Prime Rate Credit

I’ve been looking into (involuntarily mostly, because an annoying popup comes up when I log into my respective accounts), the possibility of securing myself a credit card from either Amazon.com, where they offer you a special incentive of $30 rebate on your order after you make your first purchase with their company card, or a Paypal credit card, of which they say offers you special incentives and deals with Paypal, and I believe cash back if you secure a credit card with them.

But what about the interest rate they offer? Upon first look, it looks as if it’s not the greatest deal in the world, because the interest rate (APR) is not really a “good deal” and is pretty much either the industry standard APR, or is higher than the industry standard. I couldn’t find any clear evidence on whether the interest rate offered differed solely on your credit history or not, but my guess is, the interst rate you end up with on these types of specialty credit cards would be largely dependent on your credit history and standing.

Cards such as prepaid credit cards may also offer deals like this, but only they charge the interest up front, and may charge a premium for the privelege of having a prepaid credit card, since most people who get them may actually have trouble getting a credit card that is issued for future use and is actually billed on a monthly revolving basis (wait, is that a “privelege” or a curse?)

You may want to get a credit card from Paypal or Amazon or something similar to that if the incentive they offer, which is usually fairly substantial at first glance, is really worth it to you, and if you really do plan on paying the card off every month. At least that way you can avoid any intersest charges if the interest rate is higher than you’d like to pay.

Too many people, including myself, tend to go a little crazy when holiday shopping comes around. How can you avoid spending too much, and getting yourself into more and more revolving debt.

Revolving debt is basically any credit card you have unfortunately. It means that unless you have a zero percent APR credit card, you will be paying interest on your purchases, as well as on the interest on your purchases, on a monthly basis.

This is why credit card debt is hard to manage for many people. You may want to look into getting a 0% APR credit card before you do your major holiday shopping, at least this way you will not be paying interest for the few months introductory period!

This is one of my all time favorite readings ever. The now-famous book by author Napoleon Hill, “Think and Grow Rich” is a must read for anyone the least bit concerned about their financial future or motivated to beat the odds when it comes to their finances.

I read this book almost ten years ago now, and still some of the concepts he teaches in his book and the enlightenment about how we have control over our own financial destinies has stayed with me.

Actually, I was thinking about reading it a second time, just to remind myself that I have the power to alter and improve my financial situation as well as the financial situation of my entire family, when I choose to have one.

Who is Napoleon Hill?

Napoleon Hill was born into a situation that would not be called “financially priveleged” by any stretch of the imagination. He started his career as a journalist, and his life changed dramatically when he interviewed millionaire Andrew Carnegie, who was very impressed with his journalistic skills and overall personality, that he talked him into writing and studying on a project to find out the thought patterns and habits of the world’s most successful people. The most famous outcome of that project is the best selling and inspiring books of all time, “Think and Grow Rich”.

The book looks at the habits and outlook of successful people, and outlines how to emulate their success, inspiring many people to make their life better, and to take the wheel and turn things around for themselves. It is actually required reading for many sales people and has been used as an example in many self motivation classes as well as seminars.

If you’re an individual who is into self improvement, and is not about to settle for mediocrity, then I highly recommend this book as reading material. Not only is it inspiring, but it is also insightful into the minds of those who we envy the most, and if we care to take the right actions, we can be just like them!

My best friend had her first child about two and a half years ago. She’s extremely financially responsible, I’d say probably the more fiscally responsible than the two of us actually. She began putting away money for her baby almost from the moment he was born. And it wasn’t easy either, because she is a full time nurse and her husband works managing a bar.

While they make what’s considered “pretty good money” by today’s standards, that almost isn’t enough any more. With the rising housing costs, and general inflation, it seems even people who make a good living have fallen behind the eight ball lately, and it’s hard to do anything other than just get by paying the bills in this modern day economy.

More parents need to take their cue from her, and no matter how hard it may seem to just sock away that little bit of money evey month for your child’s future education or whatever they may choose to endeavor, it sure will help your child and you out a lot when they actually go on to higher education, if this is what they choose to do.

Just this year alone, college tuition went up a record amount, and as I reported before, the amount of financial aid stayed the same, so the cost of college tuition is actually outpacing the financial aid available to college students now. Hopefully this will get better, but statistics show financial trends like this only generally continue to get worse.

Save, save save, because you never know what the future may bring, and it could be a lot less painful today to save that couple of bucks than it will be tomorrow paying that high cost of education.

Not only that, make sure you put it in a nice, higher yield money market or something that keeps pace with inflation, don’t just tuck it away in the matress where it’s not earning any money. You’ve got eighteen years, and you could gain a substantial amount of interest during that time.

The elections are this week, and of course with every election comes speculation about what the elections will do for our stocks, and our overall economy, no matter how short lived the effect may be since the elections come and go and are forgotten about in a weeks time.

Most financial analysts are saying that the stock market this week’s biggest wild card is the elections, and they will definitely swing them one way or another - which way they will go, it is hard to say for sure.

The overall feeling is that if democrats pull a stronger hold on seats, there may be some worries as to the financial outlook for the stock market (why this is, I don’t know for sure - it’s probably very detailed, and very over my head!)

They also think that if the Republicans make a strong showing in the elections, most likely the stock market will show a strong rebound. The reasons for this range from the sectors of the stock market being affected differently by the agendas of the respective political parties who garner more control in the White House as well as in the state seats.

Either way the elections swing this year, it is sure to affect the stock market and economy in some way, hopefully it will be positive, at least in the long term. I think we can all stomach a short term loss, as long as it’s for the benefit of hte long term economy outlook.

It appears there is some conflicting information in the world of financial reporting here in the US. One day I read that wages were plummeting while cost of living in the form of energy expenditures like gas and electric were also going down. At the same time, housing was still experiencing a dip in rates.

Well, then I just read that wages are actually experiencing an upswing, as well as benefits paid to workers by the respective companies they work for. So, which is it? Well, it does appear that wages are at a high for a period of about two years when wages and benefits to workers like yourself and I were stagnating.

What does this mean for us as far as our personal finances? Well, hopefully it is a good thing! With population skyrocketing, and more jobs being created in new and innovative industries fueled by new technology, there may still be hope in a day when plants are closing left and right and we hear about thousands having to seek employment, like the recent Ford auto plant closing where hundreds of workers are being forced out of a job. At least they may be able to go on to better paying opportunities if it presents itself.

I remember hearing this financial term back in college - I never heard it in high school unfortunately, where they should have taught students a little more about handling money and investing wisely though. It has the air of an accounting term to it, doesn’t it? Well, it does have to do with accounting, and financial planning.

A fiduciary is someone, usually a financial adviser with credentials of some sort (not always though), who another individual (the client) has taken up and hired as someone who is basically in charge of their money, and many times in their financial future.

It is someone who has been hired by an individual to make judgment calls that are in the best interest of the client. Integrity may enter in as a good adjective to describe the ideal fiduciary.

At least, this is what the term fiduciary used to mean. It has been somewhat revised by the industry recently to come more into the current time and reflect more of what it really means to be a fiduciary for someone in this current financial environment.

Supposedly a new rule allows “registered representatives to be exempt from fiduciary responsibility, but the financial advice they do give must be incidental to whatever financial transactions they are faciliating for the client.

In other words, it somewhat relieves these individuals from the fiduciary title, and therefore some of the responsibility to do what’s right for the client (good thing for consumers? no).