Did you know that Bankruptcy isn't as bad as people think?

I had always seen bankruptcy as one of the worst things that could happen to a person. Even in board games like monopoly and life, bankruptcy can make you loose.

I also heard that there are companies that help you negotiate your debt and help you pay only half of what you owe. But recently I read that these companies sometimes take advantage of the consumers and take hundreds of dollars in fees.

So in hard economic times what is better? Bankruptcy or Debt Consolidation?

Start Fresh Today offers possible answers to that question they offer a bankruptcy class online
I never even knew that there was such a thing. Start Fresh Today has classes for bankruptcy attorneys, credit counseling agencies and/or for consumers going through the bankruptcy process. If your debt seems to be more than you can handle, find more information and find the path to your financial freedom.

How to Protect your Financial Identity

Do you ever worry about your Financial Identity?
We are always hearing about how we should take care of our financial identity, as there are a lot of crazy people out there, especially at times when the economy is not at its best.

I always thought that it would never happen to us, but then one day my husband started getting charges in his card from someone in a different country. Thankfully we were able to catch it on time and cancel the cards and get the money back, but there are so many people who don't. It seems like someone was creating duplicate debit cards and they even had my husband's pin number. They had stolen the numbers from a store, and something similar happened to my cousin as well.  Now there are so many tricks that we need to be extra careful and vigilant of our finances.

I was checking out online and found this cool website called IdentityHawk. I think this is a great way to protect yourself and be safe.  In these times we need it more than ever.

The difference between Identity Hawk and other companies is that Identity Hawk helps safeguard consumers assets, their properties, and their good names. It provides a suite of protective benefits, IdentityHawk members can view the health of their identity protection, identify areas where they're most at risk, and take proactive steps to reduce those risks. It protects you before any attempt is made against your account. 

It provides identity theft protection in a variety of ways, even guaranteeing their services with a $1 million dollar insurance policy.

If you worry about your financial future, consider Identity Hawk.

Have you ever had an identity theft scare? How did you resolve it?

Is your credit good enough?

Many of us are thinking right now about our finances, especially around the Holidays. Because at this time we tend to spend, spend, spend! And now when the economy is not doing so good we tend to worry sometimes about what is in store for us.

So what do you do? Do you know what your credit score is? Have you ever even seen your credit report? And why does it matter? Many people sometimes tend to live paycheck to paycheck and they tend to ignore credit cards or loans, they do not know how much this affects them. They pay what they can on what they consider the most essential of bills (food, utilities, etc) and think that by not paying the credit cards then they can just ignore it and in 7 years it will go away. Well, that may be so, but 7 years is 7 years.

I work for a Real Estate Management company and have been dealing with people’s applications for over 6 years. I learned how to read credit scores, and credit reports. So what does a landlord look for when reading a credit report? Well, first of all we look at the credit score. Anything above 600 it’s decent, but credit score alone does not mean you have a good credit. There are many things that come into play. We look into the ratio of number of accounts, how many collections, and Public Records.  If a person has several accounts in good standing and a few collections and they are medical or student loans, then most landlords will let those slide by, but if the collections are under the credit cards or in any loan, then these we see as a negative points in your application and we might request a guarantor or extra rent security in order to approve your application.

So what should you do if you are struggling financially and don’t want to ruin your credit? Make a Budget, see how much money are you bringing in and how much do you have in bills in a month. If the income is lower than the bills call some companies and request a payment plan. Many credit card companies and utility companies prefer to give you a payment plan rather than have you default in your payments. Another thing that is good practice, is that if you owe credit cards try to pay more than the minimum, even if it’s only $10 more than the minimum you are still better off because many times the minimum payment goes mostly toward interest, and you are not paying off your debt so with time your account is probably going to grow, by paying a little bit more (paying double is even better) you pay something towards the actual balance of your payment and your balance will get lower each month.

You can go online and check your free credit score online and  see how you can take steps to improve your credit and stay financially stable.