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Deciding to Go Back to School
- - Lavonna C. Speck

Going back to school isn’t a decision that can be taken lightly. Before you register for classes, there are a few things you’ll need to take care of, starting with figuring out whether going back to school is the right thing for you.

Why do you want to go back to school?
There could be a number of reasons for wanting to go back to school, but are they the right ones? Furthering your education to advance your career is a good idea. A career change and increased earning potential are other good reasons for going back to school. Before you put in an application, evaluate the underlying reasons that you want to go back to school.

Will you be able to juggle school with your other responsibilities?
Life changes once you’ve been out of school for awhile. Having a family can impact your decision to go back to school. If you’re working full-time, you might wonder if you can handle working and going to school. Even though you may have additional responsibilities, you can still go back to school. Many others have done it successfully. You can do it to.

Are you ready for the admissions exams?
Once you’ve decided to go back to school, you’ll need to take the necessary tests. Most colleges and universities have admissions exams that must be taken before you can attend. The ACT or SAT is required for undergraduate degree programs. Graduate degree programs have different admissions exams depending on your program.

Graduate School – Graduate Record Exam (GRE)
Business School – Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT)
Law School – Law Schools Admissions Test (LSAT)
Local Cash Help – Even With Bad Credit (LCH)
Med School – Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT)
Dental School – Dental Admissions Test (DAT)

To find out which exam you need to take and what need to score on the exam, check with the school you’re interested in attending. You can typically get this information online from the school’s website. Use a search engine to find the school’s web address if you don’t already know it.

How to pay for it?
Once you’ve made the decision to return to school, then you have to figure out how you’re going to pay for your education.

If you’re employed, your company might reimburse some or all of your tuition costs. Talk with your manager or someone in human resources to find out if you qualify for the tuition reimbursement benefit and how you can take advantage of it. You might have to have a certain number of years with the company before you can have your tuition reimbursed. Or, you might have to sign a contract promising to stay with the company a certain amount of time after you’ve gotten your degree.

You may qualify for federal student aid. To be considered, you should fill out the Federal Application for Student Aid. Your adjusted gross income will be used to determine if you qualify. If you’re under 25, your parents’ income can also be considered. Applying before March 1 gives you priority consideration for federal student aid. Depending on the school you’re considering, you might have to fill out additional student aid application forms. Check with the school’s financial aid office.

There may be scholarships available. The school’s financial aid office is the best place to find out about scholarships, the qualifications, and how to apply for them.

Student loans from federal and private lenders are another option. Federal student loans often have lower interest rates than those you get from a private lender. You can also talk with someone in financial aid about the student loan options available through the school.

Put in your application
When you’ve decided you’re certainly going to go back to school, sign up for your exams, and then put in applications at the schools you’re thinking about. After the schools get your exam scores, all you have to do is wait for your acceptance letter and get ready to enroll in classes next fall.…

Shopping Around For a Loan
- - Lavonna C. Speck

Before you take out a loan, it’s a good idea to shop around with a few lenders to make sure you’re get the best loan deals.

Check Your Credit
First, consider your credit history. It’s always a good idea to check your credit report and credit score before you shop for a loan. That way, you can gauge your likelihood of getting approved without actually applying for the loan. Each loan application puts a credit-score damaging inquiry on your credit report and can hurt your chances of getting a subsequent application approved. Check your credit report for any errors and dispute them before putting in your loan application. Make sure you’re current on all your accounts, even debt collections, to improve your chances at getting improved.

Find Out the Cost
Get the cost information – interest rates and fees. As you discuss the loan with a loan officer, make sure you completely understand the cost of the loan. The Truth in Lending Act requires lenders to give you a disclosure that outlines the interest rate and fees of the loan. It will include details about the annual percentage rate (APR), finance charge, amount financed, and total payments by the end of the loan. Each of those factors is important. Look for a low interest rate loan with a low total payment amount.

Know the Life and Payment Amounts of the Loan
Get the length of the loan and monthly payments. It’s important to know how long you’ll be paying on the loan and how much you’ll be paying each month. You want to afford your monthly payments, but keep in mind the lower your payments, the longer you’ll pay on the loan, and the more you’ll pay in interest charges.

Get Loan Quotes
Compare quotes from different banks. Don’t stop at a quote from a single bank. Chances are, there’s a better deal out there, but you don’t know until you look. Get quotes from at least three different banks and compare the terms of each. Unless you’re shopping for a mortgage, you should do your loan shopping as quickly as possible. Mortgage loan applications made within 30-45 days won’t affect your credit score, but other loan applications will hurt your score as soon as the inquiries appear on your credit report. You can always explain away inquiries by letting lenders know you’re shopping around. If you have a solid credit score, additional inquiries might not hurt too much.

Negotiate the Best Loan Terms
Negotiate a better deal. If you like a bank, but don’t like part of the deal you’ve been offered, try to negotiate a better one. It’s easier to negotiate if you have good credit and a steady income on your side. Let the loan officer know you’re looking for the best deal. Don’t be afraid to turn down a loan offer that is outside your price range.

Loan Discrimination is Illegal
Lenders must give your loan application fair consideration. The Equal Credit Opportunity Act, a federal law, prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, age, participation on a public assistance program, or exercising rights under the Consumer Credit Protection Act. If your loan application is denied, the lender should send you a letter letting you know why. You may be able to fix the reasons and reapply.…

Major Changes to Credit Card Rules
- - Lavonna C. Speck

The Federal Reserve voted on December 18 to approve rules that would reform several unfair practices within the credit card industry. Some of the rules include:

No interest rate increases during the first year of opening an account, unless the interest rate increase was disclosed when you opened the account. You can enjoy your interest rate for a full 12 months without having your credit card issuer increase your interest rate. The exception is when the lender told you your rate would increase when you opened your account. For example, you knowingly signed up for a credit card with a 6-month promotional rate.

No interest rate charges on pre-existing credit card balances. If your interest rate increases, you can continue to pay your current balance at the lower interest rate. Only charges made after the interest rate increase will have the new interest rate.

Credit card issuers must give a 45-day notice before increasing your interest rate. This is a drastic change over the current 15-day advance notice time period. The 45-day advanced-noticed includes penalty rate increases.

Your minimum payment can be increased if you don’t make the minimum payment within 30 days of the due date.

No more double billing cycle finance charges in which credit card issuers calculate your finance charge using an average of the current and previous month’s average daily balances. Under this method, you would end up paying interest on balances you’d already paid.

Subprime credit cards can no longer charge fees that exceed 50% of the credit limit. Furthermore, the fees charged when the credit card is first opened can’t exceed 25% of the credit limit. Other fees must be spread evenly over a minimum of 5 billing cycles.

Although the rules make strides in protecting consumers from unscrupulous credit card issuers and their expensive practices, they won’t take effect until January 1, 2023. That gives credit card issuers plenty of time to wreak havoc on consumers.…

Long Loan Shopping Could Hurt Your Credit Score
- - Lavonna C. Speck

It’s a good idea to shop around for a loan to make sure you get the best terms and even better the lowest interest rate. But, loan shopping could hurt your credit score.

An inquiry is placed on your credit report each time a lender checks your credit history to qualify you for a loan. Your credit report is a compilation of most of your credit and loan accounts and is the key factor used to determine your credit score. Credit inquiries count for 10% of your overall credit score. Each additional inquiry can knock your credit score down a few points, affecting your ability to qualify for another loan.

The model for the FICO score – the most well-known and widely-used credit score – helps protect you from the impact of rate shopping for mortgage and auto loans. The scoring model essentially ignores inquiries made within a 30-day window while you’re rate shopping. So, if you find a loan during that time, your lenders never know you’ve been putting in loan applications all over town. Even after the 30-day “grace period” is up, all the inquiries you’ve made are treated as just one inquiry when your credit score is updated.

The FICO score calculation has been updated a few times over the years, so the length of the grace period depends which credit score calculator your lender’s using. One model has a 14-day grace period, another uses 30-days, and the newest model uses a 45-day time span.

It’s important to note that the loan-shopping grace period for credit report inquiries only applies to mortgage and auto loans. If you’re shopping for another kind of loan, you don’t get the convenience of hidden inquiries. When you’re on the market for a personal or student loan, your best bet is to find a loan within a few days before the credit report inquiry makes it to your credit report. Otherwise, your credit score will feel the full brunt of your rate shopping. Then again, inquiries only count for 10% of your overall score, so they couldn’t hurt that much, could they?…

Cash loan and payday loan – what are the similarities and differences?
- - Lavonna C. Speck

Cash loan and loan are not identical concepts. They divide them more than they connect. You can try to identify similarities at the general level. However, clue is in the details. These are two different financial products, granted on different principles, by different institutions and based on different legal regulations.

Similarities between cash loans and payday loans?

Both of these financial products give you access to cash that we don’t currently have. In both cases the cash must be returned. When borrowing small amounts, there is no need to indicate the purpose for which the money is borrowed. Both of these forms are subject to legal regulations, but the rules for granting credit are set out in the Banking Law, while the provisions of Civil Law apply to loans.

However, more differences

That’s it when it comes to similarities. It is more important to realize the differences, because it is on their basis that we can make an informed choice. It is worth paying attention to those aspects that are the most practical and, from the borrower’s point of view, decisive. Therefore, we will compare 4 areas: costs, formalities, time, resources available.

Credit costs and payday loans

Each cash loan is charged with costs. The loan price includes fees, commissions, interest and often also insurance costs. However, the loan does not have to be charged. This applies to cases when we decide on a short-term loan and this is the first loan in a particular company. Each of the loan companies individually regulates the cost of granting the loan. They should always be clearly defined – already during the initial calculation of repayment obligations.

formalities

This is the area where the differences are most felt. We incur a rather detailed verification process when we incur a financial liability at the bank. The following will be checked: size of the household, value of existing financial liabilities, source of income and their amount. The bank will also verify our creditworthiness at the Credit Information Bureau.

In the case of payday loans, the procedure is much simpler. All we need to get a loan is an ID card and, in some cases, a bank account.

Time

Of course, all the activities leading to receiving cash are ongoing. The more complicated the process is and the more formalities we have to complete, the longer it will take to wait for the money. Since most loan companies reduce these formalities to a minimum, the time in which the money will be on our account is very short. It can be up to 15 minutes. It may or may not. The time of payment posting is the most important here. If we have an account with the same bank as the lender, the money will be available very quickly.

Available funds

How much can we borrow at the bank and how much at the loan company? Instantaneous loans are by definition ‘low-value’ loans in the range of PLN 1,000 – 5,000. In the case of a bank loan, the upper limit of its value is determined by individual creditworthiness.

Cash loan and payday loan – what are the similarities and differences?

Cash loan and loan are not identical concepts. They divide them more than they connect. You can try to identify similarities at the general level. However, clue is in the details. These are two different financial products, granted on different principles, by different institutions and based on different legal regulations.

Similarities between cash loans and payday loans?

Both of these financial products give you access to cash that we don’t currently have. In both cases the cash must be returned. When borrowing small amounts, there is no need to indicate the purpose for which the money is borrowed. Both of these forms are subject to legal regulations, but the rules for granting credit are set out in the Banking Law, while the provisions of Civil Law apply to loans.

However, more differences

That’s it when it comes to similarities. It is more important to realize the differences, because it is on their basis that we can make an informed choice. It is worth paying attention to those aspects that are the most practical and, from the borrower’s point of view, decisive. Therefore, we will compare 4 areas: costs, formalities, time, resources available.

Credit costs and payday loans

Each cash loan is charged with costs. The loan price includes fees, commissions, interest and often also insurance costs. However, the loan does not have to be charged. This applies to cases when we decide on a short-term loan and this is the first loan in a particular company. Each of the loan companies individually regulates the cost of granting the loan. They should always be clearly defined – already during the initial calculation of repayment obligations.

formalities

This is the area where the differences are most felt. We incur a rather detailed verification process when we incur a financial liability at the bank. The following will be checked: size of the household, value of existing financial liabilities, source of income and their amount. The bank will also verify our creditworthiness at the Credit Information Bureau.

In the case of payday loans, the procedure is much simpler. All we need to get payday loan is an ID card and in some cases a bank account.

Time

Of course, all the activities leading to receiving cash are ongoing. The more complicated the process is and the more formalities we have to complete, the longer it will take to wait for the money. Since most loan companies reduce these formalities to a minimum, the time in which the money will be on our account is very short. It can be up to 15 minutes. It may or may not. The time of payment posting is the most important here. If we have an account with the same bank as the lender, the money will be available very quickly.

Available funds

How much can we borrow at the bank and how much at the loan company? Instantaneous loans are by definition ‘low-value’ loans in the range of PLN 1,000 – 5,000. In the case of a bank loan, the upper limit of its value is determined by individual creditworthiness.…

Remove and keep inaccurate items out of your credit report
- - Lavonna C. Speck

You must remove old or inaccurate items from your credit report and keep monitoring your credit report to keep it clean.

For a Powerful One-Time Upgrade of Your Credit Report

Did you know that 4 out of 5 people have at least one inaccurate item on their credit report? You need help to eliminate any inaccurate items on your credit report.

Errors on your credit report can have a significant and troubling impact on your life. Among other things, you may be denied a mortgage, car loan, credit card or even employment because of these errors. But you do have rights to get your credit report cleaned up.

Monitor Your Credit Report to Keep it Clean

After you get your credit score under control, you’ll want to monitor your credit report for any changes that could affect your credit score.

– Receive weekly email alerts to changes in your report
– Immediately find out about credit report changes including fraudulent activity, new inquiries, new accounts, late payments, and more
– Receive a brand new credit report four times per year
– Receive updated credit scores four times per year that includes personalized analysis with tips for improving your score
– Graphical trending helps you manage your progress

Try the 30-day trial credit monitoring. It can help you keep your credit report clean.…

Clean up your credit report
- - Lavonna C. Speck

But, there are steps you can take to clean up your credit report, and then keep it clean.

Become a Good Credit Risk
To clean up your credit report you must begin to pay your bills on time. Don’t use charge cards unless you can always make the required payments on time.

If you have a credit card debt problem there are some steps you can take to get your finances back in balance:

– Pay down debt on credit cards you’ve maxed out in order to reduce your ratio of debt to borrowing power.

– Reduce your overall debt–especially high interest credit cards.

– If your home has more value than your current debt load think seriously about transferring high interest debt to a lower interest consolidation loan

– Make your rent or mortgage payments on time

– Think differently while shopping using these tips for spending money wisely

– Establish a personal budget

– Obtain guaranteed Master card to establish good track record…

Why do you say “Clean up my credit report”?
- - Lavonna C. Speck

Millions of people need to clean up their credit report to improve their credit score.

Easy Credit Our commercial filled, easy credit society has encouraged too many people to spend beyond their means to pay for their purchases. Many people do not even think about the price of an item; they only wonder if they can make the payments.

After too many credit card purchases, their minimum payment requirements exceed their ability to pay.

When your bills are not paid on time notations are made in your credit report and your credit score suffers.
Identity Theft Because dishonest people want things they cannot afford, they steal identities of innocent victims. These criminals then use the good credit ratings of others and go on a spending spree.

Their philosophy is, “Buy Now, Pay Never!”

The result is that innocent people spend months or years trying to redeem their good names, not to mention correcting their credit reports and improving their credit scores.

If you are a victim you can see how you can help prevent future identity theft and help free yourself from unauthorized charges made to your credit cards at Identity Theft Help and Prevention.…

Online or In-Person, Which Should I Choose?
- - Lavonna C. Speck

Millions of people experience short term cash needs at some point. Different people choose different solutions. Some use their credit cards. Some are lucky enough to have reserves of cash. You’ve chosen a payday loan. Now you’re faced with a choice of whether to get your loan in person or online. In most cases, an online payday loan is the better choice.

Many people are embarrassed to admit that they need financial help. Getting spotted at a payday loan store by someone they know would be absolutely mortifying for them. An online payday loan avoids any potential embarrassment. You can get your loan from the comfort of your own home. The whole process is done online, and with today’s faxless payday loans, there’s no need to go anywhere except your own computer.

Physical payday loan stores aren’t the safest places to go. For one reason or another, they tend to cluster in neighborhoods that many people consider to be bad and unsafe. Whether these neighborhoods are unsafe or not, the perception that they are unsafe will add additional stress to a situation that is already stressful. Anyone waiting to rob you knows you’ll be walking out of a payday loan store with somewhere between $100 and $500 of cash in your wallet. With an online payday loan, you don’t have to go to a neighborhood that makes you uncomfortable and you won’t be exposed to muggers while you have a wallet full of cash. In fact, unless you choose to tell people, no one except you and your lender will know you got a payday loan.

Like any store, payday loan stores go where the customers are. If you live an hour from your nearest neighbor, you probably don’t have quick access to a payday loan store. In this case, an online payday loan is your only choice. As long as you can get online, it doesn’t matter how far away you are from a payday loan store – you can get a loan. You just fill out the online form. In short order, you’ll know you’ve been approved, and you’ll have your money on the next business day. There’s no need to travel anywhere except to the chair in front of your computer. You don’t even need a fax machine.

With all of the advantages online payday loans have over physical loan stores, it’s easy to see that an online loan is usually the better choice. They are safer, less embarrassing, and available virtually anywhere. If you need a payday loan, getting it online is the logical choice.…

How Online Payday Loans Work
- - Lavonna C. Speck

While certain details can vary, all online payday loan lenders work pretty much the same way. They all require the consumer to fill out a form containing personal information, including employment, financial, banking, and reference information. They also have certain minimum requirements to qualify for a loan. These include a job or regular income that totals at least $1000 per month, and a checking account that supports direct deposit. Some lenders also require faxed copies of bank statements and pay stubs, but most lenders are now faxless. The number of recent NSF (non-sufficient funds) charges a borrower has incurred as well as the number of outstanding payday loans is factored into the qualification process.

Once the form is completed, it is reviewed by the lender. If the borrower meets the requirements, they are then notified that they have been approved. Sometimes this is via email, but it can also happen by phone. In the process of reviewing the form, the lender determines the amount of the loan, which is usually between $100 and $500. The amount approved depends on various factors like monthly income, age of the checking account, availability of direct deposit, number of NSF charges, length of employment and time at residence. If the lender requires faxing, the borrower will be asked to print and sign a loan agreement and fax it in along with the other documents requested. Most lenders are now faxless.

After the borrower is approved and all of their information has been verified, then lender does the administrative work required to disburse the funds. Since most lenders electronically deposit the money in the borrower’s account, they will typically receive the funds on the next business day. If the form is received late in the day, it might take an extra day to receive the money for the same reason that banks say that any transactions after 2PM or 3PM will be processed on the next day. These times are only estimations and may vary depending on the lender.…