Personal Finance guide

With much of the world in recession and many households in the UK struggling to balance the books here are 5 relatively easy ways to see in you can gain a bit of extra cash.

1/ Savings Accounts
With UK interest rates at only 0.5% a lot of savings accounts are paying a miniscule interest rate. But it is still possible to get rates as high as 3.15% on instant access savings accounts and 5.00% on fixed rate bonds. So dig out your old savings account details and check what interest you are getting as banks and building societies rely on customer inertia to get away with poor rates for savers. If you are not getting anywhere near the rates mentioned above look to move your savings elsewhere and enjoy the extra £1′s of interest you will achieve. Continue reading ‘5 Easy Money Saving Tips’ »

When talking about lending or loans, what we are really talking about is credit. Credit is money you ask for to pay for something. You promise to repay this money, plus an additional amount, usually called interest.

Used carefully, credit can be extremely useful. On the other hand, if not used responsibly it can cause major problems. “Good credit” typically means that you repay your loans on time, and don’t abuse the credit limits given to you. The better you maintain your credit today, the easier it is to obtain credit in the future. Continue reading ‘Basics of Lending’ »

While most experts would agree that giving credit cards to teens may not be the greatest idea in the world there most definitely is a viable solution in the form of prepaid cards for teens. Prepaid cards offer many advantages including having the ability to set spending limits while teaching youngsters how to manage their finances responsibly.

As you may know there is a difference between a credit card and a prepaid credit card. A credit card is what most of us use and provides the card holder with a pre-arranged line of credit with a lending institution. The credit card holder can spend this money anytime, anywhere, agreeing to pay back the amount in full, plus interest, by making at least a minimum monthly payment. Continue reading ‘Prepaid Cards for Teens – Establish Responsible Spending Habits’ »

Credit cards are fast becoming a business necessity. They’re flexible, easy to use, convenient and offer users the ability to make purchases instantly, anywhere in the world.

We’ve spent some time analysing credit cards aimed at businesses and have put together a list of our top 8 reasons to use a company credit card.

Continue reading ‘8 Reasons to Use a Business Credit Card’ »

The rise in debt and financial slowdown has also witnessed the rising importance of various debt relief options like debt settlement, debt consolidation, credit counseling etc which to a large extent have helped several debtors to fight and end their debts; but all these debt solutions could not provide an instant relief from diseases or the requirement of emergency funds for medical purposes. In such cases, health care or medical credit cards are marketed to individuals by medical providers to cover only medical expenses or medical procedures not typically covered by insurance. And as more medical providers struggle to collect unpaid medical bills, health care cards are being marketed to patients as a way to keep bills from going into collections. But ideally they are nothing more or less than any ordinary credit cards as they charge interest on balances and impose other fees just like any other credit cards do, except for factor that medical credit cards are issued to cover only health care related expenses.

Thus it is not suggested to think that just because it’s a medical credit card, one need not be as careful as he generally is regarding other credit cards for it is not going to spare or forgive any outstanding payment. In fact people should be more careful while issuing medical credit cards, due to various marketing traps and scams that may drag the holder into future debts and financial troubles.

Continue reading ‘Medical Credit Cards Watch Out The Disadvantages’ »

Credit cards can be great but they can also be terrible. They can build credit as fast as they can destroy it. If you use credit cards correctly, you can have a small monthly loan every month. In today’s electronic age, technology is affecting even how we pay our bills. It is very easy to set up auto payments or make payments online by just entering a few pieces of information.

When deciding to pay your bills with credit cards, you first must think about your history with credit cards. Have you abused them? Do you make minimum payments? Have you had several late payments? Do you have maxed out credit cards? If you answered yes to any of those questions, paying your bills with credit cards may not be a good option for you. If you answered no to all of the questions, paying your bills with a credit card might be a good idea.

Continue reading ‘Using Credit Card to Pay Off Your Bills’ »

Credit cards have become our favoured travelling companions, but it’s important to understand the advantages and disadvantages of using your credit card abroad. It used to be that the most cost affective way of paying for goods and services when travelling was to use your credit card. Now if you compare credit cards costs to that of, say, traveller’s cheques, the sums aren’t quite the same.

Obviously when you book your holiday, paying with your credit card gives you the invaluable advantage of purchase protection if your airline or holiday company fails before you travel.
But not many people know that all your purchases abroad are also covered in the same way, including hotel bookings if you’ve organised your holiday yourself and paid with your credit card. Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 makes your card issuer jointly liable with the company you’re buying goods or services from if something goes wrong with the transaction (for amounts between £100 and £30,000).

Continue reading ‘Taking Your Credit Card Abroad This Summer?’ »

Many of us are burdened by credit card debts. Spending money by swiping those silver, gold or platinum plastic cards rarely makes us feel like we are actually parting with money. When we use cash, we actually see the money leaving our pocketbooks so we tend to be more frugal with it. When it comes to swiping cards, there is just no stopping us. We use credit cards to make purchases on both necessary and unnecessary items. Sometimes it gets up to a point where we do not even realize how deep we are in credit card debts that we keep spending the money we do not really have and receive the shock of our life when the bills finally come. If you feel like this has happened to you and you need to take all the necessary steps to prevent yourself from getting deeper into debts, you might want to consider seeking credit card debt advice from financial advisors or credit counselors. If you are advised of your options and you opt to consolidate your credit card debt, there are three possible ways for you to do so and they are as follows: i) Credit card consolidation Sometimes known as rolling over of debts, credit card consolidation allows you to take the balance of every single one of your card and put it all into one new card, preferably one with very low interest rate.

It is not advisable that you put your balance into a credit card with high interest rate because you will most likely end up not being able to pay off the interest. If you opt for this particular method, you are advised to make sure that you do plan to aggressively make all the required monthly payments on time. Better yet, it is recommended that you pay more than the required minimum monthly payments in order to quickly pay off all your debts and save more money in the long run as you will not have to pay more on the interest alone. ii) Debt consolidation loan Applying for a new loan to obtain enough funds to pay for your existing credit card debts is also another way that you can choose to adopt. The general idea is for you to take a new loan in the amount of the total of your credit card debt and use the money obtained to pay off all your creditors all in one shot. After doing so, all you will most likely have to do is to make the required monthly payments of your consolidation loan. Most consolidation loans come with significantly lower interest rates compared to the interest rates of credit card charges.

Continue reading ‘Consolidating Your Credit Card Debts’ »

Ultimately keeping you credit card safe is you responsibility. Indeed, in a worst case scenario, if it can be proven you may have been negligent in keeping your credit card safe, you may find yourself liable for the cost of all transactions made fraudulent on your account should you lose the card. To help you avoid this, here are 5 basic credit card safety tips:

Never have more cards than you need

Continue reading ‘Basic Credit Card Safety Tips’ »

Financial transactions using cash will be a part of museum one day. Use of checkbooks for the same purpose is already on the wane. Debit cards and credit cards have elbowed them out. With the rise in online transactions credit card has taken the center stage gradually and steadily. On the other hand, there are people in the financial markets who have stained their history of credit. People with record of bad credit do not usually get their application for credit card approved. It is, however, possible for a person with stained credit record to secure an authorized credit card bad credit.

People with poor credit scores are not untouchable to the financial companies. There are companies which set pricing as per the Risk they take. They fix different rates of interest on respective offers made on the basis of credit scores of the consumers. They will not refuse the application of a person who has bad credit record. Application of the particular person will be approved if he is ready to get credit card bad credit at higher rates.

Continue reading ‘Credit Card Bad Credit: Available In Various Forms And At Several Rates’ »