Avoiding Impulse Spending
Answer these questions truthfully:
1.) Does your spouse or partner complain that you spend too much money?
2.) Are you surprised each month when your credit card bill arrives at how much more you charged than you thought you had?
3.) Do you have more shoes and clothes in your closet than you could ever possibly wear?
4.) Do you own every new gadget before it has time to collect dust on a retailer’s shelf?
5.) Do you buy things you didn’t know you wanted until you saw them on display in a store?
If you answered “yes” to any two of the above questions, you are an impulse spender and indulge yourself in retail therapy.
This is not a good thing. It will prevent you from saving for the important things like a house, a new car, a vacation or retirement. You must set some financial goals and resist spending money on items that really don’t matter in the long run.
Impulse spending will not only put a strain on your finances but your relationships, as well. To overcome the problem, the first thing to do is learn to separate your needs from your wants.
Advertisers shove their products down our throats 24/7. The trick is to give yourself a cooling-off period before you buy anything that you have not planned for.
When you go shopping, make a list and take only enough cash to pay for what you have planned to buy. Leave your credit cards at home.
If you see something you think you really need, give yourself a couple weeks to decide if it's really something you need or something you can easily do without. This solution is simple, yet very effective and will help you to avoid those feelings of buyer's remorse.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
3 Easy Steps for Quick Credit Repair
Image by Getty Images via @daylifeIf you're having problems with your credit, you've probably gotten behind on at least one debt. Late payments or missed payments can dramatically damage your score. The first step toward quick credit repair is to make sure you make the right payments on time.
If you're having financial problems, just this first step can seem difficult. But if you figure your income and expenses and there's just not enough there to make the minimum payments, then you need to contact the companies and let them know you're having a hard time.
The credit card companies will usually be willing to work with you. They may lower your interest and/or your payments to make it easier for you to pay on time and get caught up. It can only help you to ask them.
If this doesn't work and you still can't pay, you may want to look into a quick credit repair program that negotiates for you to pay a percentage of what you owe in smaller payments. It's important to do something so that you don’t keep getting farther and farther behind.
Paying less than you owe will show up as a black mark on your credit report, but doing that is better than letting your debt slowly grow as you pay late each month or not at all. That can be far more damaging in the long run.
If you can manage the minimum payments, then the best quick credit repair step you can take is to make those payments on time. This will keep late payments from showing up on your reports. Step 2 is to try to make more than the minimum payments.
You can pay more on each card if you want. But you'll get more of a feeling of satisfaction if you choose one card to work on first. Make the minimum payments on the other cards, and pay as much as you can on that one card.
Using this method, you'll see the balance of that card drop more quickly. It can help you feel like you're really starting to take control of your credit. Once that card is paid off, chose another card and start applying what you were paying on the first card to it in addition to its minimum payment.
That balance will start falling even faster. Then once that's paid, add what you were paying to the minimum payment of another card. This snowball effect can get you out of debt much more quickly than you'd probably imagined.
The third easy step is to contact Experian, Equifax, Innovis and TransUnion and request your free annual credit report. Look them over and contact them about any errors. These are 3 easy quick credit repair tips than can really improve your score right away.
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