested plus their guaranteed interest which was agreed at the start.

Government bonds or gilts are also available. They work in a similar way to corporate bonds and are used to fund borrowing.

Capital

Capital refers to the funds that you invest initially.

Capital gains tax

For any profit you make on specific types of investment, you could pay tax on it — known as capital gains tax. You may not need to pay capital gains tax — it depends on the amount of profit you make and whether you use the profit to buy new shares. More information can be found on the GOV.UK website.

Diversification

If you diversify your investment, you invest across multiple areas rather than just one. For example, you can diversify your investment across a range of investment types — such as shares or bonds, for example — as well as between industries, currencies and countries. 





Through diversification, you can manage risk and protect your investments against the impact of market uncertainty.

FTSE

FTSE stands for the Financial Times Stock Exchange. It monitors how companies and indices are performing during trading on the London Stock Exchange. A number of lists are available, with each showing the fluctuations in share prices over time.

Inflation

Inflation describes how a price for goods or services had increased over time. It is measured as an annual percentage change and can impact interest rates and share prices.

ISA

ISAs — or Individual Savings Accounts — are a tax-efficient savings method.

Cash ISAs and stocks and shares ISAs are two popular ISA types: 

• Cash ISAs — similar to a typical savings account, cash ISAs do not require you to pay tax on any interest that is generated. 
• Stocks & shares ISAs — with a stocks and shares ISA, the money is invested with the aim of growing the fund over time. You do not pay tax on dividends. 
• Pensions 

Through a pension, you can put money aside for your retirement. The money you place in the pension fund is invested with the aim of growing it by the time you retire.

Pension types include:

• Personal pensions — a pension you arrange yourself, which you can contribute to whenever you want. 
• Workplace pensions — this type of pension is arranged through your employer. Usually, you’ll contribute an amount each month, with your employer also contributing and the government contributing tax relief too. 
• State pensions — a state pension is the amount you receive from the government once you reach State Pension age. Details on how much this is and eligibility can be found at the GOV.UK website. 

Stocks & shares

Stocks allow investors to purchase a share in a company. However, these stocks can be broken down into a number of shares, which can also be purchased by investors. Because of this similarity, the two terms are often interchangeable.

Investors purchase stocks and shares with the aim to sell them for more than what they paid. Usually, stock and shareholders receive a proportion of the company’s profits on an annual or bi-annual basis in the form of dividends.

Yield

Yield describes the performance of an investment at present and in the future. For example, if you received £5 in interest from £100 placed in a Cash ISA, your total yield would be 5% which is equal to £5.

Financial services group True Potential LLP, of which True Potential Investor is a part of, has partnered with the Open University to improve financial knowledge in the UK. As well as establishing the True Potential Centre for the Public Understanding of Finance (PUFin), a number of free financial courses are available remotely.

200,000 people have already benefited from these courses. For information on how you can enrol, visit the True Potential Investor website.

How to Get Bad Credit Guaranteed Car Finance With No Credit?

Many times, it has been seen that people struggle with their current credit history. They find that auto loans especially the car loans are near to impossible to obtain. Are you looking for a car loan irrespective of the new or used car but dread applying for a car loan? If yes, then you have come to the right place. 

Here, you are going to collect the information regarding the bad credit guaranteed car finance. It means that there is a possibility that you can get car loan even with the bad credit. There is no issue at all for applying an auto loan while having bad credit.

Easy to process

All you need to do is to visit online and find lenders, which offer many exclusive deals related to the auto loan along with poor credit history. You can get your loan approved within just a few minutes. 

It states that the process is very simple and fast, even eliminates the demand of more paper work. For auto loan for bad credit guaranteed approval, you can compare non-binding proposals free of cost with the advice from car loan experts so that you can find and make sure that the lender is appropriate to fit your needs of the credit and financial situations. 




With the best and reliable lender, people will also get a chance to rebuild the credit rating from the very first day of the application and help to make your finances come back on track. 

Due to an easy process application procedure, it provides you with an option to save a lot of time and money. By going online, you can secure guaranteed car finance with bad credit. No matter whether you want a new or second-hand car, you will get it in just 48 hours or even less time sometimes.

What do they offer?

When you are going to avail the services of the car loan providers regardless of the good or bad credit, make sure to attain complete information about their services. The range of services may vary from provider to provider. Hence, it is better to be careful about what they offer. Some features of these lenders offering guaranteed auto loan approval online with poor credit history are:

• You will benefit from the flexible and cheaper car payment plans on a monthly basis. 
• You can explore a wide range of in-house options for bad credit auto financing. 
• They will offer you a chance to work directly with loan dealers. It means that there is no intermediaries between you and the lender. 
• They secure assured car loan bad credit approval when you visit online. 
• There are no pre-penalties clause, which is appropriate for a premature car loan payoff. 

Requirements to be met

There are some requirements you should meet while applying for a car loan when you are having bad credit like you must have a legal driver’s license, be ready with your down payment if you want to give, and much more. For more information, talk to a representative right now!

What Happens if You Do Not Renew or Withdraw your FD?

When investing, it is imperative that you know how your finances will benefit or suffer under all possible scenarios. So, take a look at what happens if you don’t renew or withdraw your fixed deposit at maturity.

Fixed deposits (FDs) are popular investment options amongst Indians, and for good reason too. They are safe, independent of market fluctuations, and offer guaranteed returns. You stand to enjoy several benefits with no threat to your investment corpus. But, what happens to your fixed deposit once it reaches maturity, and you don’t renew or withdraw it? Read on to find out.

If you Don’t Renew your Fixed Deposit

• While several financial institutions give you the option of selecting auto-renewal on maturity, not everyone chooses this. 
• In case you fall into this category, here’s how this will affect your fixed deposit. If you didn’t opt for auto-renewal but opted for the sum to be transferred to a savings account at the time of application, that’s exactly what will happen. 
• Once it is credited to the savings account, you can choose to either hold on to the money or reinvest it. You can create another fixed deposit, or choose another investment option altogether. 
• It is possible that you haven’t specified the account to which you’d like the amount to be transferred and haven’t selected auto-renewal as well. In such a case, your financial institution will send you a notification. 
• This is to inform you of the fact that your fixed deposit has matured and to ask you what you would like to do next. But, note that some banks skip this step and mail a demand draft of the amount to your registered address. 
• According to the guidelines set by Reserve Bank of India, you will be tracked by the financial institution within 14 days after your FD matures and you choose to renew it. The interest will be calculated from the date of maturity instead of the date of renewal. 
• If the financial institution delays in informing you and exceeds the 14-day window, they will be liable to pay for the delay. 

If you Don’t Withdraw your Fixed Deposit

• If you don’t withdraw the FD at maturity, the financial institution may automatically renew your FD for as many time as required. 
• But, if the FD isn’t withdrawn for more than two or three consecutive tenors, the institution will get in touch with the applicant. If the applicant is not responsive, the amount will be handed over to the applicant's nominee. 
• Not claiming your FD at maturity may seem convenient, as the financial institution will auto-renew it. But, do bear in mind that the interest accrued will be at a savings account interest rate. 
• If your deposit is unclaimed or overdue for a period of more than 10 years, the financial institution labels your fixed deposit as an inoperative account. Then, it transfers the sum to the bank’s Depositor Education and Awareness Fund Scheme. 

So, it is evident that ignoring your FD—or any other investment, for that matter—is far from advisable. To ensure that you make the most of your investments, it is wise to watch them closely. Some financial institutions even offer the facility to do this online. One such fixed-deposit service provider is Bajaj Finserv. Their FDs offer a high rate of interest, along with convenient online fund management.

4 Financial Plans You Need to Have down When Starting a Family

The decision to start a family is a big one, and whether the decision is a deliberate, well thought out one or a sudden one, there are some plans you should get into place. Families can be expensive, and planning ahead can help ease the burden. But, there’s no use in worrying, only in doing, so grab some of your favorite candy (with this cost cutting See's candy coupon, of course) and relax a little bit. 

It’s not as scary as it might seem. You just need some insider info and some diligence, and you can take control of your personal finances and save for the future. Here are some tips to help you reign in your finances. Here are four financial plans you should have in place when starting a family.

Maternity and Paternity Leave

You need to look at your state’s laws and company policy regarding leave for having a baby. Do you get time off? How much time? Is it paid or unpaid? Can you use vacation, sick time, or short-term disability to supplement the time off or the possibly lost income? 

This information is important to help you figure out your budget not only for the weeks after the baby’s arrival, but for the whole first year.

Start or Add to Your Emergency Fund

An emergency fund with no less than three to six months’ worth of expenses in it is critical to ensuring that your family can stay on financial track. If you don’t already have an emergency fund, now’s the time to start it. 



If you do have one, but don’t have enough, add to it now. Even if you already have three to six months in it, consider adding more. Babies can be expensive, and it’s better to be over-prepared than under.

Meet with a Bankruptcy Lawyer

After the baby arrives, you’ll have new expenses: child care, baby clothes, baby food, and more. You may want life insurance on your baby, or to increase your own. You may also want to look into disability insurance, start or add to your retirement fund, or start an education fund for your new addition. 

If you’re already in debt though, these plans can seem unreachable. Meeting with a bankruptcy lawyer can accomplish a couple of things. One, they can help you file for bankruptcy if that’s the right option for you. 

Second, depending on the types and amount of debt, they may be able to help you come up with a plan to pay off your debt without filing for bankruptcy that still puts you in a better financial position.

Write or Adjust Your Will

Once you have a child, everything changes. You’ll want to make sure that your child is cared for after your death, particularly if it happens sooner and more unexpectedly than you’d like. 

Making sure that your will is up to date to reflect your wishes regarding your child’s guardian(s), as well as how you want your estate distributed, will make things much easier on those left behind.

Starting a family is a beautiful time for most couples. A few easy financial tweaks can ensure that it remains a beautiful time, rather than becoming a stressful, worrying time.

Stocks or Not? 3 Major Methods of Investment and How They Work

If you’ve read much financial advice, you’ve probably heard at some point that the key to prosperity is making your money work for you. One of the most common ways to do this is to invest your money, but this isn’t as simple as it sounds, because there are many methods of investment out there. Here are three of the most common and how they work.

Stocks

The stock market is what usually comes to mind when people think of investing. With this investment method, you’re buying one or more shares of a company. If the company’s value increases and its stock price goes up, then you’ll make money, and vice versa. 

Although the stock market’s overall value tends to go up over time, plenty of companies fail, meaning it’s important not to risk too much on unestablished companies. 

Another way to invest in stocks is to choose an index fund that encompasses a variety of companies. This makes it easier to build a diverse portfolio and reduce your risk of losing all your money from one company tanking.

Real Estate

Real estate investing is another popular investing method, and there are multiple ways to make money from your real estate. The simplest is to purchase real estate and wait for the value to increase. 

You’ll then have a more valuable asset then you originally purchased, and with a mortgage, you can get the leverage to buy real estate worth much more than you have saved up. 

You could also purchase real estate, and then rent that property out. Not only will you own the property, but you’ll be making money from it.

Commodities

Commodities cover a wide range of raw materials. These include gas, oil, agricultural products and precious metals, such as gold, silver, and platinum. Precious metals are popular because it can be purchased easily online from businesses like Rocky Mountain Coin in different forms. 

Although commodities are often volatile, they offer a way to diversify your portfolio, and there’s the potential for high returns if you purchase a commodity that comes into high demand. 

That volatility can work against you, though, and it’s important not to let any major swings in your commodity’s value scare you and force you into rash decisions.

Investing may be the wisest financial decisions you make. No matter which of the options above you select, make sure the bulk of your portfolio is in lower risk investments that should deliver a steady return on your money.