Escaping Credit Card Interest!

Don’t You Want To Know The Secret?

 

 How IS credit card interest calculated?

Credit Card interest is calculated on the due day of every month, so the way to escape paying any interest on your credit cards, is to pay the entire balance prior to the payment due date.  Not only do you escape paying interest on using the credit card company’s money, but you also rack up rebates and rewards for using your credit card.

What if I can’t pay my entire balance off at the end of the month, how is the interest calculated?

If you can’t pay your entire balance by the due date, pay what you can, but before the due date to escape any interest being incurred on the amount you are paying on your balance.  Once you are in the next billing cycle, you will start to incur interest immediately after each purchase on your card.  If you keep a balance on your credit card, then interest is incurred immediately after each purchase.  This is how your credit card balance goes up so quickly and can become unmanageable.

Now we know!

Now that we know how interest is calculated, we can use this knowledge to benefit yourselves and earn rewards and get cash back.  So what do you like, Cash Back rebates or Frequent Flyer miles?  Whatever your desire is planning a trip out of the country, don’t pay for the airline tickets, use a credit card that offers frequent flyer miles for every dollar you spend.  Remember, pay the monthly bill off each month prior to the due date and reap the rewards.

So What is Next?

As your Financial Success Coach, I will partner with you to come up with a plan to pay of any existing balances on your current credit cards so that we can start taking advantage of the rewards credit cards offer.  You will be amazed at how easy this is.  I know of a lady that deposited $1500 into a checking account that offered her a credit card that paid rewards on a 3, 2, 1 scale.  She paid her credit card balance off each month and at the end of the year she earned over $1300.  She paid no interest for using her credit cards and made almost 100% of her deposit.

Wouldn’t you like that?

 

 

What Kind of Retirement Do You Want?

So, What Kind of Retirement do You Want to Live?

Are you planning today for tomorrow?

“Do you want to travel abroad?  How about buy an RV and travel the United States?  Or retiring in the Caribbean?” 

The government was not designed to be our only source of retirement income, but for so many of us, Social Security is all we have.  And in today’s world of keeping up with the Carter’s, we are spending much of our money today and saving very little for tomorrow.

Companies used to be more vested in their employees’ retirement, but not anymore!

Years ago, companies helped fund their employees’ retirement income with pension plans.  Depending on the number of years of service and/or your position in the company, that would determine the contribution to the plan designated for you.  The plans were invested to grown and by the time the employee retired, there was income designated to that person for retirement.  It could be paid in monthly installments or as a lump sum payout, in broad terms.  This income along with Social Security allowed people to live comfortably in retirement.

“It is never too late to start saving for your future life!”

In the 1960’s, 41% of private sector employees were covered by a pension plans!  Today it is about 4%.

As the payment into these pension plans became more of a burden for companies and profits were decreasing, in the 1980’s the IRS came out with a new kind of plan called the 401(k).  This plan helped shift the BURDEN of saving for retirement from the employer to the employee.

The Ball is in Our Court, we have to do the saving and we have to start now!  Call me so we can discuss getting the most out of your 401(k) plan and maximize our company’s matching.

“So what kind of retirement do you want to live?”

Call for a free comprehensive financial plan today!

Paying Attention!

PAY ATTENTION!!!

Keeping an Eye on your Financial Adviser

Is your Financial Adviser fulfilling their promise to you?

This is one of the questions that we should ask ourselves on a routine basis, especially during a “life changing event’.  We do all the upfront due diligence when we search for a (new) financial adviser.  With anything new, a new mechanic or even a new doctor, we spend alot of time on our due diligence.  We ask friends, we check out websites, we see how many likes they have…..but then it all stops, when we found our person and excited about the journey to our “Future Life”.

Should we ever stop monitoring the people we hire?

What ongoing due diligence do we do after hiring our “financial adviser”?  Do we continue to keep up with their likes?  Do we check to see if there are any new client complaints?  Are we tracking their performance against the market or by like managers, to see how they are performing compared to their peers?

How many times have we heard about clients losing their money because of their financial adviser, for whatever reasons, bad investments or even embezzlement???

We stop reviewing our adviser and we TRUST what they tell us and we TRUST that they are doing what they promised, to grow our money.  There are steps that we can take as everyday investors that will help you monitor your financial adviser and make sure they are doing everything that they initially promised.

The market is always moving, up and down based on politics, emotions, what one country is doing or what another country is not doing, there are many influences that affect markets behavior.  The more we learn, the less anxiety we have towards investing and the more we can grow in our knowledge and our financial success!

My purpose….

This blog is to help you monitor your investments and those managing your money; to learn more about our financial markets and to become comfortable with investing.  Our ability to save enough to have an enjoyable retirement with the rising costs of our day to day living can be extremely overwhelming and daunting.

Don’t let it be!  Come learn and grow with me.  I will inform and educate you about investing, wealth accumulation and everyday money management.  I will show you ways to reduce your taxes, grow your investments and live a life not financially limited!

Let’s grow and prosper together, call for your free comprehensive financial plan today!