Borrow Smart Holiday Loan

I just saw this ad on my Credit Union’s website. Borrow Smart Holiday Loan. Does anyone else see the fallacy in this title? Are they insinuating that it is smart to borrow money to pay for Christmas? Since I’m always curious about this stuff, I clicked on the “Click Here For Details” and this is what it said:

'Feel like the holidays arrived earlier than normal? Would extra cash help make the winter season a little merrier? With our unsecured Borrow Smart Holiday Loan, a brighter holiday can be yours! And with loan rates as low as 7.99%* APR, we will help you have a bright and merry holiday season!'

Doesn’t Christmas come the same time every year? And “extra cash,” don’t they mean... a new debt? Will going further into debt make your holiday brighter and merrier? WOW!!!! Are you kidding me!!!!

The reality is, many of us don’t save for Christmas. Instead of saving for the upcoming Christmas, many of us wait until December, and some of us have to get a loan to buy Christmas presents, or we just put the presents on our credit card.

So if you get a loan for your Christmas, that means that when January comes, instead of saving for next Christmas, you’ll start the year paying off the Christmas that just passed. What if you could save for, instead of pay back, what you spend for Christmas? How would it feel to give gifts that you actually paid for? How would it feel to watch your family enjoy their gifts instead of worrying about how you will eventually pay for those gifts?

What if I could show you how to break your dependence on credit immediately and forever? How soon do you want to get started?

Credit Card Debt Relief / Credit Counseling

I keep hearing these commercials that talk about “changes in legislation that allow you to settle your debt for half of what you owe.” There is no change or program that allows you to do this. If you default on your loan, then the credit card company will settle with you.

They'll settle after they add fees and interest and turn you over to a collection agency, who will add their fees. Then the company who will “help” you settle will add their fee. By the time you get to where you can settle for half, your bill is almost double what it was to start with. And then, the credit card company will give you a 1099 for the amount they didn’t collect from you, which means you have to pay income tax on that money. Oh, and by the way, your credit is extremely damaged at this point.

I showed a couple who was considering this, how they could pay their cards off and stay out of credit card debt forever! All of this, with no dings to their credit, and doing it faster than the debt consolidation company could get it paid off.

Only Buy Term Life Insurance…. Really?

So, you’ve probably heard that you should only buy term life insurance. If you haven’t heard that, for the most part, that is true. You should buy term life insurance to protect the income that provides for your family. If something were to happen to you and you have a family, you want that family to be able to continue on in the same lifestyle. You typically only need this coverage for up to 30 years – because after 30 years, your kids should be grown (and no longer financially dependent on you) and you should, at that point, be self insured.

So, if you have term insurance, do you also have a plan to be self insured by the time your coverage expires? What if you get to the end of your term and then still need coverage and no longer qualify for life insurance?

Does it make sense to have a small whole life insurance policy that will cover you forever? Maybe so. The truth is, no matter when you die, it will still cost your family money to bury you. Where will they get the money to bury you?

Whole life products are not what you want for all of your life insurance, because you don’t need the same amount of coverage for your entire life. You need term life insurance for the majority of your coverage to protect your family from financial disaster, in the event of your death.



865.789.6229
lsweet02@comcast.net
If you need help creating a plan that allows you to exclude the need for life insurance, I can help. If you need help assessing your current life insurance needs, I can help.

Christmas is Coming

Here is your reminder... Christmas is coming. There are 63 days left until Christmas. That is 9 weeks. Christmas is not an emergency... it comes the same time every year.

So, let me ask you... why do we end up with huge credit card bills every January? Do we forget that it is coming every year? No, we just don't plan for it, again, and then we do what we are accustomed to doing... just put it on the credit card and worry about paying for it later. How about NOT doing that this year!

If you start now, and save just $50 / week, you'll have $450 for Christmas. If you do it the other way, and just spend the $450 on your credit card and then pay it back with interest at the minimum payment... it would take you until September 2012 to pay for it, and cost you $137.87 in interest. You would end up paying $587.87 for your $450 worth of Christmas presents... yikes!

How do you pay for Christmas? Are you dependent on your credit cards to provide Christmas?

Leslie "BUSTS" BOA in The MOUTH!

this was copied right off the dano's debtbuster's website (www.danosdebtbusters.com):


Leslie helped a client who was being sued by BOA. Her client had hired an attorney who had charged her $500.00 in an effort to negotiate a settlement. The attorney got the case re-set for 90 days!


The attorney representing BOA declined to settle with the attorney and as the new case date drew near she couldn't get a response from her attorney. Out of fear of appearing in court by herself she spoke with a bankruptcy attorney who advised her to file bankruptcy on less than $10,000 in dischargable debt.


Fortunately this client approached Leslie. We quickly met with her, reassured her that we could help her sort this out. Begged her not to file bankruptcy and educated her as to how the civil court process worked. We helped her set up her budget and went with her to see the judge!
Amazingly the attorneys representing BOA were suing so many people that day that they had a folding table sitting in the lobby outside of the court room. Our new client walked over to the table offered a $75.00 a month agreed judgement on a $6600.00 debt, the attorney accepted it and we were out of the court house 10 minutes before our scheduled court time.


(Remember that the court is there for your protection always appear in court even if the opposing attorney tells you that they won't accept a pre-trial agreement. Typically the court has provisions in the law that will allow you to make a payment arrangement...If you are not sure what to do contact us!)

No Closing Costs?

Have you ever heard a mortgage company advertise “no closing costs?” I have. And it makes me angry. It makes me angry because it is a lie. There is no such thing as “no closing costs.” A loan can be structured so that the closing costs are figured into the loan, or your equity can cover the cost when you refinance, or the seller can pay them, but they are on EVERY loan. Most fees have to be on every loan. These are not optional fees that most companies just charge you for the heck of it, therefore allowing special companies to not charge them. They are fees that are associated with every loan.

Some administrative fees can differ from company to company, but the company still has to charge a fee, so they can be paid. Surely we don’t expect someone to work for us for free. Don’t be fooled, people don’t work for free. Even if a company doesn’t “show” any fees, they are getting them “on the back,” which just means they have charged you a higher interest rate and are receiving extra money for doing it.

Do lenders have title companies that work for them for free? Do they have appraisers that do their jobs for free? Do the nice people at the local courthouse do their recording and only charge some people for it? Of course they don’t. “No closing costs” is a scam, and you should be leery of doing business with anyone who doesn’t tell you the facts, straight up and up front.

We should always be on alert when someone claims they can do something that no other person / company in their field can do. Sometimes they can, but most of the time, they are just misleading or manipulating you.

Have you been sucked into this or any other misleading offer?

"BIG MISTAKE"

She says she wishes she had never signed a contract with her gym. She signed, and then was laid off, then fell and broke her finger, causing her to have surgery on her hand. They would not let her out of her contract.. well they reworked it to lower her payments, but didn’t tell her that they extended her contract an extra year to do so. She hasn’t been to the gym in a year and a half and still owes them over $2,000.

You’ve got to be careful signing a contract. Why? Because you can’t predict the future. You sign a contract, but the contract doesn’t have a “if my circumstances change” clause in it. No matter what your circumstances are (other than death or judgment), you are still obligated to fulfill your part of the contract, and the company is under no obligation to let you out of it.

Obviously my friend couldn’t use the gym; she couldn’t use her hand. She also was laid off, and couldn’t afford it anymore either. It makes sense to us that she shouldn’t have to pay for something she can’t use or afford… except she signed a contract agreeing to do so. We have to remember that even though we sign a contract with a “nice” employee, a contract is a contract, and it is a legal agreement. It is very unlikely that you will ever, not be held fully accountable to fulfill your obligation to that company.

Gym memberships are sold with 3yr agreements because they know most people wouldn’t keep their membership otherwise. They don’t accept settlements and most keep attorneys on hand because they end up suing so many of their customers. If a gym believed that their services were of value to their customers, they wouldn’t have contracts, because their customers would recognize the value of their service and keep going.

What is your “big mistake?”