Zero Percent Interest Credit Cards - How To Get Approved

2006-03-12T11:58:00.000-08:00

Zero percent interest is a very attractive credit card feature that gains a lot of attention. Although credit cards have the potential of becoming a dangerous tool, they do have practical uses. For example, credit cards allow easy transactions when purchasing items online. Furthermore, credit cards are great to have when having cash flow problems.

However, because of high interest rates, many consumers avoid using credit cards. Fortunately, there is a way to take advantage of credit cards without getting hit with a high interest rate.

What are Zero Percent Interest Credit Cards?

Perhaps you have seen a credit card offer featuring 0% percent interest. These types of credit cards are offered by several big name credit card lenders including Citi, Discover, and American Express. If you have good credit, a 0% interest credit card has many perks.

Of course, the rate does not always remain at 0%. This is called an introductory rate. In other words, you can expect to pay 0% on all purchases for the first six or twelve months. At the conclusion of the interest-free period, applicants will pay a higher rate.

How to Get Approved for a Zero Percent Interest Credit Card

To get approved for a zero percent interest credit card, you must have good credit. Each lender has a different definition of good credit. Before applying for a zero percent interest credit card, contact the creditor and inquire about their credit approval guidelines. This way, you avoid unnecessary credit inquiries.

Also, before submitting application, carefully read the terms of agreement. This section includes pertinent information such as late fees, over-the-limit-fees, penalties for late payments, etc. If acquiring a 0% interest credit card, do not submit late payments. By doing so, the creditor may immediately end the interest-free period. Moreover, being late on another credit account provides creditors just cause to end a 0% interest agreement.

Advantages of Zero Percent Interest Cards

Zero percent interest credit cards are ideal for financing large purchases in which you plan to payoff in a few short months. These cards are more practical than using high interest credit cards or obtaining a personal bank loan.

time & money

2006-03-05T23:27:00.000-08:00

Here's a sampling of how much effort it takes some of the advisers in my survey to put out their newsletters in conjunction with a marketing professional:
Warren McIntyre, principal of Vision Quest Financial Planning in Troy, Mich., spends two to four hours writing short newsletter "blurbs" for his two-page, black-and-white newsletter. The template was professionally created by a marketing firm, but since it's a PC-based application, Warren is able to type right into the preset fields to create the quarterly newsletter he desires. He emails the file to his printer, who mails back 300 professional-looking, z-folded newsletters, on slick white paper, ready for envelope stuffing. Postage and printing run about $300. Since Warren works on an hourly, as-needed basis, he doesn't send quarterly statements or any other material with his newsletter. "It's a pure marketing communications piece," he says. "It pays to keep your name in front of ...

fiancial-planning

2006-03-05T01:39:00.000-08:00

How Much Life Insurance Do You Really Need?
by Rajen Devadason
Insurance: An ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.
Ambrose Bierce

I think life insurance is one of the most awesome, beneficial inventions of our time. I have plenty of it myself!
However, do remember that no insurance company is in business for you the consumer. Every single insurance company that expects to be around in the next decade must look out for its bottomline and keep its shareholders happy.
Therefore, it makes sense for you to be able to figure exactly how much life insurance you need, and then to buy more if necessary. But make sure that you aren't over-insured because paying unnecessary premiums on life insurance policies will hurt your long-term ability to grow money in focused wealth accumulation instruments such as savings and investments.
It really is important for you to remember that any well put together personal financial plan must comprehensively meet three goals:
Wealth protection;
Wealth accumulation; and
Wealth distribution.
Now, when it comes to succeeding in all three facets of financial planning, the dictum 'first things first' comes into its own.This reality was powerfully hammered home to me a few years ago, when I read a book that my gorgeous wife Rachel gave me one Christmas.It was a weighty coffee table book entitled The Magic of M.C. Escher (© 2000 M.C. Escher Foundation; published by Thames & Hudson Ltd).
The late Escher was, in my opinion, the greatest graphic artist who ever lived. The Dutchman's mathematically precise works often portray beguiling, but impossible, situations such as men endlessly walking 'up' four flights of stairs, arranged in a square, only to meet themselves again and again and again... (If you'd like to see some examples of his work, click here. This particular piece is my favourite.)
In a 1955 letter to his son Arthur, Escher wrote, "I believe that producing pictures, as I do, is almost solely a question of wanting so very, very much to do it well."We are all the same - you, Escher, and I! You surely want to take very, very good care of your family; Escher's passion and industry led him to create very, very impressive works of art; and I desire to take very, very good care of my consulting, speaking and writing clients.I believe if you are serious about caring intelligently for your loved ones, you should mull over this explanation in McGill's Life Insurance, published by the American College: "Life insurance is concerned with the economic value of a human life, which is derived from its earning capacity and the financial dependence of other lives on that earning capacity."Simply put, that means as long as you have dependants whom you care for, you need life insurance at least until you grow rich enough to be self-insured. Thankfully, products exist in every country that allow us to transfer the risk of economic loss from individuals to well-capitalised insurance companies.I've always found it eye-opening that it was Sir Winston Churchill who said, "If I had my way I would write the word 'INSURED' over the door of every cottage and upon the blotting book of every public man: because I am convinced that, for sacrifices that are inconceivably small, families can be secured against catastrophes which otherwise would smash them up forever."In his book, Business Insurance - Million-Dollar Concepts (© 1997 Lim Yuen Seong), my friend Lim Yuen Seong put it more succinctly, "Human capital is expensive and destructible. Protect it!"In a later book cum manual, C@pture - The Handy Professional Aide for Financial Planners and Advisors, which the Malaysian Lim developed with Singaporean Captain (NS) Go Ashokh Menon, this interesting 6-Step Insurance Planning Process is advocated:Step 1: Determine Insurance objectives;Step 2: Gather Information;Step 3: Analyse Information;Step 4: Develop Insurance plan;Step 5: Implement Insurance plan; andStep 6: Periodic Reviews.This six-step process found in that excellent manual mirrors the Certified Financial Planner Board's six-step financial planning process, which you can learn more about at http://www.cfp.net (As far as I know, C@pture is not available in regular bookstores, but the publisher's address is:D' Wealth Publications (M) Sdn Bhd, B-8-10, Block B, 8th Floor, Unit 10, Megan Phileo Avenue, No. 12, Jalan Yap Kwan Seng, 50450 KL, Malaysia.)Those six steps outline the process. Building upon that process in my own practice, I use this following 7-step algorithm (or recipe) to assess a client's true goals within the context of his or her life insurance coverage needs.
This is a 'quick-and-dirty' way of figuring out how much life insurance a person needs. Please take note that it does not take into account the eroding effects of future inflation.
I learnt a version of this algorithm back in 1998, while co-writing Financial Freedom - Your Guide to Lifetime Financial Planning with my friends and co-authors Edmond Cheah, Wong Boon Choy and Alex Sito. Sadly, that book is out of print.
(But if you're interested in checking out digitally downloadable ebooks I have written, you may do so here.)Now, going back to insurance needs calculations, please note that hypothetical dollar amounts are included here to help make things clearer. You'll need to plug in the numbers that are appropriate to your circumstances.
Right, let's begin:First, assess your family's annual household expenses in your 'absence', say $100,000.
Second, add in ANNUAL investment obligations for major goals that survive you, such as your children's education funding and spouse's retirement funding, say $50,000.The first two steps give an indication of ANNUAL budget requirements, in this case $150,000.Third, assume a fair capitalisation rate. This refers to the average yield your survivors will be able to earn on a portfolio of savings and investments that is meant to provide passive income to replace the loss of your active income. (Sigh! I hope that made sense, if it didn't, I apologise... just drop me a line at mailto:rajen@RajenDevadason.com and I'll then try to give you a clearer explanation.)
Anyway, I tend to use 5% as a fair capitalisation rate, so I multiply the calculated annual budget need by 20 { = 1/(5%) = 1/0.05}. Here that works out to:
$3 million { =.$150,000 x 20}Fourth, add on a series of final expenses including your own burial costs, say $30,000, for instance if you like the idea of a big send-off, which gives a total capital requirement of $3.03 million.Fifth, knock off actual existing savings and investments, excluding your own home, say $730,000. That works out to $2.3 million.Sixth, knock off anticipated payouts from existing insurance policies, say $1.5 million. Seventh, the residual sum calculated is the amount a client is under-insured (if the sum is positive) or over-insured (if the amount is negative). In this case, the hypothetical client is $800,000 under-insured { = $2.3 million - $1.5 million}.So, if, like Escher, you aim to do very, very well in things that matter... to your family, please run a similar analysis on yourself, for yourself!
Then plug the gaps with an appropriate insurance policy!
© Rajen Devadason