Finance Successfully

Are you looking for an alternative way of managing your finances but can’t seem to find the right combination? You might want to familiarize yourself with debt consolidation as it is currently one of the most popular financial alternatives of alleviating debt in the US. Debt Consolidation is believed to be the 2nd best thing to have ever happened after sliced bread. Well, it could seem like filling a very tall order seeing as it is the present economy is in a deplorable state to say the least.

If you are like many Americans today, you are having sleepless nights thinking of how to get out of that huge credit card debt or/ and other consumer-related types of debts. Most people are however turning into debt consolidation to get relieved off their debts, and with a good debt consolidation company, you can rest assured you will surely get the much needed relief from debt. A good debt relief company will give you the financial assistance you will need to get started on your debt-free journey, as it is qualified and experienced. Most people who have had the opportunity to benefit from these debt consolidation services report pure bliss especially after the harassing and tormenting phone calls stop and the late warning letters clear from your mailbox.

Perhaps the worst thing about a debt is that the effects are not only on the person with the debt but also on the whole family lineage, innocent kids who didn’t play any part in accruing the debt included. If you find yourself literally between the frying pan and the fire and have nowhere to jump to, rest assured a debt consolidation program could be the most direct path and legal way of giving you your financial freedom back.

Even when you seek the debt consolidation option, there are some things that only you can do at an individual level to help improve the situation. For starters, you should avoid using your credit cards if they are the ones responsible for the predicament that you are in. You could keep one credit card for emergencies but the rest you will be better off without them. Get rid of them even if it means literally cutting them into pieces so you could avoid the temptation of using them. Secondly, you should discipline yourself and change your spending habits. Once you start looking for a debt consolidation program with this mind frame, you will without a doubt get the much needed financial relief and become debt-free for the rest of your life.

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Whenever you find yourself in a financial deathtrap, it is normal to look for an alternative that will help you ought of your financial crisis and get you back on your feet again. Without a sound financial plan and back up, your other best alternative would be a debt consolidation loan, commonly referred to as simply a personal loan. Basically, a personal loan will establish or give you credit approved for your personal use, which in this case would be to repay the heavy debt burden. Note that personal loans are always unsecured issued on the basis of you are someone of integrity hence possess the ability to pay back the personal loan, plus all accrued interest on time.

In the event that you get a personal loan and fail to pay it, your best alternative would be to attach your property for the loan to be recovered. If you want to avoid this, you should apply for a personal loan for debt consolidation purposes whereby you will be issued with one loan that will replace all the multiple loans that you could be having. A personal loan for debt consolidation is ideal for people who are finding it hard to manage their debt perhaps because the debts are too many. Note that each debt has its own interest rate and its own due date for the monthly payments.

This therefore means that if you fail to make a payment for one of the several debts that you could be having say by forgetting, you will incur a penalty fee. While you could be having the money with you, it is poor management and forgetfulness that will cost you the penalty fee, as you will have avoided if you only had a single loan – and in comes the debt consolidation loan. With a personal loan for debt consolidation, unlike other loans you could be having, you will get a low monthly rate and a long repayment period, meaning you will have a better way of managing your time and money, and you will not miss any payments since you will only be servicing a single loan.

A personal loan for debt consolidation will leave you in a great shape of repaying and managing the many loans that have cost you a lot in terms of charges. It might also interest you to know that with a personal loan, you might earn yourself a low interest rate meaning by the end of it all you will be able to save some money that you have been paying servicing the highly rated loans.

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Personal finance seems to get more and more confusing everyday, but that doesn’t mean that it has to be this way. You will just need to think through all of your options no matter what the task is. For example, shopping is inevitable. Even if you’re not into shopping, there might be things that you really want — big ticket items that really need to get purchased one way or the other.

This means that you will have to start looking for deals everywhere you look. Now, you might have heard about a term that can really save you money shopping. It’s called 90 days same as cash. A lot of people don’t know what this concept means, so it can be difficult to figure out what’s actually going on. Here’s what you need to know:

You see, many stores that sell big ticket items know that there are times during the year that people have a lot of cash on hand. It’s one of those issues that you have to think about carefully — since stores know that you have a lot of cash, they’re going to do whatever it is that they can in order to make sure that you have the very best experience in their store. Oh, and spend a lot of money of course. If you aren’t looking at all of your deals, you may be leaving a lot of savings on the table — and who really wants to do that?

It’s a lot easier all things considered if you look into the 90 days same as cash program. On the surface, it seems simple: for 90 days, you simply make payments to get the item that you want. It’s a cash and carry system that works quite well. However, many stores have different policies for their 90 day same as cash program.

For example, you might get with a store that actually charges full interest on the amount owed, but just holds it back as long as you make your payments as scheduled. This can be good — you don’t have to pay the interest if you make your payments. However, if you don’t make your payments on time, the sweetheart deal ends and you will also owe interest payments as well.

When you’re looking at whether or not you want to jump on the program, you also need to make sure that you’re looking at the due dates for your payments and the processing time. Far too often people think that they’re actually making payments, only to find that the payments are late due to processing time. Instead of blaming the company, you need to be proactive enough to step forward and really make sure that you send off your payment ahead of time.

Overall, there’s no reason to think that you can’t take advantage of the 90 days same as cash program. Now that you know about it, you will have to weigh your decision based on the item in question — good luck!

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Are you thinking about taking hold of your investing life? Believe it or not, one of the best ways to do this isn’t to turn on the television and listen to the financial news. You have the power of the Internet on your side — why not take full advantage and look up information on companies directly?

Even though a lot of people try to make the process complicated, if you really want to get things done, you’re going to have to dig into the guts of a company eventually. The good news is that you can do it for free — you don’t have to have another service to do it.

First off, why even bother with a balance sheet in the first place? After all, most people talk about the income statement, and everyone likes money, right? This is true, but if you’re really going to get serious about being an investor, you really need to make sure that you have a full picture of what’s going on with a company. That’s where the balance sheet comes in — it lets you know a company’s financial position in full, including assets, liabilities, and equity in the company for the owners.

The first two concepts that you want to narrow down when it comes to a company’s balance sheet are liquidity and solvency. Indeed, liquidity essentially means the company’s ability to pay debts and handle problems that arise — such as working capital and debt. Every company needs to handle these problems, and it’s the truly strong companies that can rise above and actually get things done.

Solvency, as you might assume, measures how the company can handle all of the activities it needs to do to actually make money. So, now that you understand these two concepts, how do you really measure them in terms of number?

Again, let’s start with liquidity. The ratio in question here is a company’s assets in relation to its liabilities, which is ultimately known as the current ratio. Assets, when used in this context, refers back to cash, equivalents of cash, securities, accounts receivable, and inventory. In addition, assets even include anything that can be converted into cash.

Liabilities, as you might already know, refer back to things that the company has to pay off in the current year. Some people want to actually see a ratio of 2 to 1, but ratios do vary depending on what type of industry you’re talking about. Inventory also has a role to play here — inventory costs more depending on what type of inventory you’re talking about.

Some people have noted that inventory can be difficult to actually turn into cash, which means that you have to really look into other points on the balance sheet. This is usually where the inventory is ignored completely, and other assets are noticed more.

Let’s tackle solvency before things spiral out of hand — if you’re trying to look at the balance sheet, you want to look at total debt relative to the equity used to fund a business.

There are a few more points that can be said about a balance sheet, but if you really tackle these first and then look for more information, you’ll have a lot more power to make better decisions than other investors — check it out today!

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Credit cards are a tool, and even though we don’t always feel that way, that’s what we’re going to have to agree upon. If you’re really serious about knowing the ins and outs of your credit card, you will need to keep up with laws that apply to you as a consumer. Yes, we know it’s hard to really stay up to date when it feels like everyone is coming out with some new law that you need to learn, but it’s very important. You don’t want to end up not getting these steps in place and then you will have to try to figure out what to do next.

The law in question that you will need to pay attention now is the Credit CARD Act. Now, President Obama already signed this bill into law, and it’s been on the books for about two years now. However, consumers are just now realizing that this law affects them in different ways — especially as more people are talking about it, and banks are taking steps to change their policies specifically based on what the CARD act is doing.

In a nutshell, the new credit card law means that you will be able to avoid retroactive interest rate increases, which is something that a lot of credit card companies were doing in the past. Since that’s out of the way, you’ll actually have time to pay your existing card balances. When you’re worried about a credit card rate increase, you will need to make sure that you keep your balance as low as possible. Generally speaking, if you can prove that you’ve always paid on time, you can dodge a lot of fees and even get fees credited to you for one time errors. It’s the power of being a good customer!

Another point that the law corrects is how long credit card companies give you to actually pay your bill. There’s no more double-cycle billing, which means that you don’t have finance charges on both cycles of a credit card. This is a way that otherwise good customers were getting charged like crazy. The way double-cycle billing hurts consumers is simple: if they pay off the balance in one billing period, they will still owe finance charges on that billing period even though it’s been paid in full — a process that ends up adding a balance where there really shouldn’t be.

The biggest area that the law covers is minimum payments. Disclosure is the name of the game, and credit card companies have not always wanted to focus on disclosure. In many ways, a credit card is something impulsive, and we’re trained through marketing to salivate for a new credit card. It’s the ticket to the good life — at least that’s what the advertisements make us think. It’s better to just go with your gut and think about what type of credit card you want to have. However, the law is a win for customers in the disclosure section of life — companies now have to talk about the consequences of only making minimum payments. They now have to tell you how long it would take to pay off the entire balance if you only made the minimum monthly payment. That’s something the companies don’t want to tell you, because it’s easier to lull you into a false sense of security.

Now, you might think that we’re anti-credit card — absolutely not. However, the CARD act has a lot of good things for the consumers. It also has a few things that help you figure out where you stand with the credit card companies much easier. Is it a lot for credit card companies to process a tone time? Sure it is, but this is good for them too — when customers make better decisions, they’ll spend better and they’ll spend with confidence.

Are there still going to be people that run up a high bill? Yes. Are there still going to be people that get multiple credit cards that they can’t pay? Yes. No law is going to really change human behavior that much. However, there just might come a day where people spend less and make more meaningful purchases — we can only hope!

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Every investor is different, and every investor is going to have their preferences. However, if you have your heart set on buying gold coins online, no one should try to stop you. A lot of people think that gold bars are the only way to go when it comes to being a gold investor, but have you really tried selling gold bars? It can be tough to get them sold, and they’re not as portable. Gold coins are light, portable, and you can actually collect them while you’re being an investor. Let’s face it, gold bars just don’t have that type of appeal. In fact, a lot of people that get into gold coins find that people will offer them a lot more than face value for complete collections, just because they want to finish a set or expand a set into something more thematic.

If you’re trying to figure out how to buy gold coins online, you’re definitely in the right place.

First and foremost, where you buy gold coins online matters. You don’t want to just go with some fly by night company that seems to have lower prices than everyone is. Due to the way gold trading works, super low prices are usually a sign that you’re not working with someone that has pure gold. A lot of late night infomercials lure people into buying gold coins, only for the customer to find that they’ve picked up something that is only gold plated instead of being from real gold. No reputable online company is going to do that to their customers.

Looking at different reviews of online gold trading companies will give you an idea of who is truly legitimate and who will just end up wasting your money. You might find it odd to take so much time in the research phase, but it’s necessary.

Speaking of things that are necessary, you might want to invest in a good online gold investment guide that can show you the ins and outs of trading gold successfully. Again, research is going to be the real thing that separates you from scores of other investors that wanted to become gold traders. They might have failed miserably, but if you really take the time to learn the ropes, there’s no way that you’re going to join those ranks.

Are you ready to join the ranks of skilled gold traders? The time is now — get started today!

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When you’re thinking about your childhood, there’s one thing that you might have left off that your children have to deal with: the possibility of filing their own tax returns. Things for children used to be simple — you have a little side job mowing lawns or babysitting, and no one really thought much else about it. However, today’s children are taking these classic jobs of childhood and taking them to the next level. Between websites and even full out babysitting operations, children are proving that the business seed can be planted at a very early age. When your child has significant income, it’s time to make sure that they file a tax return. If your child is flagged for not filing a tax return, it ends up falling back on you to take care of the problem. While no one wants to think of their child being audited by the IRS, it has happened before.

So, does your child really need to file taxes? Here’s the information that you need before making that distinction.

As it stands, your child gets to cruise by if they make less than $400 for the entire year. However, if they make more than that, you need to think about the following rules:

Income is not equal across the board. The IRS makes distinctions between types of income. Your child will need to file a separate tax return if they have more than $5,700 in earned income — like if they had a summer job that stretched into the early months of the new school semester. They also need to file if they have unearned income more than $950. Unearned income in this case refers back to any dividends or interest they earned in their name from say, a savings account or even a mutual fund.

If they actually have self employment money over $400, they will have to file a return. Things get a little more complicated with the self employment world, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

If your child has earned and unearned income that totals more than $950, they need to file. In addition, if the combination is more than their earned income plus $300, they need to file.

As you might imagine, things get pretty complicated at times. If your child is running a serious business, then you might want to see about having someone prepare their taxes — and that’s not a bad idea for you as well. Since your tax returns will be connected, you will want to make sure that the returns are both correct.

You do have a choice when it comes to filing their return. You can always have their return attached to yours, but this only counts if they only have unearned income. If they have earned income of any type — including self employment income — you will have to have them file their own taxes. Since the amount can be lo win many cases, you can usually file your child’s taxes for free, which means that tax time doesn’t have to be painful.

As a reminder, if your child really does have self employment income, they will need to pay estimated quarterly taxes. After all, it’s a pay as you go tax system, and there can be stiff penalties for not paying on time! Of course, if your child is making that type of income, they really do need their own tax preparer — yes, we mentioned that before but it really can’t be stressed enough.

What can you do to take the sting out of filing taxes for your child? Well, you can start by encouraging them to keep good records. You don’t want to just have them keep papers here and there and scattered around. You will need to make sure that you really do take time out to help them along, because in the end, this will set them up for a much brighter future. The lessons that we teach our children carry on down the line, which is always a good thing. You never know how deeply your child will carry those lessons into adulthood — they may even up end teaching their own children the same lessons you taught them!

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Does tax time have to be painful? If you’re expecting a refund, then you might wonder how you can end up getting in over your head. The sad truth is that there are a lot of people that are waiting in the wings to take your money, and that’s not good either. So if you really want to make sure that you will be able to get most of your refund in the end, you will want to look into ways to avoid getting ripped off at tax time.

Can it happen? Yes, it can. The FTC gets a lot of complaints every year about companies that promised one thing and did the complete opposite.

Here are three things you need to do in order to avoid getting ripped off.

1. Don’t Give In to Rapid Refund Loans

If there’s one losing bet out there in the world of taxes, it would definitely have to be the rapid refund loan. It’s hard to look at people that get these loans in a negative light, though. They’re told that if they get a rapid refund loan they can get their refund in less than 24 hours, which is very good. Instead of having to wait the 2 to 3 weeks, you can get your money in less than 24 to 48 hours. However, the fees for these loans are huge, and it’s getting to the point where it’s not really worth it to try to get your refund early. The fees are just too high, and it ends up costing you almost more than what you bargained for.

2. Use Direct Deposit

So, if you don’t want to give in to the rapid refund craze but you still want your refund check faster, why not get direct deposit? Believe it or not, you don’t have to have a checking account anymore to get direct deposit access. Many pre-paid debit cards will be more than happy to have your tax refund loaded onto the card. This means that you will get your money just as quickly as the other people, but you will avoid the heavy fees involved in the rapid refund anticipation loans.

If you don’t have a pre-paid debit card already, you can either get them from your tax preparer, or head down to Wal-Mart. They have a prepaid debit card that you can reload infinitely at any of their money centers, which means that you aren’t going to have to go too far without your money. It’s just a matter of making sure that you will be able to handle just about anything that comes your way.

3. File Them Yourself

Tax preparation services are convenient, but the truth is that most people don’t really need them. It’s nice to be able to just dump your tax needs onto someone else, but the most time tax preparers will take is about 2 hours. That’s 2 hours that you can set aside to handle your own taxes. You don’t have to pay 100-200$ just to have someone input some numbers into the computer. In fact, you can qualify for many free filing alliances as well. If you make less than $50,000 AGI, you should be able to have your taxes filed for free at the federal level, and there are even many states that are now allowing people to file their own taxes for free. Electronic filing saves states and the federal government a lot of money, so it just makes sense all around to do it this way.

These are just three ways that you can avoid getting ripped off at tax time. If you really take the time to pay attention to these points, you shouldn’t have any trouble getting the most out of your tax refund. Don’t forget — the deadline to file your taxes is only April 15th, so don’t delay too much longer!

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Preparing for bankruptcy? Believe it or not, you are definitely not alone. Going through the process of having your debts dissolved might sound like fun on paper, but in reality it is a very stressful time. When you really know that you want to get your bankruptcy processed as best as you can, you might have already contracted the services of a bankruptcy attorney. Just because you have a lawyer on your side doesn’t mean that you won’t have to have the proper information.

In fact, this is what keeps a lot of people from experiencing the best benefits of bankruptcy: not having to deal with their debts. While bankruptcy definitely comes with a high price, you do come to a point where you realize that bankruptcy really is the only way that you’re going to have a brighter future. There’s no reason to feel embarrassed — millions of people all over the country are going to have to make the same decision that you’re making, actually.

So, what type of information do you really need to complete a bankruptcy?

1. Your Assets

Yes, when you sit down with your lawyer, you will need to cough up a lot of financial information. You need to list out your bank accounts, savings accounts, investment accounts, and anything and everything of valuable. That timeless collection of porcelain dolls just hanging out in your house? Unfortunately, you’re going to have to list it. While it’s true that you do get an allowance for household items, it’s not as high as a lot of bankruptcy critics would like it to be. This means that while you have to list everything, you should know going in that you’re not going to be able to keep everything in the bankruptcy. Generally speaking, your lawyer will be able to work it out with you about what will need to be sold to pay off debts and what can be kept. If you look around you right now, you can probably look at some common things that will most likely survive a bankruptcy. But if you’re looking at the latest shiny trendy things, you have to realize that at least a portion of those things will be liquidated in order to pay your debts. That’s why running out and charging up your credit cards and then filing for bankruptcy never really makes sense — you don’t get to keep much of anything, and far too often you get placed on Chapter 13, where you just get a payment plan to pay off part of your debts anyway — similar to debt settlement, but more official since it’s court-enforced.

2. Your Creditors

This is something that you need to pay attention to. If you really want to make bankruptcy work for you, your lawyer needs to have contact information for every creditor on your list. You don’t want to try to skip over this; because if it’s found out that you left off a creditor on purpose it can really delay your entire bankruptcy case. You don’t want this, especially when you could finally be free of your debts.

If you don’t have contact information ready, you will need to call your creditors and get this information right away. It really is the key to making your bankruptcy work! Now, you might get some push back from your creditors. If they won’t give you the right information, that’s when you need to have your attorney step in and make sure that they do.

3. Proof of Counseling

What, you thought that you could file for something as important as bankruptcy without getting pre-bankruptcy counseling first? Shame on you! OK, we’re kidding. However, a lot of people assume that they won’t have to go through this when they’re trying to get cleared of their debts, and this isn’t the case. By law, you must show proof that you had at least one credit counseling session before you filed for bankruptcy. The truth is that they’re not expensive (about $50), and if you really can’t pay for one, the fee is waived. This means that no one is barred from filing for bankruptcy simply because they can’t afford the counseling session.

The session lasts for 60 to 90 minutes and gives you a lot of valuable information. For example, if there’s a chance that you can avoid bankruptcy, your credit counselor is required to help you do that. You will also get a listing of alternatives to bankruptcy that work for your situation.

After your bankruptcy is discharged, you’ll still have some counseling to go through — debtor education is a must after the bankruptcy is over and your debts are erased. The goal here is to make sure that you don’t fall back into debt, even though it can get annoying trying to sit through a lot of the same information over and over again.

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If you’re running a business right now, then you’re already off to a good start. A lot of people dream about getting started with their own company, but they never get their dream off the ground. Aside from fear, one of the biggest reasons why people don’t get their businesses off the ground is that they don’t understand the paperwork and procedures that are involved with this process. For example, you will have to keep very good taxes in order to keep the IRS from coming down on your business. Tax evasion is a very serious thing, and not filing your taxes properly can really cause trouble for you very quickly.

However it’s just as important to pay taxes the right way. As a business owner, you will need to make sure that you are withholding your taxes on a quarterly basis. This is the way the IRS has most business owners set up, and they will be looking for you to pay into the system naturally over the course of the year. You have to look at it from their perspective — your taxes are the only source for their revenue. Would you want to have to wait until all the way next year to get your money? No, you wouldn’t. The IRS agrees — they want their money on a regular basis.

It is incredibly important to pay quarterly estimated taxes because you need to ensure that you have satisfied your tax obligation. You don’t want to have to handle penalties and fees simply for the same money that you know you owed anyway.

One of the biggest reasons why people don’t handle quarterly taxes is because they assume that they’ll have to handle a lot of checks. This is no longer the case. You can actually pay your estimated quarterly taxes online, which is always a good thing. Your payments will process faster, and this will also be easier to track when you go to file your actual taxes. You can still get a refund if you pay quarterly taxes, because it’s you can still overpay by a slight amount. You never know how your business will work from quarter to quarter, but estimated taxes help you keep expenses low. Do you really want to have to cut the IRS a large check once a year when cash flow might be tighter than you expect?

The key to remember when you’re trying to figure out what your estimated quarterly taxes is that you are paying on your adjusted gross income, which is what you have left after subtracting qualified business expenses. It’s tempting to try to make everything into a business expense, but you will need to make sure that you don’t expense things that aren’t qualified purchases. It can be tempting to try to write off things that aren’t business oriented, but you’ll have to pay up anyway if you’re audited.

The best information comes from a qualified tax professional — this general information is designed to give you a slight basis to go by in case you get asked for more information from the professional. Overall, paying your taxes is important — don’t let the deadlines pass you by!

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