Getting a Cheap Car Loan

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Cars are inevitable modes of transport now days. Almost everyone needs a car at some point or another. However, the car prices are not going down. Despite all the discounts, grand offers it is just amazing how the cars always seem to be dearer than the last time around. Fortunately you have the option of taking loans for purchasing cars. Loans give you the upfront money to buy the car and start using it even if you don’t have to finances to pay for it completely. You can repay the loans in monthly installments over a few months or years depending on the scheme. Car loans are very popular and several banking institutions and even car dealers offer such loan services. While such loans are commonplace, it is best if you do some research on the loans before accepting one.

For many of us purchasing a brand new car is virtually out of the equation because of the financial position. Some people may actually be in a good position to buy the new car on loan, they can exploit such services. For others there are always the used cars – cars that have previously been owned by some other person who wants to sell it. Of course with the used cars, a lot more things need to be taken into consideration like the mileage, condition of the parts, warranty, etc. Depending on your financial position you may have to avail car loans even for used cars.

Choosing a car loan like any loan is an important decision. Given the significant financial commitment, it is best if you carry out due diligence before signing the dotted line for any loan. So that brings us to the all important question on how to go about getting a good car loan.

Your best chance of getting a good, cheap car loan with desirable terms and conditions is to have a clean credit history. A good credit history means that you have a track record of paying your loans on time. This reassures the lender to give you the loan at better terms than otherwise. Hence, always focus on maintaining a good credit history.

However a bad or an extremely bad credit history may not mean you will not get the loan at all or get it at steep conditions always. The only problem with a bad credit history is that you would have to search harder to get the loan. But at no point should you hide any financial information while applying for the loan. It can damage your credit ratings even further and who knows you may be in other financial and legal hassles too.

Also remember that you don’t have to get the loan from a local institutions alone, you can get it from any lender that has favorable schemes. How do you find out about these schemes? Go online and visit their web pages. The Internet can be your best resource to get information about maximum number of lenders and their offers. You can then look at them and compare to find the one that is most compatible with your present financial situation. If you look hard enough you could actually get reports and discussion forums that would tell you which are the better lenders and who can help you the best.

Lastly, before signing any contract go through the fine print to find out any hidden clauses. Sometimes a great loan scheme on the face of it may have some terms and conditions that make it a mediocre one. If you are student, getting your car loan is a lot simpler as the credit checks are not very stringent for student applicants.

Gaining Control of Your Personal Finances

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The bills that keep pouring in throughout the month can be a real problem for anyone and everyone. We all like to use the utilities but wince at the site of the bill. More than the amount, it is usually the timing that annoys us more. Surprisingly, the bills always crop up when there is a temporary shortage of cash. Hence we tend to procrastinate the payment for a later date. Generally, that means that we don’t pay the bill within the deadline and face fines. The bill next month is bigger and looks more depressing and the cycle continues. Fortunately, there are some steps that you can take to break this vicious circle and get better paying your bills.

1. Know Your Bills
   Many people do not know how many bills they pay every month, let alone how much they pay for each bill. This is one of the primary reasons why, you have trouble paying your bill amount. Start to collect your bills at month end and look at them, to know what is your expected expense for paying them. This knowledge is important as it helps you plan to save that much money every month. Intuitively you would keep aside an amount from your income to pay these bills.
2. Align Your Bill Due Dates
   This can be an excellent follow up step to Knowing Your Bills. Once you have an idea of how much to pay and you make the effort to set aside that amount, you must call the individual companies and ask them to re-align the due dates to a suitable common date. This could be the beginning of the month or the end of the month or any other time based on your financial position. This means that you can execute your plan better and pay all the bills together on a single day. It is not difficult to remember a single important date too.
3. Cut into Balances
   Many of your bills would have a minimum payment and the total balance. What you must understand is that any unpaid balance attracts interest. If you have been paying just the minimum payments for a long time, there is a high probability that a major part of your last month’s payment went towards the accrued interest and your effective balance has not changed by much. Make it a point to pay 20-40% more than the minimum payment on every bill. You should see your balance reducing pretty soon.
4. Budget & Plan Expenditure
   With all the basics of bill payment in place, you must start to track your payments and work to bring down the bill costs. Initially, you only need to start by tracking your payments. After getting a command over your bill payment process look to cut costs. Look at all the additional frills that you may have subscribed during the better days that you hardly use today. Knock them off – why pay for something that you don’t use frequently (especially when you are hard pressed to pay the basic bills itself)

Remember that paying you bills on time not only gives you peace of mind, but also helps reduce your overall payable amount and boosts your credit ratings. The benefits are many, so even if it requires some dedicated effort the final results should you egg you on to follow the above mentioned steps.

How Secure is Your Bank’s Online Banking System?

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Online banking has become a blessing for many. Imagine the convenience of sitting at home and paying all your utility bills. If you avoid automatic payments and like to have a look at the bills before paying and yet want to do that from your couch, online banking is your answer.

It is not only a simple way of paying your bills; you can also access your account information and study your finances properly. You don’t have to keep going to the teller to get these simple details. Most banks allow you to download soft copies of your bank statements online, so if you misplace your paper statement, you can still get a genuine copy online. Besides, you can also give instructions for certain monthly payments, certain type of deposits, etc that would be carried out automatically.

But there is a major problem with online banking: online security threat. There are many hackers online that are working hard to break into your online accounts and steal away all your money. It is a lot easier than having to break into your house. Hence, banks are investing loads of money to secure their sites. Given below are some basic checks that you can follow to ensure that your bank’s online banking is really secure. Though it is not comprehensive, it is a pretty good checklist.

1. Secure Web Pages
   Ensure that the bank website has all the pages secured with SSL security. This can checked by looking for https:// at the start in place of the usual http:// (the additional ’s’ after http). Many browsers have different ways of displaying it. Some have a lock symbol at the bottom; others use a different color on the URL bar at the top.
2. Password Rules
   Your online banking passwords must be strong and the bank site should mandate that you enter a strong password. Typically the first password that the bank gives you is pretty good, but tough to remember so we tend to replace that with something more simple like our name or just date of birth, etc. A strong password should be alphanumeric with both upper and lower case alphabets.
3. Virtual Keyboard
   The bank website should have provision to enter your password on a virtual keyboard. There are many malwares that detect the keys that you type on your keyboard which is a major security flaw. Hence your bank must have a virtual keyboard to plug this security hole.
4. Multi-Point Authorization
   Bank with good online security will not use a single mode of password distribution. They would send you the password through postal mails, SMS, etc. Besides, they may also have separate security codes apart from your regular online banking password for various transactions. Lastly, most of the e-mail communications with the bank would be carried out on their own mail. Once you log in, look for a ‘Mail’ link on your secured banking page. You should be able to send and receive mails from the bank exclusively from this mail ID. This ensures that sensitive information is not circulated on the public (generally free) email services.

These are the basic checks that you can run on your banking website to see how secure they are.

Handling College Tuition Costs for Your Child

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College education is very important for any child to lead a good life in future. Giving their children a good college education is something that every parent wishes. College Board recently came out with a couple of reports titled “Trends in College Pricing 2008″ and “Trends in Student Aid 2008″. These reports conclude that the total expenses on college education (tuition + living) have not rising as high as inflation. In some colleges the inflation-adjusted fees have either stayed the same or have actually reduced from 2007 -2008. Besides the numbers of grants and scholarships too have gone up, meaning that the students and their parents in general have had a better 2008 than 2007. Besides this, the tax benefits that the parents get for the education expenses are also significant.

This may be true for this year, but many market analysts feel that this may not be the case in the coming years. The education costs would increase and there is a good chance that the funding may drop in future. This would mean that the parents actually have to start spending more on their student’s education.

This is a cause of concern for all parents as education costs can be staggering. Hence, it is important that you start planning for you child’s education as early as possible. With a well developed and executed could ease the financial strain on you when you child is ready to go to a college.

It is logical that the earlier you start saving the less the strain you will feel in the process and the greater the amount you would have at the time of need. If you could get a product that allows you to save and at the same time give you tax benefits too, it would be excellent. Fortunately, the 529 college savings plan does exactly that. You can start a 529 college saving plan for your child when they are in grade school itself and claim tax deferrals on your contributions.

When it comes to using this plan to fund your child’s education, the 529 plan withdrawals are tax exempted. Besides, these plans are state independent. You can start a 529 plan in a state different from you current residence. If that’s not enough you can use it to fund the education of your child in a totally different state too. Thus, you practically have complete geographic freedom with these plans in terms of investment as well as withdrawals.

You can make significant contributions to these plans giving you better tax benefits. The best part is you can control the manner in which the money gets used. Though you want to save for your child, you really don’t want an immature person to be handling huge sums of money. You can decide the expenses that can be funded by these plans too.

Apart from the 529 plans you also need to have some good plans to handle the financial needs of your child during the college studies. Plan the expenses and strategize your funding options.

Be Vigilant to Avoid House Foreclosures

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Getting a dream house is something special. Most of us would look to take a mortgage to purchase the house. But there are many ways that a house mortgage may lead to house foreclosure.  To stop a house foreclosure, you have to make all the necessary checks. However, good and caring the mortgage companies may seem and behave when you first get the loan, they would not be so considerate after you get the loan. They look for your documentation and payments which they are entitled to receive. If there is any delay, they would foreclose your house. You may be surprised that the mortgage companies would actually foreclosure rather than inform you of a missing or delayed documentation. In other words, avoiding a house foreclosure is completely dependent on your vigilance.

Here are some checks that you can use to stop house foreclosures

Prompt Payment

Be prompt and punctual with regards to all your documentation related to the mortgage. Any delay in the payment can lead to problems as the mortgage companies would foreclose your house.

Check Contact Details

Always check the contact details of the mortgage company before sending out any information. This is very important. Given the typical duration of your mortgage, you may find that the mortgage company actually does change the address and fax numbers. If you have the fax number that you used when you first got the mortgage, chances are that it has changed. In that case, you would be sending your documents to a wrong fax number. This would mean that your mortgage company did not receive your documentation on time; again a good reason for them to foreclose. Always take the worst case that the mortgage company has changed its contact details and has not informed you about it. If you adopt this approach, you will always call the company up first and clarify the documentation that they need and the number where you can fax. Even if they have not changed anything, it does you no harm to make the call and be 100% sure of what you do.

Get Acknowledgments

Well, getting all the relevant information is great. But you must not leave at that. If you have taken that much care to send them the right documentation on time, why not do a double check on that. If it is sent by mail, try to send it by a medium that can be tracked by you. If it is an online tracking system, keep following the progress of your packet till it reaches the destination. Once you know that the company has received it, make a quick call and get their acknowledgment. Ask them if they have all that they need and in the format that they need.

Track Payments

While documentations are important, everything in mortgage is about money. Make sure that you track every payment meticulously. Some of the mortgage companies may have specific forms of payment that they accept, so ensure that you stick to those. Also, once you make or authorize the payment check if your bank account reflects it. Once you ascertain that they payment has been made, call the mortgage company and confirm the payment.

These simple steps and dedicated vigilance can help you avoid house foreclosure.

Credit Options for your Used Car Purchase

Though the economy may slow down, you can’t do so. You have to live, support and family and plan for your children’s future, your retirement and a host of other things. Probably in search for better financial position realized that you need a car. Going by your financial status you may have decided to settle for a used care for the time being to get things moving (no pun intended). Without sufficient cash, you have to look at credit to make the purchase. There are many options at your disposal for purchasing the car.

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Importance of Good Credit Scores

Getting a loan of any kind requires that you have a good credit rating. Though this is not always mandatory, it does help in securing favorable clauses. Even if you don’t have a great credit score, you need not put your car purchase plans in the back burner as yet. There are credit agencies that can give you loans to make the purchase. However, it cannot be all roses – there will be some thorns. In this case, the thorns are some steep interest rates and higher charges. Regardless of how good your credit score is, you should be able to find companies offering you loans.

Dealing with Dealers

This is an important phase in your car purchase. If you can get an excellent car dealership firm, you have a great chance of getting a good loan offer too. The dealers make money from the sales, so they would go that extra mile to get you favorable loans so that you purchase the used car from their firm. You must use this to your benefit. Approach multiple dealers to find out what they have to offer and compare their services. Play with their mutual competition, pit one against another and secure a great car deal.

Getting Loan Information

You don’t always have to rely on car dealers to get you the best loan information. You can do some research yourself to get the best offers. Just like dealers, even lending firms compete with each other for clients. Some of them are target only clients with good credit score, while others target bad credit scores. Find out a list of lenders that can serve you, approach them, get their offers and again try to compare and get the best deals.

Getting All The Information

You can get all this information for comparison sitting in the comfort of your house. You don’t have to go out looking for dealers, just search for them on your favorite search engine. The websites of lenders and dealers should give you lots of information about their services. You don’t have to face a exciting dealer trying to convince you that his dealership is the best and all that. Look at all the information and take a neutral stand and analyze what will suit you the best.

Read All Clauses

After doing all the background work, negotiations,etc. It is important that you close the deal in the proper fashion. Read through all the terms and conditions of the loan process before signing the dotted line. Once you sign, you are making a commitment to abide by those rules. If you don’t read them you could have problems during repayment.

Managing Your Personal Finance

Personal finance is an important idea that your need to manage well for a long, stress free life with minimum financial surprises. What’s more if you master the art of financial planning, you can teach it to your children too. Regardless of how you spent your life, no parent would want their children to face an uncertain financial freedom. In today’s turbulent world if you cannot assure them a good job, at least teach them good financial management and save for their future. All this requires you to gain control of your finances.

photo credit: George Vnoucek

Managing your personal finance is based on some rules that you must not breach

• It is a continuous process, so never let your guard down once you see some positive returns
• It requires vigilance to look out for problems, dedication to plan alternatives and contingencies and the steadfast determination to execute your plans perfectly.
• Commit mistakes, we all do but learn from them and learn quickly.
• Be flexible with your lifestyle, a fixed lifestyle can be tough to maintain through varying economic conditions, especially if it is a high profile lifestyle.
• Maintain discipline in your spending patterns. Don’t over spend at the same time don’t deprive yourself of opportunities and benefits.

Based on these rules, you can look at various aspects of managing personal finance:

Set Targets and Plan Accordingly

Managing Your Personal Finances in Present Times and Beyond

The global economic situation has hit everyone adversely. Many lost jobs, and those that didn’t probably have had a salary cut or deferred hike. For many it is also the time when their debts are rearing their evil heads and financial doom seems inevitable. Well, adversity brings out the best in everyone.  Here are some simple tricks that you can follow to sail through the tough economic times and help you lead a better life beyond that.

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