Do not inflict more damage to your finances by putting your debts aside and attending to them later. Act now and start safeguarding your future and your financial security. With the multitude of debt relief solutions available — whether done on your own or with the aid of expert solution — what matters is your decision to rise above the situation and chose now as the best time to combat debt.

Many people think that ignoring their problems would eventually make their problems disappear. While this is false in every sense and logic, the absurdity of the idea becomes more eminent when we talk about debt. Debt accumulation is one good illustration of how ignored problems translate themselves into bigger ones, making them harder to deny and more difficult to confront. It is important to keep in mind that every problem has its solution, and this knowledge must spur you into action the instant you become aware of it. This would save you from being forced to face an even worse situation, in addition to the possibility of losing more in the process.

For instance, if you have credit card debt and you do not know how to deal with the creditors who relentlessly call you, sending you warning statements time and again, and taking extreme measures just to get you to pay back what you owe, you may have the tendency to sit on one corner and decide to ignore them until they become tired of haunting you. Every debtor wishes this to be the case —that their creditors would eventually give up and find other debtors to bother and compel to pay.

But sad as it is, this never happens. And as for you, it does not negate the fact that you are indeed responsible for returning what you borrowed, and that the creditors are only doing their job. Early on, while the situation is still manageable, you must choose to act and consider options. When it comes to debt, you can look into debt relief and study the programs that can possible help you get rid of your financial troubles. Granting that every solution promises debt freedom once you sign up and commit to the program, it becomes your obligation to assess what solution suggests the best approach to address your debt concerns.

Your participation in terms of ensuring that you are enrolling your accounts into a trustworthy company and you are informed of the plan that you would take to get out of debt is key to achieving success. Early resolve to deal with your debt, partnered with commitment and involvement in the process would make debt freedom possible and within your reach.

Photo Credit: dborman2

5 Money Lessons We Can Learn From Grandma and Grandpa – from the Mint.com Blog.

4 Rules To Building Your Wealth – The Fiscally Fit Man from Men’s Health Magazine.

What’s Next After Debt Freedom? – From TheSimpleDollar.com Blog.
This is also something that my wife and I struggle with. She wants to save a large chunk for retirement. I would rather to some of the things we’ve talked about doing when we are older now, while we can enjoy them.  We’ve kind of settled on one destination trip a year, while also saving to build our dream home.

3 Ways to Pay Off Your Mortgage Faster – from MoneyTalk News

Do You Save Your Pocket Change? For One Indiana Man It Adds Up To A New Car Every 10-15 Years. – from SmartOnMoney.

You need to pay off your debt and become debt free.

That is fine and dandy, but you need to make that decision for yourself. And finances rank right up there with religion and politics as things you probably don’t want to chat about. Or you may be stubborn, “I’m getting along just fine the way I’m going now.” That’s cool, I get it.

Enter ReadyForZero.com. I know what it is like, and it took me years to get over my stubbornness and finally decide to get debt free, and I didn’t talk with anyone or take anyone’s advice (let alone seek anyone’s advice). ReadyForZero.com is a website that provides a free, powerful tool for you to get out of debt on your own program. It would have save me a bunch of time after looking back on my plan – which I thought was stellar. I plugged in my numbers from the day I made my decision and had I followed the program it set up – with my input – I would have been out of debt 13 months faster than it actually took me.

Go get started today, even if all you do is look around. I won’t tell.

I like these kinds of programs because there are easy to bite off in chunks, digest for the day and you get a fresh task the next day. Plus, they stretch it past the magical 21 day target at which point a task becomes a habit.

I’d recommend getting started at Task 1: Know Where Your Money Is.

This may seem obvious, but have you ever found yourself saying something like, “So, my grandmother used to put some money into some account every year for my birthday. I’m not sure where it is or what’s happened to it, but it’s there”? It’s time to find that money and fold it into your portfolio. Perhaps you can use it to pay off outstanding debt or start a short-term emergency fund. Maybe you’ll leave it where it is, but when you know about it, you can use it to your advantage.

You can also follow along on Twitter with the hashtag #30DaysofGOOD.

Speaking of Twitter, I really need to get hip with the times. I’m adding that to my T0Do list.

Small steps over the course of the year add up to big savings when you look back on them. Much like the anti-smoking line “Imagine how much you’d save in a year if you quit smoking.” And if you do smoke, quit now, please. If not for you health, then for your finances

Here are 16 ways to pinch that add up to big savings over the course of a year.

1. Compare store prices for the basics in your pantry. This will help you decide which store offers the most competitive price for those products. Stock up in bulk, when larger saving opportunities present themselves.

2. Never shop when you are hungry. Everything looks good.

3. Make a list before you go and stick to it. Impulse purchases are budget killers.

4. When you buy meat or packages of poultry buy the family sized cuts. You can repackage them to the size your family needs on your meals before putting them in the fridge or freezer.

5. Know your vehicle’s fuel preferences. Ethanol gasoline is usually cheeper than regular 87 octane, but the higher combustion point usually shaves a couple miles off each gallon. Run a couple tanks of each and track your mileage per tank to determine the best option for your vehicle.

6. Going shopping? Shop with cash rather than your debit card. You are more likely to overspend with plastic – even if it is a debit card – than you will with cash in your pocket.

7. Have magazine subscriptions? Cancel them. Most pubs are running the same articles for free on their websites a couple weeks after the print issue comes out.

8. Recycle, Recycle, Recycle. Used clothes can be reused into washing sponge or cleaning clothes. Some garbage companies are also partnering up with recycling reward programs.

9. Shop off-season. Sure, your kids may feel the social pressure to be up to date with their stylings, but you don’t.

10. Gardening. Not only can you save money on produce in the late summer, but you are also taking a step toward self-sustainability which is also a hip skill in this day and age. So forego your style and be a hipster.

11. Buying items in packages costs less than purchasing individual wraps.

12. Breast milk is still best for babies so feed them with your own milk instead of milk formula.

13. Set up a babysitting coop with other parents in your neighborhood. Returning the favors with neighbors sure beats the $20-$50 that usually goes in to a babysitter’s hand after a night out.

14. Homemade products such as pastries and cookies are good gifts to give on occasions. Try doing some for gifts rather than buying from stores.

15. Be an usher to concerts or plays in order to get free special pass on these events, not to mention a nice part-time job.

16. How old is your vehicle and are you still carrying comprehensive insurance? Generally speaking, as your vehicle’s value drops to around the $2-3000 range it doesn’t make financial sense to carry anything other than liability. Take that difference and stick it in the bank in case your vehicle does meet with an accident (that is your fault).

In my book, it should be only 8 tips they have there, but numbers are just numbers. But there list is as follows:

10. Find the Right Bank
9. Switch to a Credit Union
8. Skip the Fee-Ridden Perks
7. Use Jenny’s Number for Grocery Store Discounts
6. Combine Your Cash Back Credit Card and Checking Account
5. Try a High Interest Savings Account
4. Apply Student Discounts to Everything You Can (Even If You Aren’t a Student)
3. Find Unclaimed Money in Your Name
2. Use a Debit Card Without Getting Screwed
1. Maximize Your Credit Card Rewards

It isn’t too hard to guess that I’m against #1 and #6, but I also think you should just forego #10 and jump feet first into #9 and open a credit union account.

Using Jenny’s number (867-5309) was a new one to me. But in this age of reward card discounts it makes sense and goes hand-in-hand with the early days of paywalls on the web and using the username cypherpunk with the password cypherpunk.

Using Student Discounts should be a given, but I’d also recommend checking to see if your employer has discount programs available as well. Many large companies have discounts negotiated with cell phone providers, gyms and other fitness programs, and even some discounts on retail purchases. If you are a government employee, you may not realize the wealth of discounts available to you with your government employee ID card. My wife is a government employee and we receive discounts from the Apple Store (the website, not sure about physical Apple stores), hotels & rental cars, our gym membership, and our cell plan (even with iPhones).

Also in line with Jenny’s Number, if you are doing any online shopping, make sure you take a run through RetailMeNot.com to find out if there are discount or promo codes available for the site you are shopping on.

Think about that the next time you are tapping away.

Via: Calculator.co.uk

How Money Works: 10 Principles Everyone Should Know
I try not to push faith-based advice because dropping religion in to the middle of conversation can polarize the conversation, but there is solid advice here.

5 Reasons to Switch to A Credit Union
Credit Unions are the way to go, but if you don’t have that option available to you, consider moving to a small, locally owned bank.

Within 5 minutes, I had both of my kids set up with transaction ledgers that included an allowance, savings APR, Save/Spend ratios and the ability to trigger custom *bonuses* for household chores over and above their allowances. The app includes the ability to email account statements and uses the ATM as a metaphor for account transactions – in todays plastic transaction economy, very smart move. Not just content to reside on your iDevice, the app includes the ability to email a “fridge sheet” for monitoring savings/spending, money earned from specific chores as well as additional deposit/withdrawl ledgers. While we like to pretend we are connected all of the time, a paper ledger is a valuable companion to the app.

As for the kids, my 4 year old daughter watched me set it up, said “cool,” and ran off to watch The Backyardigans. Not an unexpected reaction. My 6 year old son on the other hand, instantly saw this as a means to end – that being saving up money to buy more baseball & MMA cards.

The “fridge sheet” instantly found a place on our closet door – not that we keep cold things in our closet, just a side effect of a stainless steel fridge – and there was an immediate attention shift towards doing chores to earn extra money. I dig that.

For what it is, and how it is positioned, it is clearly a 5 star app for reaching the goals it set out to reach and doing so in an iOS design interface manner.

In a real world scale, I give it a solid 4 stars. My son instantly brought up one feature that I think would make this a killer app. . .goal projections. The first question out of his mouth was “How long do I need to save my money to get a new Iron Man toy?” That was a very valid point to me and one I hadn’t considered when I set out to review it. A second point of improvement: being able to set decimal points on the APR settings. Both of my kids have savings accounts at ING Direct, which conveniently sits at a 1% APY (pathetic, I know), but three months ago it was a 1.1% APY. KidsBank only allows integer percentage points, so some reconcilliation may be needed down the road when you monitor accounts. The last thing, and maybe I missed it, but the ability to delete a transaction. I can void them, but they still show in the ledger as voided, a delete function would be appreciated.

Debt validation
When the collection agent knocks at your door for the first time to recover the owed amount, your first and foremost duty is to ask for a debt validation to verify whether you are liable to pay the owed amount which the collection agents are claiming. Under theFair Debt Collection Practices Act the consumers are protected from all sorts of illegal collection practices. If you know your consumers rights well that are conferred on you by FTC then it would be much easier for you to save yourself from harassing phone calls, profane language and collection threats.

Verification of SOL
Your next step must be to gain as much knowledge as possible on statute of limitation (SOL) on your state. By doing so you can have a clear idea about the time when your debt collectors are allowed to file a lawsuit against you in order to collect the owed amount and how much time you have on your hand to prepare for the impending danger.If you discover that your debts are more than 7 years older you can be free from its obligations and the amount will be eliminated from your credit report.

Debt settlement
If you find your account is yet to exceed the SOL you can consider debt settlement as your viable option. By settling your debts you can slash down the spiraling interest rates and eradicate the late fines entirely. Settlement not only lowers your outstanding balancebut also allows you to pay through an affordable repayment plan.

Keep a track of your dealing with the collection agency
It is highly recommended to maintain a record of your dealings with the collection agency. When the debt collectors give you a call you can record the phone call as evidences of the debt collection agency’s ill treatments with you. If your state law asks you to inform your collection agency before recording the calls then you must follow the order.

Make sure you get the agreement for settling your unpaid debts signed by the collection agency before making the final payments. If you find difficulty to negotiate on the owed amount with the agency, hire a debt relief company who can provide expert help andadvice. Hopefully, by following the above mentioned points you can pay off your debts with ease and protect yourself from legal hassle.