Category: Debt

Credit Cards: How to Make Balance Transfers Work For You

What is Ethical Investing?

My aim with each blog post is to help you move to a better financial future. I believe that there is not enough financial education in the national curriculum and I intend to share anything helpful that I have learned along the way. I am by no means a financial expert. None of the information on this website constitutes financial advice and is provided as general information only. This is my personal finance blog; my marketing blog is over here and I have been blogging there since 2010. I hope you have found this information useful. Thank you for reading.

Best regards,

Mike

The Lifecycle of Love and Money

This post may contain affiliate links please read our disclosure for more info.

For this blog post, we’re going to discuss something almost everyone wants. It can bring great joy or great pain, but it can be awkward to talk about. We’re of course referring to… wait, is this post about love or money? Oh, both? Yeah, it’s both.

Money

Every couple is going to have a different financial journey, but there are some major milestones that most couples will encounter at some point. Here are some tips for when you’re dating, when you’re committed, and when you decide to tie the knot.

Dating

It’s fine to leave conversations about money until later, but if you decide you’re comfortable enough, you can open up a financial discussion as early as the first date. Who pays for dates is (somehow) still a hotly contested topic, according to the findings of a 2015 sociological study. *There’s no clear consensus regarding who should pay for what, and some people have complex feelings toward splitting the bill, so bringing up the subject can be a way to get a money chat rolling.

After you’ve spent some time with someone and you’re considering whether you want to be in a serious, long-term relationship with them, it’s a sensible idea to make sure you’re financially compatible first. A survey commissioned by Ally Bank found that when people were asked to name the biggest source of stress in their relationships and marriages, money was the most common answer.** Try to head off fights before they happen by checking if you and your partner have similar financial behaviors and goals. If you want to save for a vacation together while your better half wants to start investing in rare tropical fish, that could lead to an argument later.

Moving in Together

By cohabiting with your significant other, you’re taking the first major step toward building a financial life together. Now you’re relying on your partner to help pay for food and rent, which means their financial habits have a more direct impact on your wellbeing. Starting to think of your finances more as a duo while setting clear boundaries to make sure no one feels smothered can help keep both parties happy.

Unfortunately, the first step to co-planning your finances can be the hardest for a lot of people: divulging your financial history. That includes the accounts you have, your savings, and most importantly, your debts. One way you can ease into this is to make a budget together, which can act as a neutral conversation that puts you both on the same page. If you’re still anxious, psychological research suggests that honesty is an important part of building strong relationships,*** so sharing your financial situation with your partner may bring the two of you closer together.

You’ll also need to talk about how to split shared living expenses. Two main ways of doing this are to split things evenly or equitably. An even split means you and your partner divide costs 50-50. This may not really be fair if you and your significant other have vastly different incomes, but it can help both of you feel more equal since you’re paying the same amount, and it’s easy to figure out who should pay what.

An equitable split, though, means sharing costs according to each person’s ability to pay. This is arguably more fair than an even split, since you’re both paying an amount you can manage while still leaving money to cover personal expenses. However, it can potentially cause tension if the person paying more feels like their bigger contribution should give them a greater say in the relationship, and uses their economic advantage to push the other person around. Remember that you don’t have to commit 100% to an even or equitable split, so you and your partner can find a balance between these that works for you.

Marriage

Once you get married your partnership isn’t just recognized by your friends and family, but by the big G… that’s right, the government. The United States General Accounting Office has identified over 1,000 federal provisions in which marital status influences your legal benefits, rights, and privileges,**** and that’s not even getting into each state’s laws. If you have questions about how getting married will affect your rights (such as your property rights), the safest person to talk to is a qualified attorney.

Additionally, now’s the time to start thinking about how you want to organize financial accounts with your partner, if you haven’t already. In general, combining your money using joint accounts can make it easier to pay household expenses and save for mutual goals, but it also may reduce how independent you feel since you have less money to yourself. The exact method you choose is really up to what you and your partner are the most comfortable with. For example, you could keep your separate financial accounts active while opening a new joint bank account for shared expenses, adopting a “yours, mine, and ours” split. Or, you could consolidate all of your money into one person’s account and add the other person as an authorized user. It’s also still valid to keep your money completely separate.

At their core, all of these steps really boil down to communicating and compromising with your significant other. If you’re able to do that, you have an advantage in building a financially healthy and stable partnership.

This article originally appeared on Earnin and appears here at their request.

Next Steps

If you’ve enjoyed this post you will also like Are you and your partner financially compatible? Have you already established a joint budget with your partner? Let me know in the comments section below. Also, get in touch if you would like my help. My email address is mike@learnmoney.io

If you have enjoyed this post you will also like the following posts:

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Respondent.io Review

Top 3 High Paying Affiliate Programs

Credit Cards: How to Make Balance Transfers Work For You

What is Ethical Investing?

Best regards,

Mike

Image credit: pexels.com

References:

*https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2158244015613107

**https://media.ally.com/2018-06-12-Money-Causes-the-Most-Stress-for-Couples-According-to-New-Ally-Survey

*** https://www.psychology.uwo.ca/pdfs/SONA/articles/13-campbell.pdf

*****https://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04353r.pdf

What are the Benefits of Cashback Credit Cards?

This post may contain affiliate links please read our disclosure for more info.

Regular readers of this website will remember this post that I wrote. 4 Credit Cards to Repair Your Credit Score .If you are planning to use credit cards strategically, you first need to set your objective. If your objective is to earn cash rewards instead of improving your credit score your choice credit cards would be very different.

Why Use Cashback Credit Cards?

Earn Rewards

If you pay for mandatory expenditure using a cashback credit card you have an opportunity to earn rewards that would not be available to you if you simply used a debit card. If you use this approach, you must remember to pay of the credit card balance in full each month otherwise the interest that you will have to pay may negate the value of any rewards earned.

Sign Up Bonuses

Many cashback credit cards have new customer sign up bonuses and exclusive shopping offers. Providing that you are disciplined with your spending, these could be good opportunties. Imagine a scenario where you can earn tangible items that you could sell for cash.

Warning

“Know thyself.” – Socrates. If you do not have the financial discipline to use cashback credit cards and remember to clear the balances each month – do not go near them. You could end up creating problems for yourself.

What are the Best Cashback Credit Cards in the United States?

To review some of the best performing cashback credit cards in the United States click here and remember that past performance is no guarantee of future performance.

Next Steps

Are you interested in cashback credit cards ? Do you have one already? Let me know in the comments section below. Also, get in touch if you would like my help. My email address is mike@learnmoney.io

If you have enjoyed this post you will also like the following posts:

How to get Brand Deals as a Micro Influencer

Are you Missing out on Compound Interest?

Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing Course – Review

Respondent.io Review

Top 3 High Paying Affiliate Programs

Credit Cards: How to Make Balance Transfers Work For You

4 Credit Cards to Repair Your Credit Score

Best regards,

Mike

Image credit: pexels.com

Personal Finance: How Should You Prepare for Brexit?

This post may contain affiliate links please read our disclosure for more info.

Image credit: https://www.irishnews.com/

For those of you not living in the UK, Brexit is a word coined to mark the Great Britain’s intention to leave the European Union. This decision was the result of a national referendum in July 2016 in which the electorate voted to ‘Leave’ or ‘Remain.’ The United Kingdom was very divided; 52% voted in favour of leaving and 48% voted to remain. Those who voted to leave did so without any real understanding of the repercussions of such a decision; they were encouraged by politicians who were economical with the truth. Now in December 2018, UK inhabitants find themselves heading towards Brexit and what looks like a self-inflicted recession.

Businesses and consumers have been heavily impacted; consumers are not spending as much as they used to and business people lack of confidence about the future. Businesses are currently less likely to invest in new equipment or staff and according to the GFK consumer confidence Index the current score for the UK is – 13. To give that some context, in December 2015 the confidence index score was +2. Significantly 2015 was the first time the index had remained positive for an entire calendar year since records began in 1974.

Prepare For Brexit

From a personal finance perspective, how can you better prepare yourself for the reality of Brexit? Below I have listed 4 practical steps you can take that will help.

Revisit Your Budget

Take a look at your current monthly budget and re-evaluate all of your expenditure. If there are opportunities to cut back – take them. For example, a lot of people have unmetered water bills even though in many cases a metered water bill will work out cheaper; read this post for information, Water Bills: Are you Pouring Money Down the Plughole? There may be other opportunities for you to cutback.

Assess Your Employer & Job Stability

In financially challenging circumstances many companies suffer and some go into administration. In the UK, we have seen this with the demise of Maplin and Toy R Us.

The task for you is to dispassionately assess how well your employer is doing and how likely/unlikely it is that you be made redundant. Do not rely on any assurances from the management team at your company; do your own independent research. If you think that you could be made redundant save more money into your emergency fund.

Reduce Discretionary Expenditure

In personal finance circles, there is a lot of discussion around how much impact cutting out daily Lattes will have on the path toward better financial health. That’s a choice that you are best placed to make. However, what is sensible is to rein the dining out occasions and perhaps replace them with entertaining friends at home. Beyond entertaining, holidays are another area that you should review. Choosing a more cost effective destination or changing an international holiday to a UK based ‘staycation’ will give you greater financial comfort. Also, do not go overboard at Christmas.

Review All of Your Financial Products

Review all of your financial products including savings, mortgages, investments and pensions. Assess the impact on Brexit in each case and evaluate whether you should continue with your current provider. If appropriate, change to better performing products with other providers to maximise your returns.

How are you preparing financially for Brexit? Let me know in the comments section below.

If you have enjoyed this post you will also like the following posts:

Take This Free Financial Literacy Course Today

Cryptocurrency Exchange: This is Why I Recommend DSX

How to Control Your Cashflow With a Bill Payment Schedule

How to Boost Your Income With a Temporary Christmas Job – 4 Examples

Credit Cards: How to Make Balance Transfers Work For You

Save up to £300 per year by Changing Broadband Supplier

Best regards,

Mike

Click here to be taken to the course landing page.

Take This Free Financial Literacy Course Today

This post may contain affiliate links please read our disclosure for more info.

Image credit: https://vdc.edu.au/

One of the goals I set for myself for this blog was to help people improve their level of financial literacy.

What is Financial Literacy?

‘Financial literacy is the confluence of financial, credit and debt management and the knowledge that is necessary to make financially responsible decisions – decisions that are integral to our everyday lives.’

Kristina Zucchi, a contributor to www.investopedia.com

With each blog post, I have intended to spread financial awareness and increase the knowledge base of my readership. The feedback I have received suggests that this has been appreciated. Thanks to all of you that took the time to feedback. Another way of spreading financial literacy is by sharing details of a free financial literacy course. Over the course of the last couple of weeks, I have been searching for a free resource that I could share with my readers. I have now found a suitable course and this course is the focus for today’s blog post.

Free Financial Literacy Course

This financial literacy course provides a good introduction to personal finance and money management. The course is supplied by Alison.com the free online learning platform set up as a For Profit Social Enterprise in 2007 by Mike Feeric. Alison.com was started in Galway, Ireland and now has over 12 million students from 195 countries. The course that I have selected has been studied by sixty nine thousand students and has a rating of 4.1 stars. The course will take approximately 6-10 hours to complete.

Continual Learning

As we continue on this journey towards financial freedom, I will share other helpful resources with you. I hope that you find this course useful. I believe that it is important for us to continue learning and improving our knowledge base.

Have you taken any financial literacy or money management courses before? Let me know in the comments section below.

If you have enjoyed this post you will also like the following posts:

Cryptocurrency Exchange: This is Why I Recommend DSX

How to Control Your Cashflow With a Bill Payment Schedule

How to Boost Your Income With a Temporary Christmas Job – 4 Examples

Credit Cards: How to Make Balance Transfers Work For You

Save up to £300 per year by Changing Broadband Supplier

Best regards,

Mike

Take This Free Financial Literacy Course Today

4 Credit Cards to Repair Your Credit Score

This post may contain affiliate links please read our disclosure for more info.

It is very unfortunate that the people who most need credit are the least likely to receive it. People with low credit scores are deemed the greatest risk by the bean counters in banks and other financial institutions who determine who’s loan application will be accepted or denied. When you are being considered for any credit agreement, one variable that carries a lot of weight is your credit score. This is expressed as a number; fortunately, it is a variable that you can positively influence over time.

What is a Credit Score?

Definition: As a consumer, your credit score is a number based on information from your credit reports at the three major credit reporting bureaus – Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.

Definition from Investopedia.com

Your credit score* is based on your performance against a number of factors including, how much credit you are currently using, whether you have missed payments for credit cards and loans, whether you are a home owner or rent the property that you currently live in. According to Experian, a poor credit score is between 300-579, 580-669 is described as fair, 670 -739 is labelled good, 740-799 is very good and 800 to 850 is exceptional. People with poor credit scores are often turned down when they apply for credit.

Image credit: https://www.experian.com/

How can you Improve Your Credit Score?

There are a number of ways of improving your credit score, for the purpose of this blog post, I will focus on one. You can Improve your credit score by applying for a specialist credit card, using it responsibly and building up positive data points and your financial reputation. ‘Using it responsibly’ in this context means paying off your balance each month and making payments on time. Credit cards for people with low credit scores are a niche within the credit card market; providers are more flexible than traditional lenders and charge a higher interest rate for outstanding balances and purchases.

Below are 4 credit cards that you can apply for, if you have a poor credit score and want to improve it.

Which Credit Cards can Help You?

If you do apply for any of these credit cards, please read all the terms and conditions carefully and pay particular attention to the APR that will be applied to your card. Use your new credit card responsibly and in a few short months your credit score will improve. As your credit score improves, you will be able to borrow at much more competitive interest rates. You can find out your credit score for free here.

Do you know your credit score? Have you had to take steps to improve it? Let me know in the comments section below.

If you have enjoyed this post you will also like the following posts:

Cryptocurrency Exchange: This is Why I Recommend DSX

How to Control Your Cashflow With a Bill Payment Schedule

How to Boost Your Income With a Temporary Christmas Job – 4 Examples

Credit Cards: How to Make Balance Transfers Work For You

Save up to £300 per year by Changing Broadband Supplier

Best regards,

Mike

How to Control Your Cashflow With a Bill Payment Schedule

*If you were wondering about the difference between a credit score and and credit rating, individuals usually have credit scores whereas businesses or governments have credit ratings. Credit ratings are expressed as letters with A being the highest as opposed to the numbers used for credit scores.

Image credit: https://upgradedpoints.com/

What to do if you are Made Redundant: 5 Steps

This post may contain affiliate links please read our disclosure for more info.

Image credit: https://recruitingtimes.org/

There may come a time during your career when you are made redundant, in the United States the term used is Laid off. It is not usually a pleasant experience but it can prove to be a springboard to new opportunities. Having been through the experience myself, my advice is to take the steps that I have outlined in the post below. The Retail industry is an example of an industry that seems more susceptible to redundancies than others but the truth is that it can happen across the board an in many sectors. Once you have taken time to understand the practical implications of being made redundant, you should then create a financial action plan that will keep you focused on your financial goals.

If You Are Made Redundant

Emergency Fund

If you have an emergency fund, assess how much is in it and how long you will be able to cover living expenses after you receive your final salary cheque. Be as detailed as possible because this will determine the maximum time you have available to find another job.

Monthly Budget

Revisit your monthly budget, are there any areas that can be reduced? Rather than wait until you are in a desperate position, cut back on entertainment and other discretionary expenditure now. You will be able to reintroduce them when your employment status improves. Consider your approach to food and increase the number of home cooked meals you make instead of visiting restaurants or buying takeaways. It will surprise you have much can be trimmed off your expenditure in this way.

Looking For Employment

Search for new roles as soon as you are informed that you will be made redundant. Search for career relevant jobs and side gig / second jobs at the same time. You will find that these side gigs/ second jobs often have a more urgent need and a faster turnaround time. The main benefit of this is that you will be able to get money coming into your account sooner than if you rely solely on career relevant jobs that may have a lead time of 2 -3 months. Keep a spreadsheet of jobs that you have applied to.

Transport

Assess your vehicular needs, do you need a car? If you have two, could you manage with one? I recommend that you consider these questions dispassionately; don’t be concerned about what the neighbours will think. In the major cities of the UK and other cities around the world, it is possible to hire cars on hourly basis. You could hire a car for a few hours and then return it.

There are quite a few car sharing companies in London, for example, Enterprise Car Club, Easy Car and Zipcar. Ensure that you read the terms and conditions before signing up. Renting cars rather than having your own to maintain and run could save you a significant amount and buy you more time whilst looking for another job.

De- Clutter and Sell Unwanted Items

If your emergency fund is going to run out soon or if you don’t have an emergency fund start to de-clutter your home. Selling unwanted or unused items via websites such as Gumtree or Ebay will help you raise additional funds that can go into your emergency fund. This will buy you more time whilst you are searching for a new job.

Have you ever been made redundant? Did you get your financial house in order? Let me know in the comments section below.

If you have enjoyed this post you will also like the following posts:

How to Boost Your Income With a Temporary Christmas Job – 4 Examples

Credit Cards: How to Make Balance Transfers Work For You

Save up to £300 per year by Changing Broadband Supplier

Water Bills: Are you Pouring Money down the Plughole?

How to Stick to Your Budget During Summer: 5 Tips

Does Your Choice of Supermarket Matter?

Save Money by Switching Energy Supplier Every Year

Best regards,

Mike

How to Boost Your Income With a Temporary Christmas Job – 4 Examples

How to Control Your Cashflow With a Bill Payment Schedule

This post may contain affiliate links please read our disclosure for more info.

Image credit: https://barterfanatic.com/

In another post on this site I have written about how important it is for you to have a budget for your monthly expenditure. It is also important that you manage your bill payment schedule. Poor management of when bills need to be paid each month can create cash flow headaches, these are times when you have a bill to pay but no available money to pay it. It is worth creating a bill payment schedule as an Excel document and thinking about how dates on the schedule can be altered to create a better cash flow position for yourself.

Good management of bills will enable you to avoid late payment charges or a reliance on credit cards to get you through to the end of the month.

Bill Payment Schedule

Your Action Plan

Go through all your bills and record on your spreadsheet and make a note of when each bill needs to be paid. When you have finished, you should have a list of regular bills and dates covering accommodation, mobile phone and electricity etc.

Image credit: http://funf.pandroid.co/

Ask yourself, is there a regular time in the month when you seem to have more bills than cash? It may be that by week three of each month your available cash is particularly low. If this is the case, and you get paid once a month it would make sense to move payment dates from week 3 to closer to the start of the month, i.e. just after pay day.

If you get paid weekly, it could be advantageous to alter payment dates so that all bills are paid just after you receive your weekly wages. Individual circumstances will vary of course, the objective is to avoid having no cash left and still having bills to pay.

Simplicity is the key, it’s fairly easy to forget about a bill and then fall behind or miss a payment completely. Once you have altered payment dates, automate them with direct debits and standing orders so you don’t have to spend time thinking about them each month.

Ensure that you check how competitive all of your suppliers are once a quarter. If you can switch to a more cost effective supplier without being penalised, you should do so.

Do you have a schedule of bill payments? Have you created your own system? Let me know in the comments section below.

If you have enjoyed this post you will also like the following posts:

Credit Cards: How to Make Balance Transfers Work For You

Save up to £300 per year by Changing Broadband Supplier

Water Bills: Are you Pouring Money down the Plughole?

How to Stick to Your Budget During Summer: 5 Tips

Does Your Choice of Supermarket Matter?

Save Money by Switching Energy Supplier Every Year

How to Stop Impulse Buying – 10 Ways

Have you Found all of Your Dormant Accounts?

Can you live off a Cash Budget for a Week?

Best regards,

Mike

Make Money By Being Part of a Focus Group

Why You Should Drive an Old Car and Pay off Your Mortgage Early

This post may contain affiliate links please read our disclosure for more info.

Image credit: https://cars.usnews.com / Car pictured is a 2007 Honda Accord

I get it. Most of us like nice things, especially nice shiny new things that get us from A to B. There is no denying that driving a brand new car sends a signal to the world that we are on the right track and can make us feel good about ourselves, but at what cost? Car payments are often the second or third largest items of expenditure on most people’s monthly household budget. If you are serious about pursuing financial freedom you will need to stop making ego-driven financial decisions.

I have noticed something, lots of people with immense wealth drive extremely ordinary cars. They often pick fundamentally sound cars that have good reputations but then they hold onto them. For them, impressing the neighbours is not a priority. They are more interested in increasing their wealth generating assets.

A Car is not an Asset

Money in the right savings account will be compounding for you, whereas money spent on a brand new car will evaporate day after day as your car depreciates. Let’s be clear, only the rarest of classic cars appreciate; most cars depreciate in value. Whilst you’re busy impressing the neighbours, your money is leaving you.

Similar to savings, property is also an asset that will appreciate over time. In most parts of the United Kingdom and many places around the world, property increases in value year upon year. If you are a homeowner, you can further increase the equity in your property by making additional payments against your mortgage. This means that you will pay off your mortgage in a shorter period and as a consequence will save thousands in interest on your home loan. You will be able to own your home outright many years earlier than originally agreed. Your mortgage provider would prefer that you do not do this because they will lose thousands of pounds. If you can afford them, making additional payments against your mortgage is one of the best financial decisions you can make in your life.

Trade Down Your Car

In many cases, a car is necessary; to get to work, or pick up the children from school, plus all the shopping trips and errands that you use it for. I’m not advising you to make do without a car; simply downgrade the latest model or forego the latest model to focus on your financial goals. In doing so you will be trading down your car to bring you closer to financial freedom. If possible, buy a much older car and pay cash for it. The money you save on car payments can go towards additional payments against your mortgage. You would be surprised how much difference an extra £200 or £300 per month will make.

I realise that for many people this kind of approach will require a mindset shift; choose this approach because it suits your financial goals and stop trying to keep up with the Joneses. You never know, the Joneses may be up to their necks in unsecured debt. By being disciplined, you will soon be far ahead of them anyway.

Making extra payments against your mortgage will increase your net worth. You should be tracking your net worth on a regular basis, this post explains the why and how, Why You Should Track Your Net Worth.

Have you considered buying an old car? Have you made additional payments against your mortgage? Let me know in the comments section below.

If you have enjoyed this post you will also like the following posts:

Save Hundreds on Rent Per Month By Becoming a Property Guardian

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Make Money Now With These Two Referral Apps

Have you got the Right Money Mindset?

What to do with a Financial Windfall

Why you Should Track Your Net Worth

Best regards,

Mike