I know this is a little off the subject of credit, but it’s still very important nonetheless, and I really try to tell all my friends who have not started a retirement fund (especially those that have a good 401k account plan at work), that they are literally throwing future money down the drain. A CNN money article recently illustrated how much a different of ten years earlier savings could make in the end result and it was literally over 100,000 dollars for the person who would start saving at 22 vs. start saving at 32.
The principle of compound interest is a very powerful concept, especially when you are talking about timing of investments and socking money away. I’m so glad that I started when I was about 28 years old, but then again, I think of how much I missed out on because I didn’t start my 401k with the company I still work with when I first started with the company when I was 24 years old.
It makes me sick to think that I could have literally had so much more for myself and the security of my family had I started saving at an earlier age, but then again I’m thankful that I was able to start at 28, and saw the light then. People tend to think they cannot afford to have money taken out of their paycheck, but when they realize that the amount ends up being usually so minimal, and that after taxes take their portion of the pretax money, it really ends up being a pretty livable expense. Plus it’s a great tax benefit!
Ameriprise is a company you may have heard of lately, since they seem to have upped their advertising budget, as I’ve seen quite a few commercials for them recently on the TV, as well as heard them on the radio.
Amerprise is the company formerly known as American Express, and it’s a financial services corporation, designed for one on one consultations on your personal money and financial health situation, as well as retirement status and goals.
I had an experience with these guys, and while the representative of their company had some valid information to present, I was turned off by several phone calls after not having called this guy back, so even though I was interested at first, the demeanor of the calls and the invasiveness ultimately made me turn away from the company.
What I was looking for was an all in one financial services team where I could get advice about my tax situation as well as help in my retirement and savings goals. They cannot help you with tax questions, and that kind of turned me off of the service also.
Like I said, I liked what the rep had to say in his brief lunch with me and some coworkers, but ultimately did not care for the overall marketing strategy the company had. I did not feel like they had my best interests at heart, just were trying to wrangle another client. That’s just my humble opinion though.
I always find it curious that if you made say a $50 purchase on a card that has a zero balance, and then you go in to your account over the next few days to try to pay that amount, it is extremely tricky to do so.
Maybe I’m just being paranoid of overly analytical, but I had this happen on one of my credit cards recently that I had paid off now for close to a year. I inadvertently made a few charges to the credit card one day, and realized it days later.
When I figured out what I had done of course I panicked because when I get this particular credit card’s invoices, I don’t pay attention to them because I know I’ve paid them off a while ago, so there was a good chance I never would have caught it, and had late fees and maybe even collection letters if I hadn’t caught it! In essence, the credit card was saying I had prepaid by making this payment.
So, I logged into my payment account and tried for about ten minutes to find where this balance showed up so I could pay it. Alas, I could not find it, so what I ended up doing was forcing a payment through, although the account insisted I had nothing due! Crazy……
In America, we are used to our currency, or our dollar, being one of the most valuable and trusted currencies in the world, having higher valuations than say the Mexican Peso or other foreign currencies of impoverished nations. But is the future of the dollar so bright, or are we in for a “doomsday” as some financial analysts always seem to predict?
The American dollar’s position as the preferred global currency has proven to be a boon for our living standards and our investments, both long and short term.
The dollar however, has seen better days than this current century, with the European currency, the Euro, beating the value of the dollar by almost 30% at times.
American Spending and Saving Habits are a BIG Part of the Problem
It has been said that the people of America, including individuals, and the American government, both locan and national, are not the best savers, and are even worse at spending over what they make.
This is said to contribute to the downfall of the dollar. So, if you want to help, you’d have to modify your spending and increase your saving, think you can do that? Now, if we could all just jump on that bandwagon….
Inflation is officially dictionary-defined as “A persistent increase in the level of consumer prices or a persistent decline in the purchasing power of money, caused by an increase in available currency and credit beyond the proportion of available goods and services.”
What does this mean to you and me? Well, it can have significant impact on everything from the cost of the homes we buy, to the foods we buy at the grocery store, to the costs of our utilities, so inflation does affect us a great deal in almost every aspect of our financial lives.
Inflation influences the value of the American dollar, which in turn greatly influences our economy as a whole. It makes more jobs or less jobs available to the American public, it makes the American public spend more or less and support mom and pop businesses, and large corporations, or not spend that money because things are tight, which just has a domino effect on the whole economy, jobs, cost of living and the general state of affairs for the American people from a fiscal standpoint.
So before you say “inflation doesn’t really influence me”, think again, because it influences us all a lot more than we’d like to admit!
Financial freedom can mean a lot of things to different people. I might think that financial freedom means that I have everything paid off, even down to my car and all credit cards, and even a house, and that means that the money that I have sitting in my 401k investment account is all mine, free and clear because I really don’t owe anything to any lending institution, and what’s in that account is really 100% interest free, with no plans to be paying anyone off with it.
Financial freedom might mean something entirely different to others though. It might mean just paying off credit cards to one person, while it might simply mean not having to sweat being able to pay the bills every month and making ends meet, while having a little leftover for fun to some.
Whatever it means, it is definitely something that all Americans are looking for. To be comfortable, and not to have to constantly worry about our debt seems to be the common thread in everyone’s definition of “financial freedom”. What does it mean to you?
Supposedly the tax return anticipation loans that H & R Block, the tax preparer services company offers, has been litigated by several former clients charging that the company took advantage of lower income families desperate for money by charging very high interest rates on these “courtesy loans”. What is the pre-tax return anticipation loan?
Well, I’ve actually had my taxes prepared by H & R Block before - only once because my experience was less than stellar - and they tried to get me to sign up for one of these loans. Luckily I wasn’t in dire need of the money I would be receiving in my tax return, so I turned down the loan offer and just waited for my money from the government.
But not so many people are that lucky, and have complained that the rates charged on these courtesy loans were too high and took advantage of them out of financial desperation. I guess the company has recently settled millions of dollars in damages over this..
Recently it was reported that several economic forecasters (supposedly people who know what they’re talking about when it comes to finances and the US economy) are saying that there are some not so bright days ahead for the US economy. But I thought things were looking up?
Apparently the economy is somewhat sensitive to highs and lows, and you can look at the economy as sort of a “blood sugar” of economics and finances. It’s good to maintain it at a steady rate, not get too high or too low, just like with your blood sugar (I’m terrible at analogies, so forgive the less than adequate explanation, if you get it - great!).
The economy was looking good from a growth standpoint at the beginning of 2006, but experts say that growth has slowed tremendously, which usually means tougher days are ahead. Can’t we catch a break?
Here are the factors economists are saying will influence our economic outlook:
1.) Businesses only created 75,000 new jobs in May (opposite of what I earlier reported, this was reported after I posted the job outlook, the government was surprised too). This may not sound so bad if you didn’t know that the government forecasted an estimated 175,000 new jobs being created. Population? Maybe…
2.) The housing boom of 5 long years is coming to an end.
3.) The inflation that has been somewhat absent as of late may also start to be an issue. Believe it or not, inflation can sometimes be a good thing, although not on it’s face, inflation is needed to create a healthy and strong economy.
Everyone kept talking about the “new bankruptcy law” that was shadowing anyone who was in financial trouble. I remember this talk starting a couple years ago, and then not hearing about it for a while, probably the law got held up in congress. And for good reason. The new bankruptcy law was known for one thing primarily : It would make it much harder for people to just “write off” their debts to their creditors by filing for bankruptcy. And how so?
Well, the new law is in effect officially, as far as I know, and it is called the “Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005″, which is pretty much a self described law, but I’ll get into a little bit of explanation of why it was put into effect and even proposed for consideration in the first place. The law’s purpose is to make it more difficult for some people to just completely erase debts by simply filing for bankruptcy.
In the past, before this law was passed, many financial companies, lenders, banks and other financial services companies felt that too many people with gambling problems, and unruly spending habits were able to just get off scott free by filing bankruptcy and not being responsible for repaying any of these debts to their lenders, who were left holding the bag.
Some people do oppose the law though, claiming that it may hit the people who need it the most the hardest, such as lower income families and single moms. As with anything else, this law seems to be fair from one perspective but also tends to deprive others who really deserve it of their rights to financial freedom.
Entitlement? For some yes, for others it really might be a necessity. It’s a shame this isn’t a law that sees more grey than black and white. But that’s the problem with law, isn’t it?
I was just reading about the 26.5 million veterans whose records have been stolen and possibly sensitive information compromised, such as their social security numbers, which can basically get you a loan, credit card or other purchasing powers fairly easily today.
The worst part is, breaking news is saying that these identity thefts were kept secret for days before the press got ahold of the story. The good news is, the thief may not even have bad intentions, although I’d be willing to bet someone who steals information would have no qualms about selling that information to the wrong people.
The FBI has launched a full investigation of the crime, and is hoping to have some answers for these people soon. With the publicity about identity theft, and the increasing importance of sensitive information such as SSN and other personal information due to online buying, and other forms of buying where a person does not need to be physically present to make a purchase, identity thieves are getting more and more creative in how to steal and use to their benefit, other people identities.
It’s even happened to me, although it wasn’t really a case of a stolen identity in the sense of personal information, but my Paypal account got hacked once, and someone made several charges with my account without my knowledge or permission.
To my relief, paypal and my backup credit card caught on to the suspicious activity and did not allow the last few transactions through, but it taught me a lesson that nothing is safe any more.