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Sunday, December 21, 2008

Huge Impact - New Reverse Mortgage Lending Limit Increase

By Tiog Stausenberg

George Bush signed the Housing and Economic Recovery Act on July 30. It officially went into effect on October 1st. For seniors 62 and over the law officially raised the national reverse mortgage lending limit to four-hundred-seventeen thousand dollars.

Before the new law took effect, most parts of the country had a maximum reverse mortgage lending limit of $200,160. On November 6, mortgage companies started the funding and closing of loans with the higher limits.

Those helped most by the new law are those with homes valued over the former lending limits. Banks will loan these homeowners up to twice the amount as before the law's enactment. Even better, lender fees are reduced as a percentage of the home.

For homeowner Wilma Johnson, a part owner in a struggling commercial flooring company, the cavalry arrived just in time. At 64, her business was humming along until the commercial market slumped at the beginning of 2008. Now, jobs are harder to come by and she struggles to pay her monthly bills. Like most Americans, Mrs. Johnson's mortgage payment is her largest bill. Her $220,000 mortgage eats up close to $1,500 of her monthly take home income.

There is no telling when Mrs Johnson's flooring business will return to pre-2008 levels. It is a big unknown? Based upon this she opted to move forward with a reverse mortgage that completely eliminated her monthly mortgage payment. She still has a mortgage but the monthly burden is gone.

Many myths surround the reverse mortgage. One such myth is that in order to get a reverse mortgage the borrower must own their home free and clear.

The facts paint a different picture. Even before the new law came into effect most reverse mortgage customers were getting reverse mortgages to pay off an existing mortgage. In effect the reduction in mortgage payment is a net increase in income.

With the new lending limits in place many senior borrowers will realize a dramatic increase in their monthly income. Technically speaking they won't see income increasing, rather the giant expense of the mortgage payment will be eliminated. The borrower sees that as a net increase in disposable income to be used for other important life reasons.

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Prepare an Expense Spreadsheet to Help You Plan for Retirement

By Michael Geoffrey

When you reach your retirement you will still have expenses. Now while you are planning for your retirement you need to try to plan a budget for those expenses. An expense spreadsheet for your retirement can help.

Retirement does not mean that you will not have to maintain your finances. The key to using retirement planning expense worksheets is project how much money you have today and how far that money can take you in ten, twenty, or thirty years from today. Retirement planning expense worksheets can educate you to how much your money can grow if you invest it in different ways.

There are different types of retirement planning expense worksheets. Most importantly, you would start with the one that helps you with managing your current expenses and then future expenses. You can take the mystery out of your finances, if you wisely plan for your retirement with effectively utilizing retirement planning expense worksheets.

A good spreadsheet helps you stay clear about what your financial situation is. If your goal is to maintain the same standard of living in your golden years as you are enjoying right now your expense worksheet can show you how to do that. It will help you identify areas where you may need to adjust your spending so that you can stay on track with your retirement goals. It gives you a clear view of the money you have coming in and what you are spending.

It is Wise to Plan for the Future

It is nave to think that things will not change in the future. Inflation is a fact of life. The financial world is ever changing. A good expense spreadsheet will help prepare you for these changes and will teach you how to adjust your plan if you find yourself falling behind.

By planning ahead you take control of your finances and eliminate many unwanted surprises. You will be educated on how to handle the changing market and you will know how to adjust your finances accordingly. You will be planning for a happy, stress free financial future.

A significant number of employees are never ready to face retirement and end up going back to work after retirement because they did not prepare themselves for the inevitable. The sooner you begin forecasting your income and expense for the future, the more confidence you will have when it comes time to retire.

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Rush Card - Review

By Dan Moskel

This card was created by co founder of Def Jam record label, Russell Simmons. This is a prepaid card and is issued as the rush card or you can get a baby phat rush card.

The baby phat prepaid card works this way; you make a deposit on your card, then you can use your card to make purchases, then the funds to pay for those purchases are deducted from your card. The card offers 100% guaranteed approval.

There is no chex systems check or a credit check. The rush card comes as a black card and the baby phat rush card is a pink card.

This card offers free direct deposit. To use this you simply fill out a form and turn that into your employer.

Then your paychecks will be directly deposited into your rush card account. You will still receive pay stubs to inform you of hours worked and what your deposit is.

If you are in need of cash this card can be used at over 800,000 ATM's world wide. You also have free online account access.

You can use your card to make purchases online or over the phone. There is also another benefit; you can write physical paper checks from your rush card account.

To take advantage of this feature, you sign in to your rush card account and insert the person or business details that you want to pay. Their details simply include name, address and amount of payment.

Then a physical check in your name is sent to the payee. This is a great way to pay your bills, no more buying money orders.

Using this service and direct deposit you can save a lot of money because you will no longer have to pay for money orders or check cashing fees again.

However, we do not recommend the rush credit card. This is because they have many fees that other cards do not have.

An example is the convenience fee. This is a fee you are charged every time you use your card.

The charge for this fee is $1.00. There is a maximum charge of $10.00 a month however you will be charged this $1.00 fee every time during that month.

Then at the end of the month all the extra charges above 10.00 will be credited back to your account at the end of the next calendar month.

That works out to almost 2 months before you will be issued your refund. These fees are ludicrous; there are very few people that only use their credit card ten times in a month.

It's hard to believe that someone can be charged these fees. In addition having to wait so long to get your refund.

Also to use bill payment you must enroll which is $2.00 then every check you write is another $1.00. There are other prepaid credit cards that offer free bill pay and no fees.

The rush card claims there are no hidden fees however that seems to be a very contradictory statement. Especially when you are forced to read the fine print to discover that you will be charged one dollar for every purchase you make.

In sum, look at some other prepaid cards. They have fewer fees and better benefits for being a card holder.

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Cash In On Bailouts With Mini-Dow Trading

By Doug West

Whether a shoe is flying at him or he is showing off his dog, President Bush has been on the TV a lot lately. Too late for him to go down in history as a good president, but we will give him credit for trying. The Pres. has assured us all that we can grow our economy by spending more money. He even sent us each a few hundred to help us do that.

Next came the BIG bailouts for the banks and boys on Wall Street. Hey, where do we apply for some of that 700 Billion dollar pie? Well, don't hold your breath on that one (in a moment we will show you how to cash in on the bail out actions with simple mini-dow index trading)!

Let's see, if you are already in debt up to your ears - like the US government is, how is sending out free money going to stimulate the economy? And, how is that going to help the US government?

OH, don't forget our friends over at the FED. The Reserve! The agency that is owned by the bankers. That masquerades around like they are part of the government. What many folks still don't know is that they all pulled a fast one on us by sticking that word Federal in front of their name. The same thing the guy at Federal Express did when starting his company.

Frederick W. Smith founded FedEx. I clearly remember years ago when he was on 60 Minutes, he said that by the time folks figured out that he was not part of the government his company was already well on it's way to success! Can't blame his reasoning? What a PLAN! IT WORKED for the FED why not FedEx too?

Let's quote right from the FedEx web site:

"Federal Express was so-named due to the patriotic meaning associated with the word "Federal," which suggested an interest in nationwide economic activity. At that time, Smith hoped to obtain a contract with the Federal Reserve Bank and, although the proposal was denied, he believed the name was a particularly good one for attracting public attention and maintaining name recognition."

I'm sure Smith did want a relationship with the Federal Reserve - who wouldn't! These guys have the legalized right to print money! Think about it. It does not matter if it is a $1 bill or a $100 bill, it cost them about the same to make it (a few cents each). Then they "LOAN" that money at full face value to the US government. Full face value PLUS INTEREST! So now you know where the national debt comes from. We now owe that money - Plus Interest - to the FED. A private corporation controlled by international bankers.

So if you are thinking that Bush's plan to grow the economy by handing out $100 bills won't cost anything - Think Again! Where is that money going to come from? That's right - the good ol boys at the FED. These mystical folks seem to be able to pull money out of thin air! Just think, with today's high-tech world, the FED can just punch a button on a computer somewhere and release new funds to the world. Most of which never represents new bills being printed, but just credit in some bank or financial institutions account. Electronic numbers moving through nanoseconds of time and space.

Not only does the FED create money, they also have the ability to set their own interest rate!

- The Fed's Open Market Committee (FOMC), announces their interest rate decisions. This is NOT the interest rate that you and I can get money for, (why don't we all meet at the Fed Discount Window - wherever that is) but what the BIG boys who keep the whole world flowing receive. They in turn pump up the volume and pass the savings on to you and me right - WRONG! It could take weeks or even MONTHS after a cut to see any savings at the consumer level. So why do the markets get so active after an FOMC announcement?

The BIG boys are the ones who really move the market right (and they CAN line up at the FED window for a bailout). We just want a small slice of it. That's all. Remember that when you are trading (or practicing the FED move trade -after an FOMC announcement).

So how do you cash in on the bailouts without getting a slice of the pie? Index trading! With all these bailout moves, the FED buying stock and giving away billions of dollars, it has caused some GREAT moves in the market. Not so good for stock traders, but Wonderful for those of us that just trade and follow the overall index.

No matter what happens, we can all do well with Simple Mini-Dow Index Trading. I look for GREAT times ahead for Index traders. We might have to pay more for the things we need, (because of the FED printing out bailout money like candy these days) but at least we can stay home and earn the money to get them!

Remember those FOMC announcements mentioned earlier? Many times after an announcement, the market moves and moves BIG. Much like the market moves we have all been seeing here lately with the bailout manipulation of the markets. The FED won't give you a partnership deal like FedEx was looking for, but you can capitalize on their dealings.

You may not be able to get in line for a bailout, but you can stick your hand in the market and cash in on the Wild moves we are now seeing in the FED manipulated market. Just follow an index and stay away from stock!

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Do You Have A Healthy Credit Grade?

By Patrick Stewart

A happy credit score is serious in our financially ambitious order. Paying your account charges on time, tells employers and business concerns that you are a good fiscal risk and will give you a healthy reference grade. You would be surprised to know that this info can be utilized, no matter what position you have in society. From job opportunities to buy a home or a car and acquiring a credit card, a individual must have a good standing in their credit account.

If you wish to purchase a new home or car, then your credit history must be in healthy standing. A person who desires long term fiscal freedom must repair any damage in a timely manner so that they can purchase large items and take fabulous holidays on their new charge card. There are free ways to finding this info without too much work.

The world wide web is a healthy place to start as they are business organizations that will give you your exact credit score for free. Individuals can check their credit grade each year from these types of businesses. After a few easy questions that the individual would surly know off the top of their head, they can view their credit grading and any outstanding bills they might have. There are various things you can do if you have a bad credit score.

One of the first things an individual can do to increase their credit mark is to clear any old bills. Even if this was for 10 years ago, it will aid in credit individual's credit marking vastly. Once the bills are completely wiped clean, an individual can begin obtaining a no credit or bad credit Master Card or Visa. This will be helpful for a individual to begin acquiring a fantastic credit grade and be able to purchase their dream home or vehicle. This can assist a person to increase their credit mark, which will enable them to purchase a new motorcar or their dream home. Paying off any old debts will help a individual increase their credit grade and help them to purchase luxury items on the credit.

It requires only a a couple of short months to gain terrible credit and it takes a a couple of years to produce a better credit grading. A healthy way to start would be to purchase a few small items and then almost straightaway pay them off. Once you have shown your charge card company that you can pay off the balance quick, they will increase the amounts you can spend and at the same time step-up your credit rating.

Every person runs into hard times in their life. Paying your bills for a couple of months may be a trouble. once you get into this type of situation you will have problems getting out of debt, at the same time your credit history, plummets. There are methods to ensure that each person can gain a marvelous credit scoring once again. A few bad months out of life does not need to detour a person from eventually obtaining excellent credit for the things they desire in life.

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Detailed Information about Mortgage Leads

By Todd Packward

When it comes time to finding more mortgage leads, you may want to consider turning to a mortgage leads company. These companies make it their job to track down the leads you need to maintain your business. In an industry that is highly competitive, highly resourceful and very profitable, any company that wants to get ahead needs to invest the time and energy into getting every lead that is available to them. Some of these companies have just what it takes to give you these resources.

You may be asking how to increase your business with mortgage leads from these sources. If you have selected the best companies to work with, you pay a small fee to obtain any and all of the leads they have to offer. They send you leads that you can easily contact and get information on. It is essential to choose a company that is reputable, one that is not recycling leads over and over again and one that you can contact easily if there is some type of problem. When you do this, you will have a wide variety of mortgage leads to work with.

When you locate these mortgage leads companies, it is important to work with companies that give you flexibility. You should be able to select the type of leads you are most interested in. This is often a rate or score that works for your particular need. You may want exclusive debt consolidation mortgage leads, for example. Depending on what the company has available, and your stipulations, chances are good you will get the type of leads you need to make the investment worthwhile. If you are unable to choose from these options, you may want to consider a company more flexible.

The bottom line is quite clear: if you want to have a successful business in the mortgage industry, you need to have a regular stream of customers. You need to be sure that that stream of customers is highly qualified and that they have not been contacted by many other brokers in the recent past. Once you get this information, you can work the leads as you would any other. You will walk away with more deals and transactions than if you were to wait around for borrowers to contact you. Many of today's top mortgage brokers use these services for just this reason: they work.

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Military Retirement - Special Tools for Planning

By Michael Geoffrey

Military retirement calculators are a special tool designed to help people in the military plan for their retirement. A normal military career is only 20 years which is much shorter than the average civilian career which starts in your mid twenties and doesn't end until your early sixties. Therefore, a person retiring from the military has a comparatively shorter amount of time to prepare for retirement. For these special retirement needs there is a special military retirement calculator.

A military retirement calculator is usually available from the credit unions and banks that provide service to military people while on active duty. These institutions usually continue service to these people after they leave active duty as well. The military personnel planning for retirement should contact these credit unions or other financial institutions to access a military retirement calculator.

Getting help at your credit union is a good idea because they have years of experience working with the military personnel and their specific retirement needs. They can answer any questions you have about your military retirement and they can do so using a military retirement calculator.

The Information You Can Expect

People in the military usually live very unusual lives, and these people also have many unusual benefits. Their plans for retirement will be affected by their unusual lives in some ways. Many people in the military move around during their careers so they do not always have a place that feels like a permanent home.

Many benefits that a person receives while in active duty in the military continue after their retirement. They retain their military identification for shopping, medical care and other benefits. If a person wants to take full advantage of those benefits he would need to continue to live near a military base so that these benefits are close to home and available to him and his family.

A military retirement calculator can be a great tool, but it is only as good as the figures entered for calculations. Each person using one of these great devices should make sure that they get their facts and figures straight before using a military retirement calculator. A calculator will not know that you are eligible for certain benefits based on military service.

The calculator can handle different sets of circumstances depending on the facts provided. The calculator will not figure out that you want a beachfront cottage which might be more expensive, but a savvy person will find out the figures for this type of residence to use when making calculations.

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Credit Repair - secrets Revealed

By Daniel Fox

There is only a hand full of reliable Credit Repair E-Books on the internet today. It may not seem that way when you do a Google search for such keywords as: credit repair e-books or credit repair e-kits. That's why I find E-Books to better suit the "moderate budget" consumer's needs. E-Books are much cheaper, and frequently and easily updated.

Achieving perfect credit is a pipe dream to most consumers with negative credit and no money, or so it seems. Consumers think that they'll have to shell out an arm and a leg to render the services of a credit restoration company or a lawyer to dispute negative credit. And they're right! I suppose that's where "budget" comes into play. If you have the budget, you could employ one of the many companies online which provide, for about $2,300.00, seasoned trade-line accounts. What this means, in a nut shell, is that they attach you (as an authorized user to as many as 5 different seasoned credit line accounts. This does not mean you have free reign to charge items to these accounts. In fact, by doing this they (the company) guarantee that your credit score will increase at least 180 points in 35 days. And in most cases it will, assuming you're dealing with a reputable company, of course.

This means doing it yourself. Spend some time researching the possibility of repairing your credit yourself. All it takes is a little patience, time, and a little know how. You could invest $25-$35 on a "How To" credit repair book from your local book store. The only problem with a traditional paper back book is the fact that, the credit law changes frequently. This will allow room for non-intentional error and indirect misinformation in your credit repair process. This could result in time wasted and more importantly money wasted.

This particular E-Book is definitely becoming more and more popular on the web. This Do-It-Yourself Credit Repair E-Book was written by a seasoned Mortgage Banker, familiar with the ins and outs of the consumer credit industry's mind set. This in itself brings a lot to the table so to speak, which translates into a huge advantage for anyone who utilizes this information. This no-brainer how to E-Book includes every type of dispute letter you will ever need, debt and money management (in plain English), how to stop the collectors from harassing you, and much more. Out of all of the reputable E-Books you can purchase online, the publics "Credit Repair E-Book" of choice these days (according to sales and web traffic), is Consumer Victory Credit's - Credit Restoration E-Book.

Consumer Victory Credit is by far, the most user friendly Do It Yourself Credit Repair E-Book on the internet today. It will only set you back less than $10, and it downloads instantly. I highly recommend it! Good luck in you credit restoration process.

What about the little guy with the moderate budgets? Where does s/he fit into all of this? There are many options for those consumers that are working with a moderate monthly budget. Instead of investing money, it is a good option to invest time to achieve perfect credit.

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The Reality About Credit Card

By Eric Jilson

Growing credit card debt is a very real problem in the United States today. For the average person this debt grows larger and larger every single day. This situation creates problems not only in the credit card world, but in other areas as well.

US credit debt effects not only the consumer in their pocket book, but also in mortgages, bankruptcies, home and business foreclosures, automobile and student loans. As credit card debt in the United States continues to soar out of control, more and more people are seeking the services of credit counseling agencies and consolidation loans, to fend off the high interest fees and drowning in credit card debt.

More Americans than ever are taking drastic steps to get back on their feet financially. If you do not think the debt is that bad, you need to reexamine the information and statistics. The average person carries a monthly balance of around $1000.00. Of this amount, by making only the minimum monthly payments, it would take 22 years and more money in interest to pay off this debt.

The household average in the US is around $8500.00, and this is just the average on one credit card. Since the 90's this amount has tripled in size. The average credit card holder in the US, pays over $1200 a year just in interest fees alone. This money could easily cover your rent or mortgage payment for a single month, have you really looked at this information realistically? What happens if you ever have to worry about job security?

Have you thought about how you will pay your bills then? The average interest rates for credit cards in the US is around 18.9%, and it keeps on escalating. Some credit cards have introductory rates as high as 23%, and for those people with bad credit this rate can climb to an unbelievable 30%.

Many people would never tell their friends or family how much money they owe on their credit cards, nor would they tell them if they were 30 days past due on making their payments or facing possible collection action.

This is a very real problem and it has a flow down effect on such businesses as real estate, auto, banking, consumer loans, and stock market. Effects of bad credit do not only involve the consumers, but it causes many economic problems as well.

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Curious About How To Make Money Day Trading?

By Sam Lockwood

One way you can make money buying and selling on the stock exchange is by day trading. This method uses the volatility of the market over the course of a given day to help traders make their money. Currently, we're in one of the most volatile markets since the late 1990s, making it one of the best day trading markets.

Day trading can use short selling to profit from stocks even if indicators say that the prices are dropping in the near future. In every case, day traders will be working through brokers, and they'll have to watch two major indicators. These indicators are the TDISC and the NDIX. At the beginning of a given trading day, these indicators will tell you a lot about what's going on in several exchanges. They're sensitive to volatile markets. When markets are going down, the TDISC drops by more than two thousand ticks in a very short time. When markets are rising, the NDIX increases by the same in under a half hour of opening.

The rapid fluctuations that can happen over the course of a single day are what day traders use to make their money. They have to buy and sell quickly. That's why day trading is both a great way to make a big profit and a fast way to lose it all. You're never buying for the long term, so it can be tempting to buy lots and skip researching. You might get lucky trying this, but most of the time it doesn't work.

Day trading isn't passive income - it's a job. Anyone who wants to do day trading should make sure that they've been properly trained. There are plenty of good online courses and seminars out there that'll help you be sure you know what you're getting into.

In addition, you'll need to have a brokerage account. After all, short selling is one of the most important tricks day traders have to use. Short selling is when you borrow a share of a given stock from your broker, then sell it right away. You expect to buy another share later on to give back when it comes due. Profit comes to you when the price of stock drops after you sell. Time things right and understand the market well, and you can do very well.

The opposite of short selling is deciding to borrow or buy a share of stock at one price, then selling it the same day for a higher price.

Day trading means you're going to need good observational skills and incredible nerves. You also have to be willing to have a short memory. That's so that you can stare losses in the face without stressing out or going into a panic.

One thing that is possible, using the right tutorials and programs, is doing day trading from your home. You need to have a very good plan to execute your trades, and you must make sure you accomplish them before the last half hour of the trading day.

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Economic Checks - Cool Personal Check

By Fred Kuen

Cool Checks to make sense of the times you are living in. If you live in a deflationary time or inflationary time the consequences are as dire as if you live in inflationary times. Often common folk are confused as to what financial condition they are living in.

In a deflationary situation, when thevalue for goods and services goes down, the value of the dollar goes up. The logic goes seemingly against human intuition.

With deflation, almost everything goes down. Safety and protection is important and if you have all you money in antiques, real estate or hard assets or commodities the guage of value of these goods decreases.

The buck, however, is increasing in value. By definition, deflation means the dollar is going up in state of value.

When the value of the U.S. dollar goes up in the United States inevitably it goes up against other currencies. When the dollar buys more, its measure of value is rising and acts like a magnet.

Check the value of the dollar in your personal purchases. Is the dollar's value is going up? It's buying more gas than it used to, buys more real estate than it used to, and gets better deals shopping for cars than before. Everything costs less.

When goods and services cost less, you're living in a deflationary environment. The United States Dollar buys more and the state of value of the U.S. dollar abroad increases also.

Regardless of what times you live in, getting good value for your money helps you live better. You can buy really cool checks at ElegantChecks.com. Checks that will stretch your budget dollar and offer an abundance of choices.

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