Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
If your credit card could talk, what would it say? Oh wait! It can! Haven’t you heard it on the radio?
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, the government recently announced, through its clever ad campaign (I rather like hearing my credit card admit its faults publicly) changes to the fees we pay and the charges we incur on our credit cards. The basic concept is more openness and less surprises.
Check out the details at http://actionplan.gc.ca/eng/feature.asp?pageId=194
So often, people come to me, embarrassed and ashamed that they are facing bankruptcy, or a similar compromise of debt. They feel that they have failed. They are hard on themselves in a way that is not productive.
I created this pep talk in an effort to help them through this cross road in their life. Feel free to share this with anyone who you feel would benefit from it.
…
“You’re not here because you messed up. You’re here because you optimistically thought that you would continue on the progressive path you were on. But life happened and things change and you have to learn the rules of a new game. And its tough at first. But you will get through it. And you will learn from your experience. And be stronger because of it.
Life is a series of lessons. This is just one of them.
So hold your head up high. Walk out into the world. Be strong in the knowledge that you made a difficult decision that will benefit you and your family for years to come. Let the guilt go. Be thankful that you have learned this lesson at this stage in your life and not later.
I wish you health, happiness, peace and prosperity. “
I’d love to start this post with the secret formula to use when talking to / negotiating with your creditors.
Unfortunately, the method that works best depends on who is on the other end of the line, their personality/style and maybe on the success or failure of the call before you.
Some agents are understanding and sympathetic. Others, well, not so much. They have an agenda and will not waiver from it.
The following are some “tips” to help you take some of the stress of these conversations.
- Keep a record of your call. Get the name of the person you are talking to, the company they are calling from, and their phone number. (If they refuse to give you this information, politely tell them you are not prepared to talk to them without that info).
- Do not offer to pay an amount that you know you are unable to pay. Ask them what an acceptable payment is and tell them you will review your budget/finances and get back to them. (Get back to them).
- Remain calm. These calls can get heated and the agent may rely on an aggressive approach. Getting upset at the agent won’t help. If you feel the agent is over stepping your boundaries or harassing you, politely tell the agent that you are not prepared to talk to them in that manner and will hang up if they continue.
- You may be told that there will be legal action against you or that your credit will be destroyed. The truth is, they CAN take legal action, it doesn’t mean they WILL and if your account is in collection, your credit is affected. Offer this response, “I understand that (you may take legal action/this may affect my credit/etc.) It does not change my situation”.
- Decide what you can and cannot do and stick to it. If you cannot pay anything, be honest. Tell them what you are doing about it (ie. I am going to talk to a financial counsellor, my bank, looking for a job, waiting for a cheque). Offer to get back to them on a specific date.
- Call back with an update. Even if it is to say nothing changed. They may not like your update, but it is what it is.
Have a tip to add? Please comment!
Need additional advice? Ask Dr. Debt info@drdebt.ca
(Blog submitted by 3rd party) / Author: Robin Williams
[Please note that the poster does not offer any recommendation for sites linked to these articles and cautions readers to use good judgement in contacting a company for assistance wth their finances.]
If you have multiple debts, you may face difficulty in making all your bill payments on time. In such a situation, like everyone, you too will wish to get rid of your bills. You can pay off all your bills by obtaining a consolidation loan. You can also seek help from professional debt consolidation companies. They advise you and offer you services to tackle your debt problems.
How can you benefit by professional debt consolidation advice?
Professional consolidation companies provide you with financial advice and help you combine multiple bills into one. They also offer you other benefits. These are:
* Free counseling: A certified counselor of the company will analyze your monetary situation and will help you determine your financial goals.
* Communicate with creditors: A representative of the consolidation company will effectively communicate with your creditors. Your creditors may stop harassing you with collection calls.
* Negotiate to reduce interest rate: The representative will negotiate with your creditors to reduce the rate of interest on all your bills.
* Eliminate other charges: The company representative will also negotiate with your creditors to help you eliminate or reduce late charges and over limit fees.
* Convenient repayment plan: The consolidation company prepares a repayment plan for you based on your credit needs and gets it approved from your creditors.
* Replace multiple payments with one: Instead of making separate bill payments, you have to make a single reduced monthly payment to the consolidation company and they will disburse it on time to all your creditors.
* Become debt free: With the help of a professional consolidation advice, you can pay off all your debts within 4-6 years.
There are also various non-profit debt relief companies that offer debt consolidation programs. By enrolling in one such program, you can obtain relief services at a lower cost. However, you must remember that there are less reputable companies. So, you must verify the company’s status before seeking consolidation advice from them. You must check its accreditations.
For details on all of your options, and an outline of the benefits and disadvantages of each, contact Dr. Debt (info@drdebt.ca) to arrange free consultation.
We have a weekly tradition in our household. Every week, assuming they have earned it, we stop at the local convenience store, where my kids get to pick out a movie. We head to the non new-release section. Its a great deal. A 3 day rental for 2.00. The kids get an entire weekend of entertainment (assuming they have time to watch the movies. And if they don’t, it’s only 4 bucks.)
For their birthdays this year, I thought I would take them to the library to get their very own library cards. My 8-year-old daughter is an avid reader and I’m hoping my 6-year-old son will develop a taste for books. We were just getting ready to check out their books when I remember, “the library has movies too”. So off we go.
Two movies. No cost. 7 day rental. Hmmmmm. I think I will change our weekly tradition. That will save us 16.00 a month. With the monthly savings maybe we will go to the movie theatres once in awhile. =)
It’s been six long months and my hands are cleaner than ever. Who would have thought I would make it this far?
I am referring to life without a dishwasher. Around mid-December, ours broke. My first reaction was sheer terror. I’m pretty sure I almost lost consciousness. Like many families struggling to make ends meet, I didn’t have any savings to buy another. The word credit kept flashing in my mind, but we were just managing what we had. I took a deep breath, pulled up my rubber gloves, and started washing.
It wasn’t so bad. “Not much more work then rinsing the dishes, loading and unloading the dishwasher”, I thought. Day 2! – It occurred to me that growing up we never had a dishwasher, we, gasp, washed and dried them – by hand. I then had a BFO (blinding flash of the obvious!). My gosh, we are raising a generation of kids who never have to wash dishes. Visions of power failures and piles of dirty dishes flashed by. I decided to start operation “Dishpan Kids”. I asked, in a way that made it sound incredibly exciting, “Who wants to learn how to wash dishes?”. It was fun. The family doing dishes together. What a concept.
I will admit, I had some setbacks. Entertaining guests poses some additional challenges (clean-up takes slighly longer than loading the dishwaher) and some surprises (during our last get-together, the guys did the dishes while the girls played cards…hmmmm…). A month or so after we began “Operation Dishpan Kids” I found out that the dishwasher actually was not broken. It’s something under the sink (that’s as intelligent as I get on that subject). It will probably take an hour and 20 bucks to fix. But you know what? I’m ok. I think I can go without. In fact, I kind of like it. I enjoy watching my family share in the responsibility and I have a really great two-level dish rack to dry my dishes on. 
I, like many others, jumped on “The Secret” bandwagon. I watched the movie and began incorporating the process into my life. It wasn’t that difficult, I’m generally a positive thinker . A few years ago, my friend gave me “The Secret” calendar with a thought for each day. There is one that particularily caught my interest. It was about money. And for the past decade or so, money, or lack thereof, had been an issue for me and my family. The thought went like this…
What amazes me is the way our relationship with credit has changed. It used to be that we used credit sparingly for things like a mortgage or car loan. Households maybe had one credit card; two was pushing it. Now it seems, that as a society, we use it excessively for everything from houses to trips to groceries…