Most Americans are suffering the ‘crunch’ of the country’s current financial state. It costs more just to live our normal day to day lives while our incomes stay the same…if you are lucky enough to have not lost your job during these tough economic times. The prices of groceries have almost doubled in comparison to about five years ago and the price of gas is a constant roller-coaster.
Besides having to deal with the cost of everyday living, being able to handle unexpected financial obligations is equally important. Whether it is a happy occasion, like a wedding or your children continuing their education at college, or some unforeseen issue like having to repair a broken dishwasher or replace your car’s tires, that necessitate extra funds, it is important that you determine what your options are so that you make a wise financial decision.
If you need extra cash, hopefully you have some money saved. If you don’t have any sort of emergency funds, you should consider utilizing a personal loan to help satisfy your monetary needs. When utilized responsibly, this type of financing will provide a helpful boost when you need extra cash the most. Websites like Choice Personal Loans make applying for personal loans incredibly quick and easy. They offer as little as $100 to as much as $50,000 and will work with you to develop a custom tailor loan that fits your needs and budget, even if you have poor credit or a history of bankruptcy, foreclosure and/or repossession. The mandatory requirements for approval consideration are simple; you must be at least 18 years of age, employed and a citizen of the United States.
Besides their standard personal loan offers, Choice also provides special purpose loans like good and bad credit wedding loans, vacation loans and many more. They offer a wide variety of programs that will help you satisfy your financial needs.
Surviving on a budget is never easy or fun but it is important to not forget that you have realistic options when you are in need of extra cash, fast.
There’s a show I record every night on HGTV called BuyMe. It’s a one of those reality home selling shows, set in Canada, and I enjoy watching real people attempt to sell their homes. The episode I watched today was a little sad. A retired couple realized that they were really missing their grandkids, and they decided to sell their home and move 3,000 miles away to where their children had settled. Because of the difference in home values, they ended up selling their old home (which they had purchased for just over $100,000) and making $300,000 in profit. The trouble was that their NEW house cost over $430,000 – and needed renovations, so they really didn’t come out ahead. It got me thinking about retirement and your home, which is typically your biggest investment.
When my grandfather bought his retirement home, he paid cash – about $50,000. The market increased dramatically, and after he passed away in 2005, it was sold for about 3 times as much as he had paid for it. The money was split between my mom and her siblings, but it’s money that most seniors could use while they’re still living. There’s a lot of stories in the news about seniors not being able to afford proper health care, or medication, and I hate hearing about those things – it should be the best time of your life. Spoiling grandkids, and enjoying the fruits of your labor after years of work. Most senior homeowners probably aren’t away that there’s a mortgage that can help them use the equity they’ve built up in their homes over the years, to improve their quality of life NOW.
To take a reverse mortgage, you just need to be over the age of 62. You can convert the equity of your home into cash or monthly payments that they lender pays to YOU. This reverse mortgage calculator can help you see how much you’d stand to gain each month. There’s also a detailed overview of the reverse mortgage process. The short version though, is that you get payments each month, and your equity decreases a bit with each month that goes by. Obviously, your total equity is reduced, so your heirs won’t get as much from selling your house as they could, but it this can make a difference in your quality of life now, and reduce your worry about finances, then it’s worth it.
My husband and I have been able to save quite a bit of money in the past few months, and we’ve been putting the bulk of it into an online savings account. I keep on top of our bills by scheduling payment dates in my Outlook calendar, and I haven’t missed a payment in a LONG time since I started doing that. And because we’ve maintained a good payment history, we’ve been eligible for a few 0% credit cards. In fact, we charged our airfare for vacation in June on one, and I’ll pay it off as soon as the bill comes. Free money! One of our credit cards that we opened just for the ability to do a 0% balance transfers has a points reward program. I thought, how nice if we could use the points for our vacation. It’s the only reason I wanted to apply for credit cards that gave you points, in fact. HA! You need approx. 50,000 points to get a decent airline ticket, and to get that many points, you need to charge $50,000 to the card. Not all at once…but still! I need to compare credit cards and see if there’s a card that will give us more for our points. If I found a good deal, I’d continue charging and just pay it off each month in full!
Got a blog? Want to turn it into a money making machine? Just click the review my post logo here:
If you click on it, you’ll be taken to PayPerPost to sign up as a blogger, like me. And since you signed up via the “Review My Post” link, a special opp will be created just for you, for $7.50, to review this very post. Neat, huh? Websites and businesses who choose PayPerPost to advertise on blogs pay a fee to PayPerPost. They then take 35% and give the rest to us – the bloggers. We blog about it (and with complete disclosure I might add) and make money. It’s thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat simple.
If you’re a blogger who wants to give this a try, trust me – PayPerPost is the best program out there. And my blog traffic has gone up a ton since I’ve started using PayPerPost, not to mention – I’ve met a lot of great people.
You can make money off this even if you don’t want to do sponsored posts – just put your own “review my post” link at the end of any post, and let people sign up. It’s like a little PayPerPost affiliate program. 
Big changes in the paid blogosphere this week. PayPerPost has had a LOT more high money opps. Over the past two days, I’ve made close to $200 total. Amazing, for a little blogging, isn’t it? The new segmentation system they’ve put into play is rewarding people with high traffic blogs. While this blog isn’t REAL high traffic, it is a PR 4, and that’s solid. People with PR 7 or 8 blogs stand to make $1000 with ONE sponsored post. Can you imagine? Disclosure is required for all bloggers, so you can be upfront with your paid posts.
Lower PR bloggers aren’t left out – the minimum offering is still $5, and with being able to take 3 posts a day, you still stand to make at least $15 a day. Again, not bad for part time blogging. And with a little work, you can increase your PR in no time. I have blogs that are less than 90 days old which are already a PR 4.
Additionally, PayPerPost only charges a 35% service fee to advertisers. Other paid blogger services, like ReviewMe, charge 50%! That’s more money in your pocket. To date, I’ve earned $6,350.14 with PayPerPost. That’s since July 2006. It’s been a big help around our household for extras. You can sign up by clicking that PayPerPost image in my sidebar over there —-> and start to make money blogging like me! All of the bugs aren’t worked out with the new segmentation system, but I’m in for the long haul…I’m not giving up on something that has worked so well for me!
I can’t stop thinking about that post I made yesterday about teens in debt. It really irritates me that credit card companies chase down young adults, especially people in college who need money, but can’t have a full time job to pay for the things they need. How many times have you been out, at the mall or a sporting event, and been propositioned to apply for credit, and in return you’ll get a cool t-shirt / umbrella / gift card? I can just see it now – graduates rack up credit card bills in college, and once they’re out of school, and have a real job, their credit is so damaged that they can’t even buy a car on their own, and the only financing option they’ve got are bad credit personal loans. It can only take a few months to ruin your credit, and YEARS to rebuild it. The credit card companies going after the uninformed should be ashamed of themselves! If you HAVE had bad credit issues in the past, here’s an excellent article on how to turn it into a positive. CreditLoan.com gives you the honest truth that can save your credit!
I didn’t get my first credit card until I was 18. As far as I know, in the USA, minors can’t get approved for credit. You can imagine my surprise when I read on this banking news website that 50% of teens in the UK are in debt by the age of 17. I know that even as an “adult”, at the age of 18, I wasn’t equipped to deal with credit, debt, making payments, etc. I had no clue what a late payment could do to my credit, or that one late payment or bad account would affect me years later. I’m betting these teens don’t understand what they’re getting into either. Why oh WHY are credit card companies allowed to solicit and sign up minors? The research quoted in the article stayed that 1 in 20 young people in the UK didn’t think that they had to pay back money borrowed on a credit card. That’s truly scary. Maybe people should be given a test before they get a credit card to make sure they understand how it works?
