Prime Rate Credit

Tax experts are saying that when it comes to tax time, you might want to slow things down a bit and make sure you are filing correctly and giving yourself the benefit of the doubt with maximum deductions to ensure you are not paying the government more than you truly owe them. Among the things they say to double check to max your return benefits, or to helps ensure you do not end up owing more than you should to the IRS, make sure you check the following things :

1.) Should you and your spouse file together or separately? Traditionally, we are all led to believe filing jointly as married is best, but in some instances it is actually better for a spouse to file separately for various reasons, including medical expense deductions and other things like deductions.

2.) IRA maxing. Maximizing your IRA is foremost as well.

3.) Checking the tax laws and making sure you are up on any general credits that are being offered by the government for things like tuition, the long distance overpay credit that some people are due, and other various deductions and credits that tend to come up periodically and are missed unless you have them prepared by a professional who is up to the minute on what is going on in the tax world and law world.

College loans come in many forms, and unfortunately, some student loans are good and will only accumulate a small amount of student debt after one graduates from college, and some are plain old bad, resulting in huge amounts to be paid by the college student after they graduate. Also, there are college student credit cards that are good and bad as well, and a college student should really read the fine print before signing on for one.

For example, does the APR sound too good to be true? Read on, becuase it very well may be one that increases to the liking of the extending company right after the intro period is up. Say you see this in writing : prime plus 5.75 percent after introductory period. This may be acceptable, but what if the terms are vague, and they can increase it as high over the prime rate as they’d like? Just read carefully, and make sure that when the intro period is up, you won’t be in for a big surprise.

As a college student, you want to be careful about your credit cards because credit is often looked at as largely unestablished, and you may be paying a premium for the simple fact that you have not had enough years of credit establishment as older people have, and the credit card companies charge you accordingly because to them you are viewed as a larger risk for paying late payments and possibly defaulting on either a student loan of some sort or a credit card.

They may not offer you the same terms as a credit card for bad credit, but it can be close if some companies have their guidelines to look at it this way. Just shop around, as with everything else, your student loans and college student credit cards are going to offer different rates and deals, and you have to be aware to read the fine print, and most importantly, to see what their guidelines are for increasing rates on you whenever they want.

I just had my first experience with the Coinstar machines, those machines that take all your change and turn it into money so you can spend it, and I am going to be a Coinstar machine regular from now on, believe me. It’s a very cool concept, and I’m jealous of whoever thought of this, because they have to be rolling in the dough from this unique and most likely highly profitable concept by now!

Here’s how it works. Everyone, almost everyone I know at least, takes their change and kind of throws it somewhere. For me, I have a change compartment in my car which I throw all my change from drive thru’s from fast food in every time I get change, or walk into a corner store to buy something. Then, I have my change I keep in my wallet, which I try to use every now and again, but sometimes it just gets too heavy, and I empty it into my third change-keeping place, my pouch underneath my bathroom sink (weird place, I know, but we have limited space now).

So, over about a year and a half, quite a bit of change has accumulated in this pouch. I finally decided yesterday I would take it to one of these Coinstar machines which you see periodically in grocery stores and other locations where they know you’ll most likely spend it. I found one at a local family owned grocery store online, so I went there with my pouch of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters.

I dumped a lot of it in a holding area, and periodically, would pull a lever up and put more into the slot when I heard the coin counting slow down a bit. It’s cool, because as it is counting, you see a tally of how much money you are putting in there on a computer screen on the front of the machine. The fee for using this convenient service is 8.9 cents on the dollar, which sure, may be a little bit of money you’re wasting, but in my opinion, since you have to pay for coin rolls anyways, what other way is there to conveniently turn your coins into dollars?

Anyways, you get either a voucher for cash to take to any cashier in the place where the machine resides, or you can choose to make a charitable donation and get a tax deductible receipt for it. I chose this time to take the cash voucher, and I used it toward the groceries I purchased. I had almost fifty dollars in change if you can believe it!

You just never know how much spare change you have lying around, so this is a great service. Heck, you can use it toward that credit card bill you’ve been meaning to pay off if you want!

Jeez, everything I’ve seen so far about high profile lottery winners is that winning the lottery has just invited a lot of trouble in to their lives. I guess it’s kind of the cliche “be careful what you wish for”. The latest story about people winning the lottery getting into trouble is out of Oregon, a usually peaceful, green and “pc” state, right? Well, apparently, some lottery winner is in trouble for throwing wild, out of control parties that include debauchery beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. They are actually being sued by the city, not just arrested and charged, but sued.

The couple, who won a 2.6 million dollar lottery, apparently are one of those in the category who don’t know what to do with money when they get a large sum of it and will probably end up broker than broke when it’s all said and done, because they have been throwing these wild parties, and undoubtedly at their own expense.

Not only that, the couple, who accepted a lump sum payment - get this, only 800 and some thousand (jeez, I’d just take the payments instead), are accused of possibly dealing drugs out of the home they bought after winning the lottery. Yeesh, this just makes me think of how sad it is that people who win the lottery really should seek guidance on what to do with their money after they win.

Too many people go wild with it and don’t even invest any of it. This case sounds a bit different, as these people may just be troublemakers in general, but in general, I think winning the lottery should come with an optional financial counselor with every jackpot.

Well, this is certainly a step in teh right direction for ongoing eco-consciousness around the world. The government has made a smart and environmentally friendly decision to give people an incentive to be environmentally conscience in their lifestyle choices, including their choice of vehicle and heating supply for their homes.

The cool thing is, not only do people get a tax incentive and outright credit, which is better than just a standard “write off” or “deduction”, but a credit actually is reimbursed dollar for dollar I believe, for driving cars that are more economically sound than cars with strictly gas fuel, but they also can get credited for things like heating a home with solar panels.

Heating with solar panels is a fairly new idea, where there are several panels installed on top of someone’s roof, which absorb the sun’s energy, and translate into more heat for the home and less of a gas bill for the owner!

Sounds like a win/win situation to me, how about you? As a matter of fact, I’m thinking that I might be giving some people around here a call to see if we have any solar panel installers around the area, as I could use some good tax write offs for next year - and a lower gas bill!

Well, almost. New homes being built, as in from the ground up, such as Ryan and Drees homes and other contracted-out homes being built from scratch, are apparently at a low point right now, assuming they’re even worse than existing homes being sold, which is pretty dismal seeing as though the existing home sales market is dreary as of now as well. But some are saying there is currently a turnaround going on, and our realtor apparently agrees with that sentiment, saying that he has already noticed an upturn in the amounts of activity he has going on for his home listings.

The weather has been partially to blame for this setback, because this winter so far has been extremely mild in the way of temperatures, and now the weather has really turned frigid and snowy in much of the northeast and midwest, making new home construction and things like apartment building construction almost impossible to accomplish.

It might be a really great time to buy a new home right now though. Because of the big slump in new home construction, many builders are offering great incentives to buy homes from them such as free media rooms, finished basements and other upgrades that would normally cost thousands of dollars. Some are even offering special financing deals, which can tally up to thousands and thousands of dollars in savings when the mortgage term is all said and done. It’s something to think about.

First off, it’s good to know that when ordering your credit, you are basically dealing with your past credit information on how you’d handled past financial loans and transactions, as compiled by the “big three” credit reporting bureaus. Those big three are Transunion, Equifax and Experian.

These three agencies share information and compile your credit transactions, both good and bad, from a variety of sources who are required to share this information with the various agencies so that other creditors may ask to see the info to decide whether you are a “good risk” for them to loan their money to.

In other words, they are sort of gambling on the odds that you are going to pay the money they loaned you back in a timely fashion so they don’t lose out based on their underwriting calculations.

It’s probably fairly important if you are considering going for a small or large loan, or requesting any sort of a credit loan or equity line of credit, to order your credit report first so you can see if the financial institution is going to offer you a decent APR, or if you’re going to get ripped a new one, so to speak.

Sometimes, it can even give you a little bargaining power, in other words, the ability to say “that’s not good enough for me, I’m going to shop around”. Not only that, but ordering your credit report gives you the opportunity to rectify any blemishes on your record.

For instance, I ordered mine (free, online) a while ago, and found that I had an obscure medical bill sitting out there that I completely forgot about. What happened is they never forwarded the bill when I moved, and the rest is history. I was able to rectify this right away and get the path cleared on my credit report in a short time.

This is a website I’ve really come to enjoy lately. It’s called Bankrate.com, and it offers objective information on the latest in mortgage loan news, credit card information and generally keeps a consumer informed of any changes in the huge and often confusing world of personal finance, equity and financial gains.

Among their offerings are a continuous monitoring of mortgage rates, information on the latest in CD’s and other shorter term investments, college loans and student financing, mortgage calculators, and deals and news in savings and loan accounts.

I’m sure they make a lot of money in advertising, but rightly so, since they do provide a myriad of financial news and resources for the average joe who is looking for objective information on these types of things and doesn’t just want to jump blindly into choosing a certain loan, type of credit card, or small investment without having some background information and a working knowledge of the products that are available, and what would fit your financial situation and goals. I’d recommend checking it out sometime, good stuff.

A very cool new tax change has occurred in which the government is encouraging tax payers who get a tax refund check to actually be able to deposit the tax refund into up to three different, separate accounts. It may not sound like that big of a deal, but the AARP is currently encouraging taking advantage of this new allowance by indicating you would like to split your tax return and deposit at least part of it in an interest yielding or investment or savings account for the future.

The AARP, who encourages saving money for retirement for obvious reasons, is glad this new allowance came about, because it makes it easier for taxpayers to exercise the “you don’t miss what you can’t see” law of human nature, where if you just send money off and never actually have it in a liquid account to spend right away, you tend to forget about it, and let it grow and prosper for you future savings and retirement funds. Or, you could always pay off one of those pesky credit card balances with part of it and invest the other part…the possibilities are endless.

This is a fairly new rule that you can split your return in up to three different deposit accounts, so you really may want to take advantage. After all, wouldn’t you feel more comfortable knowing it’s contributing to your comfort and security rather than being blown on things you’ll forget about next year or next week anyways? Something to ponder…..

As I explained to you all in the last few posts, I am currently going through the first time home buying experience, and boy oh boy, what a ride it has been! Now, don’t get me wrong, up until now it’s been a somewhat smooth process, but we’ve had to deal with some less than thrilled sellers who feel they did not get the price the house is worth, and we’re dealing with not getting everything we want from them, but that is to be expected I guess in this market when almost everyone probably feels their house is being sold for less than it’s “worth”.

One of the things that surprised us in this whole home buying and house shopping experience, and something that I really should have read up on before I delved into the whole process wholeheartedly and not really knowing much about the mortgage process, is that you should really shop around for your mortgage before you even start shopping for your home. Check a mortgage calculator to make sure the monthly payments will fit in to your budget comfortably.

The reason for this somewhat counterintuitive order of things is that most people (like us) find a house that may or may not be out of their price range, or the range of a mortgage loan that a mortgage lender is willing to give them based on their income. Shopping for the mortgage beforehand not only gives you a solid idea about the price range you should be shopping in, but it also may give you a little more bargaining power, if you are preapproved for a certain loan amount. Just remember, shop for the mortgage first, then home shop - it really is probably the smartest order to do things in.