With this recent focus on using coupons, I suddenly feel like I may be missing out on something and leaving money on the table. I've decided I'm going to try couponing, and I want you to follow along win my adventure. Maybe you can even help me!
If you are considering enrolling in a Debt Management Plan or have just enrolled you may be wondering what will happen with your credit cards.
This month's question reflects on how your credit is affected by settlement.
Bringing up financial issues with your spouse or significant other is never easy. In many relationships, couples differ when it comes to finances.
Introducing a new featured segment for the My Journey out of Debt blog; CareOne Community Member Spotlight! We are placing the spotlight on some of the familiar members you see engaging in the Community.
This month's question reflects on the difference between a Debt Management Plan (DMP) and a Debt Settlement Plan (DSP).
In the late 1980s, I was a struggling young father in my 20s who was going through a divorce and trying to make ends meet. In an effort to seek help managing my debt, I took the advice of a lawyer and declared bankruptcy. It was a huge blow to my self-esteem, but it made an important impression on me. I was committed to learning more about managing money, investing, saving, and making my money work for me. What I soon discovered is that most financial companies only help people who have lots of money, not people who are struggling to live paycheck to paycheck and pay their bills on time.
I am not going to lie; I try very hard to put aside money into a savings account and no matter how hard I try, something comes up and I end up needing that money for some sort of urgent expense.
We made our list as we have done for years. We wrote down ideas about what to make for meals for the coming week, and then made a list of the ingredients needed to make them, adding to that other household items that we needed. After we were done I scanned the ads for the two major grocery stores that are nearby our house for coupons for anything on the list.
For years, I happily ran from store to store using credit to finance holiday extravaganzas. I bought everything from enough food to feed a hungry army, to a mind-boggling pile of Christmas gifts. Throw in many, many expensive restaurant dinners because I was too exhausted to go home and cook, and you have a good picture of the spending frenzy that ran from pre-Thanksgiving until New Year's Day.
You may know what I'm talking about. You've finally come to the realization that you need to sit down, really survey the damage the holidays have had on your financial landscape, and think about how you can prevent the same thing from reoccurring.
If nothing else I continue to be committed to working at my resolutions, and that has to count as a win in my book. Here on day 60 of 2011, it's time for a serious and honest gut check as to how my New Year's resolutions are progressing.
Not long ago my husband and I radically simplified our lives, moved to an island, slowed our schedule down and discovered we were living in the "Land of More Than Enough"; want to know a secret? You don't have to move to an island to find out that you, too, are already living in "More Than Enough" land. Let me explain.
I have a problem that few people know about. You may even call it an obsession: The thrill of going into a store and talking to and observing employees. Going into a restaurant, and having a great meal with my family. And getting paid for it.
As I continued answering the questions, and filling in numbers, the amount I owed was going down, but it soon became obvious that I when it was all said and done, I was going to owe more than I had been planning for.
What do you plan to do differently this year to stay on track financially?
Since it was during the holidays, money was extra tight-we wanted to give our kids the best Christmas we could. Having a dishwasher wasn't a necessity, so we decided to wait to spend the money for a repair person to fix the latch until after the New Year.
I have a confession. After swearing off credit cards and paying for my past mistakes over the past three years, I opened a new credit card account. I did.
On a recent date night, Vonnie and I went somewhere that we have rarely gone together during our 16 year marriage.
This experiment was quite an eye-opener. The best way to keep our grocery costs down is not only to stick to a pre-made grocery shopping list, but to eat within the bounds of the food planned and purchased for the week.
This month's question is: Can you explain the benefits of signing up for Easy Pay?
A Debt Relief Plan is not for everyone and there are several things to consider before enrolling in one. The marketplace has many options for Debt Relief Providers and often consumers struggle to make sure they are comparing apples to apples. With options such as; Credit Counseling, Debt Management, Debt Settlement, and Bankruptcy it is difficult to ensure that the same type of plan is being compared from one provider to the next.
In a previous blog we discussed the top ten things to be successful on a Debt Management Plan. This blog focuses on the top ten things to be successful on a Debt Settlement Plan.
As my blog posts detailed, we were completely unsure of the process. After reading some elementary books and combing every website for tips, we are more well-versed in the buying process. Besides finding a place that we could see ourselves living in, researching mortgages was the trickiest thing about the process.