Prime Rate Credit

I wanted to wish all our readers out there a safe and happy holiday, no matter what you celebrate. Today is Christmas, which is what I happen to celebrate, so I will be seeing you tomorrow or the next day. Depends on how much I eat!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

We talked at length about the identity theft scams of phishing and other forms of identity and credit theft a few posts ago. Well, it’s been reported that unscrupulous thieves and scam artists are even more rampant to steal your money around the holidays.

More phishing emails are sent out, masked as either a charitable cause, or to get you to somehow divulge your personal information so that thieves can take your money or somehow access credit card numbers and make purchases you did not authorize.

Actually, this happened to me, even though I didn’t open any suspicious emails or anything, so that just goes to show how easy it is for hackers and other n’er do wells to get into your personal information and spend your money.

If you’re a fan of Wal-Mart, or are familiar with their yearly holiday marketing, you know that Wal-Mart has some really great “Black Friday” deals usually. What’s black Friday?

It’s the coined term for the day after Thanksgiving, when bargain hunters and shoppers are out in full force, to get the best bargain basement deals that are being offered by the retailers near and far.

Past sales at Wal-Mart for Black Friday have been so great that there were many reports of consumers actually getting into physical fights over them due to high demand and low stock on the hot deals. One such deal was a laptop computer for about $300.

There may be some other similar deals like that this year, so get your credit cards ready - but make them a low interest APR credit card, of course.

One of the deals this year is supposed to be on a plasma or high definition TV at Wal-Mart, but unfortunately I don’t know yet whether they are having any blow out sales on laptop computers or desktop computers, although I wouldn’t put it past them to lure shoppers in with this type of high demand item.

Good luck to all you Black Friday holiday shoppers, hope you get everything you want. I myself, will be tucked safely in my bed that morning. I don’t dare venture to the malls or stores that frightful day!

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!

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).

Everyone wants to retire early. I do, my friends do, my parents do, everyone does. But aren’t there some big merits to waiting a little longer? Yes, there certainly are.

First of all, you have more time to save money and get the benefit of compound interest, which is a theory where you interest collects and compound on itself, making you save a lot of money in a relatively small period of time. I know, it defies logic, but it’s there and it works.

Second, the longer you work, the more your social security checks will be. Sure, I know, most people believe social security will be gone by the time they retire anyways, but isn’t that just negative thinking? Act like it will happen, and try to stave off retirement a little longer, unless you’re a millionaire.

The FCRA is the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which was enacted by an arm of the government which protects consumers, the FTC, or Federal Trade Commission. The FCRA is supposed to give us the right to learn what information is being distributed to various creditors about you and your personal credit history by credit reporting companies and bureaus.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act is designed to protect consumers and help promote accuracy, fairness, and privacy of information divulgence in the files of the nation’s consumer reporting companies.

The FTC is actually given the power to enforce these rules on independent consumer reporting agencies by regulating the distribution of the consumer information and putting certain restrictions on it and how it may be transferred.

More recent additions to the Fair Credit Reporting Act expand on consumer rights while also placing more requirements on consumer reporting agencies. Also, the businesses or creditors that provide information about individuals credit history to these agencies that use credit reports have new responsibilities and guidelines to adhere to under the law.

All in all, the FCRA is a good thing for us consumers. It basically gives us the right to access any information that anyone may have about our credit history, good or bad, at any time. It also gives us full rights to dispute any information that we have deemed is inaccurate or just 100% false.

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.

Yet another way your credit score can affect you (as if there weren’t already enough factors your credit score affects) - your car insurance. Yep, that’s right, many insurance companies are now instituting a credit rating factor in the rating and calculation of what insurance rates you will pay.

I have a Honda CRV, a 2005 that I purchased back in June of 2005, and I love it.  Anyways, I bought the car brand new, and got the special rate of 2.9% financing.  I asked during the sale process whether I would be penalized for trying to pay off my car early, and part of what I loved about the deal is that the answer to that was “no” I wouldn’t be. 

What the finance officer at Honda told me was to make sure I write two checks, one for the amount of the payment, and then an extra one, for whatever amount I wanted to pay over the minimum due, and write the words “toward principle balance” on the check so that the processors of my payment at Honda would know that it goes toward the principle (call me silly, but I thought that’s what they’d do anyways, but oh well.)

I just got a bill.  I paid aobut $200 extra and this bill is reduced by that much - it’s just funny how they do that to you!  Assuming you want to pay the minimum always, so they can get more money over the long haul!  Of course, I’ll keep paying more than the minimum, but I can’t blame them for trying - that’s how they all stay in business!