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Improving Your Credit: 5 Ways You Can Get A Handle On Your Finances Posted: 08 Apr 2014 04:50 AM PDT Getting a loan can be a challenge for those who have a problematic credit report. There are steps that the average person can take to improve his or her credit. Here are a few tips that can bring a credit score up. Pay Bills on Time One of the biggest parts of a credit report is related to the timeliness of bill payments. Accounts that fall more than 30 days overdue can be a big drag on a credit report. A lower credit score can lead to higher interest rates on loan. It can also lead to a person getting declined for a home or vehicle loan. Paying even the minimum amount due each month before the due date can help a credit score soar. Keep Old Accounts Open Another part of the credit scoring system is related to how long a person’s credit history is. The age of a person’s credit history is tied to the oldest outstanding account. Therefore, a credit card that has been open for ten years will help you if you keep it open. Closing it would cause a drop in a credit score. For your overall financial health, you should try to eliminate the credit accounts that you don’t need and consolidate your debt. Avoid Using Credit First of all, if you are feeling like you are drowning in your finances, you would be wise to put the credit cards away and use them very minimally. The percentage of credit that a person utilizes at any given time will also impact a credit score. Someone who owes $8,000 on a credit line of $10,000 would have an 80 percent credit utilization rate. Someone with the same $8,000 debt on a $32,000 line would have a rate that is only 25 percent. The latter example would be more likely to have a higher credit score because they don’t ride so close to their maximum. Write up a Budget It is difficult to keep up with finances if there is no budget to track income and expenses. There are a number of online options when it comes to drawing up a monthly budget. Getting one up and running can save the need to utilize additional credit and improve scores. One of the very best digital helps for a budget is Mint.com, a free, financial management application. Personally, this is how I manage my monthly budget. Pay Your Old Debts Your credit score will greatly benefit from your past payments being made, even if they are late. You may speak with your creditors and ask them for adjustments on the reporting of your payments once they have been made. This will greatly improve your credit score. If you are so deep into debt that you don’t know how to even start paying off your debts try a more strategic approach: Lock down your budget, commit to make every single minimum monthly payment you are responsible for, and put all the extra cash you have left each month toward the smallest debt you have. Repeat monthly until your debt is gone. It takes a lot of commitment, but you can do it and after about a year, you will find yourself accelerating quickly out of debt. Consult a Bankruptcy Attorney No one really wants to take this step, but if the situation becomes overwhelming, it may be your best solution. Utilizing a chapter 13 bankruptcy attorney will allow a person to start rebuilding his or her credit and get over a hurdle that may seem impossible. Keeping a good credit score is imperative for getting the best rates on mortgages and installment loans. Those who are able to follow these steps will be able to improve their scores and obtain the best terms for any loans they might need. The post Improving Your Credit: 5 Ways You Can Get A Handle On Your Finances appeared first on . Related posts: A Bad Credit Situation Is Difficult To Handle and Can Harm Credit History 5 Ways a New Credit Card Can Improve Your Credit Score You Can Run But You Can’t Hide; The Importance of Good Credit

Are You a First-Time Home Buyer? Posted: 07 Apr 2014 08:01 PM PDT A first-time home buyer is usually referred to a person failing to own a home in a specific time period, normally last three years, depending on the city and state he/she lives in. taking first-time home buyers program in a little depth reveals that it's a loan or alternatively a payment program designed to help individuals enabling them to afford their own homes along with keeping them off the bloated interest rates. FHA of Federal Housing Administration is an example of first-time home buyers loan. These loans have been in practice since 1934 with several advantages associated to them like low closing costs, easy credit qualifying and low down payments. There are several other uses of these loans like purchasing a mobile home, repairing and remodeling and bringing energy efficient improvements. There are some other programs offering great benefits like discounts on homes but they are mainly concerned with your personality and career. Teachers, firefighters and law enforcement personals can get up to fifty percent discount on the listed price of home through The Good Neighbor Next Door program. There are numerous similar offers which are just a few clicks away. You just need to spend a little time on surfing the internet for such offers. Your few minutes spent on such searches can bring a huge array of loan options along with helping tips to overcome the issues keeping you buying a home. While surfing the internet, you need to be a little clever to do efficient search to focus on only the reliable and valid search results. Advantages of getting a first home buyers' guide or joining a first-home buyers program are not legitimatized to great perks, tax credits, discounts and low interest rates – but you also go through the process gradually with an informed individual who is there to ensure that you get the best out of it. What you all need is to show your interest in attaining your interest. The more you are enthusiastic, the better you can achieve. If your are busy enough and your routine doesn’t allow you to visit a professional adviser to seek help in finding a reasonable program then give yourself a helping hand; discover it yourself through the internet and compare different first-home buyers programs. For instance, you can check the website of U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development where you can look for a wide range of information on different topics of your interest related to your intended program. Alternately, you can attend a seminar where you'd be able to ask live questions for the sake of better satisfaction and clearer information. Such seminars would also allow you to get knowledge from experiences of others. If you don't know how to initiate then it's not your fault but if you aren’t able to convince yourself to take an initiation then it's definitely your fault. In short, its up to your attitude and seriousness about your interest in grabbing the advantage of the available options. So, subscribe on websites giving such offers or information to get regular updates and check your email frequently. The post Are You a First-Time Home Buyer? appeared first on . Related posts: Financing Your Home: Six Loans That Could Help You Get the Home of Your Dreams How to Know Which Home Loan Option is Best for You Financial Advice for First Time Home Buyers

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